• Saturday 13th December 2014 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, WOLLONGONG, NSW, AUSTRALIA.

    Here's a list of what was seen from the Sandra K outside the harbour on Saturday 13 December. It uses the BARC Australian Checklist (v2014 July based on IOC v4.2) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species and gives fairly conservative numbers. For the commoner species the numbers are estimates.


    Buller's Shearwater. Photo: Rob Hynson

    Leaving at 07.14 hrs, we travelled out past the shelf edge to 34° 34' 15" S; 151° 16' 51" E, 38 km ESE of the harbour in 300m+ pelagic waters, where we stopped and chummed, 11.08-12.08 hrs, drifting 1.4 km W to 34° 33' 53" S; 151° 16' 04" E, then turned back in, travelling to 34° 27' 11" S; 150° 59' 28" E, 8.45 km ESE of the harbour in 50m+ shelf waters, where we stopped and chummed, 14.22-14.55 hrs, drifting 2.3 km W to 34° 26' 36" S; 150° 58' 09" E, before continuing back into the harbour, arriving at 15.35 hrs.



    Large 2-3 m swell from the SE on the way out, easing during the day. Sea temperature 22° inshore and beyond the shelf edge.


    White-chinned Petrel. Photo: Rob Hynson

    Maximum number seen at any one time in brackets

    086 Wandering Albatross 6 (4) all probably Indian Ocean breeding birds; 1 female banded
    088 Black-browed Albatross 9 (5) adult or subadult
    859 Campbell Albatross 1 (1) immature
    Black-browed/Campbell Albatross 6 (3) immature
    091 Shy Albatross 10 (3) mainly NZ breeding steadi adult & immature
    075 Great-winged Petrel 15 (12) NZ breeding gouldiae
    915 White-chinned Petrel 3 (3) 1 banded
    917 Black Petrel 1 (1)
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 60+ (30)
    975 Buller's Shearwater 2 (2)
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater 30+ (10)
    072 Flesh-footed Shearwater 2 (1)
    068 Fluttering Shearwater 2 (1)
    913 Hutton’s Shearwater 3 (1)
    063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel 1 (1)
    106 Australian Pelican 2 (2)
    104 Australasian Gannet 1 (1) subadult
    125 Silver Gull 75 (30)
    981 Kelp Gull 4 (4) adult
    115 Greater Crested Tern 15 (5)
    953 Common Tern 1 (1)
    945 Pomarine Skua 6 (2)
    128 Parasitic Jaeger 1 (1)

    We saw a pod of c. 20 Common Dolphins and a pod of c. 10 Common Bottlenose Dolphins.

    Cheers

    Graham