Here's a list of what was seen from the Sandra K outside the harbour on Saturday 28 Febuary. It uses the BARC Australian Checklist (v2015 Jan. based on IOC v5.1) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species and gives fairly conservative numbers. For the commoner species the numbers are estimates. There's also a .jpg file from Google Earth showing our route.
Grey-faced Petrel
We travelled out to 34° 20’ 49” S; 151° 23’ 18” E, 45 km ENE of Wollongong Harbour in 300m+ pelagic waters, where we stopped, chummed and made a slick to see what might come in, 11.30-12.15 hrs, drifting 2.3 km SSW to 34° 21’ 56’ S; 151° 22’ 36” E, then turned back in, arriving in the harbour at 15.45hrs. On both the way out and the way back, good numbers of Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed Shearwaters were caught, banded and released.
White-capped Albatross
Seas flat for most of the day in very light winds, picking up a little in the afternoon as the wind got up. Sea temperature 23.7° in the harbour, 26° out past the shelf edge.
Sightings: maximum number seen at any one time in brackets
088 Black-browed Albatross 3 (2) adult or subadult
Black-browed/Campbell Albatross 12+ (5) young birds
091 Shy Albatross 10+ (4) some cauta, but possible steadi present too
075 Great-winged Petrel 4 (2) NZ breeding gouldi
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 200+ (100)
070 Sooty Shearwater 1 1 possible, but not seen well enough to be certain
071 Short-tailed Shearwater 15+ (3)
072 Flesh-footed Shearwater 80+ (40)
068 Fluttering Shearwater 1 (1)
Fluttering/Hutton's Shearwater 2 (2)
913 Hutton’s Shearwater 3 (1)
104 Australasian Gannet 1 (1) adult
125 Silver Gull 50+ (30)
981 Kelp Gull 1 (1)
115 Greater Crested Tern 20+ (6)
945 Pomarine Skua 30+ (10)
128 Parasitic Jaeger 1 (1) possible, but identification not confirmed
Welcome Swallow 4 (4)
We saw a small pod of what were probably Bottlenose Dolphin inshore. Some flying fish were also seen.
Cheers
Graham Barwell