Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the first ever SOSSA pelagic from Kiama on the Kiama on Sunday 31 May 2015. 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.
Northern Giant Petrel
Leaving at 07.25 hrs, we travelled at c. 9 knots ph/16 kmph out past the shelf edge to 34° 47’ 38” S; 151° 10’ 38” E, 33 km SE of Kiama Harbour in 300m+ pelagic waters, where we stopped, chummed, caught and banded an adult Campbell Albatross, 8 Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses and a Cape Petrel, drifting 6.57 km S in a strong current to 34° 51’ 06” S; 151° 11’ 33” E, 09.38-11.05 hrs. The combination of a current from the north pushing against a southerly wind made for bumpy conditions, so we moved back northwest to try to get out of the worst of the current. We stopped at 34° 47’ 36” S; 151° 06’ 04” E, 25.9 km SE of the harbour in 180m+ shelf edge waters, where we stopped, chummed, caught and banded 2 more Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses, drifting 6.13 km S in the current to 34° 50’ 47” S; 151° 07’ 16” E, 11.59-13.24 hrs. After a longer period of time than we usually have at the shelf edge and beyond, we turned back in with one brief stop before arriving back in the harbour at 15.44 hrs.
Cape Petrel
Seas fairly calm early with a c. 1m swell inshore, but rising as we travelled east out into the northerly current. Sea temperature c. 20° inshore, c. 22° at the shelf edge.
Sightings: maximum number seen at any one time in brackets
088 Black-browed Albatross 10+ (4) adults
859 Campbell Albatross 2+ (2) adults
Black-browed/Campbell Albatross 2+ (2) young birds
091 Shy Albatross 5+ (3)
864 Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross 25+ (10) almost all adults, but 1 immature present
931 Buller’s Albatross 3+ (3) adults
937 Northern Giant Petrel 2 (2) immatures
080 Cape Petrel 2 (1) 1 australe, 1 capensis
083 Fairy Prion 30+ (7) despite careful scanning, all birds seen were this species
971 Providence Petrel 75+ (25) large numbers of this petrel present offshore
070 Sooty Shearwater 2 (2)
Fluttering type Shearwater 2 (1) distant views
063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel 2 (2)
104 Australasian Gannet 30+ (4) adults and immatures
097 Little Black Cormorant 1 (1) just outside the harbour
098 Great Cormorant 1 (1) just outside the harbour
125 Silver Gull 10+ (2)
115 Greater Crested Tern 2 (1)
980 Brown Skua 1 (1)
A small pod of Common Bottlenose Dolphins was seen but no other cetaceans.
Cheers
Graham Barwell
Solander's Petrel