• Sunday 25th October 2015 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA.

    Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA pelagic from Kiama on the MV Kato on Sunday 25 October 2015. It uses the BARC Australian Checklist (v2015 July based on IOC v5.2) 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.


    Common Tern

    Leaving at 07.30 hrs Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we headed out to the shelf edge at 34° 38’ 40” S; 151° 11’ 35” E, 30.6 km ENE of Kiama Harbour in 240m+ shelf edge waters, where we stopped, chummed, caught & banded 2 female Antipodean Albatrosses (1 gibsoni, 1 antipodensis, the latter probably a failed breeder), drifting 9.5 km SSW along the shelf edge to 34° 43’ 10” S; 151° 08’ 31” E by 13.30 hrs. Bird numbers built up gradually as we drifted and developed a slick.


    Black Swans

    We then turned back in to the harbour, stopping to band Wedge-tailed Shearwaters for 35 mins from 14.54 hrs in 70m+ shelf waters 6.18 km E of the harbour at 34° 41’ 01” S; 150° 55’ 34” E, travelling slowly for 2.79 km in to 34° 41’ 01” S; 150° 53’ 46” E. We arrived back in the harbour at 15.45 hrs.

    Seas moderate with a 1-1.5 m swell. Sea temperature 20.6° at the shelf edge, cooler inshore.



    Species seen, maximum at any one time in brackets:

    Black Swan 3 (3)
    063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel 2+ (2)
    847 Antipodean Albatross 4 (2) 1 female gibsoni & 1 female antipodensis caught & banded
    088 Black-browed Albatross 4 (4) adults
    Black-browed/Campbell Albatross 10+ (7) immatures
    091 Shy Albatross 5+ (2) both subspecies present
    075 Great-winged Petrel 1 (1)
    971 Providence Petrel 10+ (2)
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 500+ (100+)
    070 Sooty Shearwater 1 (1) not seen by all observers
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater 100+ (25)
    072 Flesh-footed Shearwater 1+ (1)
    068 Fluttering Shearwater 50+ (20)
    Fluttering type Shearwater 4 (1)
    106 Australian Pelican 1 (1)
    104 Australasian Gannet 1 (1) adult
    125 Silver Gull 3 (2)
    115 Greater Crested Tern 15+ (10)
    953 Common Tern 5 (4)
    945 Pomarine Skua 1+ (1)
    128 Parasitic Jaeger 1 (1)

    We saw a pod of c. 50 Common Dolphins on the way out but no other cetaceans.

    Graham Barwell