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CalendarCampbell Albatrosses
Leaving Kiama Harbour at 07.33 hrs AEDST, we headed out for the edge of the shelf, passing through a belt of migrating Short-tailed Shearwaters with a few Fluttering Shearwaters amongst them. We went out as far as 34° 43’ 26” S; 151° 09’ 24” E in 210m+ waters, 27.7 km east of the harbour, which we reached at 09.20 hrs. Here we stopped, chummed and drifted in calm conditions with very light winds, moving only 991m south-west in three hours in the absence of any strong current. Despite the calm conditions we managed to attract a good array of albatrosses and banded three Antipodean Albatrosses, giving those on board great close-up views of this NZ breeding species. While we were stopped here, we were treated to the spectacle of a number of Humpback Whales migrating south accompanied by smaller cetaceans.
Common Tern
We then turned back westward, proceeding 9.5 km in to 34° 42’ 46” S; 151° 03’ 12” E in 130m+ shelf waters, 18.3 km out from Kiama Harbour. Here we stopped, chummed and drifted 1.05 km SW as the wind began to rise, 13.10-13.44 hrs. Though the banding team made a valiant effort to capture the unbanded Antipodean Albatross which had followed the boat in from the shelf edge, the bird managed to elude the net. The other Antipodean which continued to follow us was one of the birds banded out on the shelf edge earlier in the morning, apparently unaffected by its experience.
Juvenile Campbell Albatrosses
From here we moved further in towards the harbour, stopping at 34° 41’ 28” S; 150° 56’ 18” E in 70m+ shelf waters, 7.5 km from the harbour, for 25 minutes in the hope of catching and banding some Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, but they stayed well out of range of the catching net. Abandoning the attempt at 14.50 hrs, having drifted 910m SW, we then headed for harbour, arriving back at the dock at 15.35 hrs.
Sea conditions were fairly calm out the way out to and at the shelf edge with a swell of >1m, but this increased to about 1.5m as the wind slowly began to rise. Sea temperature was 16° inshore and 19° at the shelf edge.
Highlights were the good array of albatrosses, the migrating shearwaters and the close encounters with cetaceans.
Species seen outside the harbour, maximum at any one time in brackets:
063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel - 6 (6)
846-47 Antipodean Albatross - 5 (5) all gibsoni; two females and one male caught and banded.
088 Black-browed Albatross - 8+ (5) 2 adults, the rest immatures
859 Campbell Albatross - 7+ (7) 5 adults & 2 immatures, the latter subtly different from the immature Black-browed Albatrosses
091 Shy Albatross - 8+ (4) mainly immatures including at least one immature steadi
931 Buller’s Albatross - 1 (1)
075 Grey-faced Petrel - 2 (2)
971 Providence Petrel - 12+ (3)
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 50+ (30)
071 Short-tailed Shearwater - 500+ (100) migrating south
068 Fluttering Shearwater - 10+ (2)
913 Hutton’s Shearwater - 15+ (2)
Fluttering/Hutton’s Shearwater - 2 (1)
104 Australasian Gannet - 4+ (1)
125 Silver Gull - 200+ (200) large flock sitting on the water near the harbour on our return
115 Greater Crested Tern - 5+ (4)
953 Common Tern - 6+ (3)
980 Brown Skua - 1 (1)
Australian Raven - 1 (1) just outside the harbour on our departure
Humpback Whales entertained us on the way out and at the shelf, sometimes surfacing quite near the boat. We saw a number of pods of dolphins, both Oceanic Bottlenose and Common Dolphins, and saw a couple of what might have been Pygmy Killer Whales, but we could not confirm the ID. There was also a large shark out at the shelf edge, possibly a Mako Shark.
Graham Barwell