• Saturday 23rd March 2019 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA

     
    Published on 25-03-2019 06:35 AM
    Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the pelagic from Kiama on the MV Kato on Saturday 23 March 2019. The list uses the IOC Checklist v9.1 (Jan. 2019) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species. It gives fairly conservative numbers, which are estimates for the commoner species.

    Leaving Kiama Harbour at 07.35 hrs AEDST, we proceeded directly out to the edge of the continental shelf, arriving at 09.15 at 34° 41’ 33” S; 151° 09’ 24” E, 27.2 km from the harbour in 200m+ shelf edge waters, the first of our three chumming spots. We began to chum and set up a slick, but were attracting only shearwaters, so we moved after 20 minutes a few kms further west into deeper waters. Here we stopped at 09.45 in 330m/180 fathoms, 30.5 km east of the harbour at 34° 42’ 34” S; 151° 11’ 26” E, where remained for the next 3 hours, drifting only 900m south in the sluggish current, waiting to see what would come in to the chum and the slick. The banding team worked steadily, processing Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed Shearwaters and a few Grey-faced Petrels.


    Solanders Petrel

    Numbers of birds were quite high, but many were simply sitting on the water in the calm conditions and the range of species present was low. Around the middle of the day, the wind picked up a little, so we moved a few kms west back to 200m+ shelf edge waters. At 13.15, we stopped at our third chumming spot, 34° 41’ 35” S; 151° 08’ 52” E, 26.4 km from the harbour, and waited to see what came in. Activity was much the same as it had been in the morning, with the banding team working away while others on board scanned the ocean or took photos of passing birds, but the range of species seen or caught didn’t change.

    After an hour and a quarter, having drifted nearly 3 km south in the current and wind, we decided to end our time at the shelf edge and turned in towards the harbour, arriving back at our mooring at 15.55 hrs.


    Flesh-footed Shearwater

    Sea conditions were flat for most of the day, with a swell of >0.5m developing as the wind picked up. Sea temperature at the shelf edge was 24°.

    The banding activity gave those on board the opportunity to see three species of tubenoses up close, with 80+ Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, 10 Flesh-footed Shearwaters and 8 Grey-faced Petrels caught, some of which were already banded, so will reveal something of their movements and lifespans when the band data is analysed.

    Species seen outside the harbour, maximum at any one time in brackets:

    091 Shy Albatross - 1(1) subspecific identity not determined
    075 Grey-faced Petrel - 20+ (5+) the commonest petrel at the shelf edge
    971 Solanders Petrel - 2 (1) these birds were in handsome fresh plumage
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 200+ (50+)
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater - 2 (1)
    072 Flesh-footed Shearwater - 200+ (50+)
    104 Australasian Gannet - 5 (3) all immatures
    Sooty Oystercatcher - 3 (3) outside the harbour on our return
    125 Silver Gull - 40+ (30)
    115 Greater Crested Tern - 15+ (7)
    945 Pomarine Jaeger - 4 (2) one dark phase bird showed well-developed tail extensions

    A fur seal sp. was seen on the way out, but no cetaceans were encountered all day.


    Graham Barwell