Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA pelagic from Kiama on the MV Kato on Saturday 24 Aug. 2019. The trip 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. There's also a map from Google Earth showing our route and chumming spots.
Leaving Kiama Harbour at 07.40 hrs, having waited in vain for latecomers, we travelled directly to the outer part of the shelf edge at 34° 45’ 02” S; 151° 12’ 19” E, 32.8 km SSE of the harbour in 404 m/221 fathoms, where we made our first stop. Shortly after stopping we had good views of an Arctic Tern which passed close to the boat heading south. For the next two hours, 09.45-11.45 hrs, we drifted very slowly south, varying this pattern only to move a few hundred metres along our slick after the first hour. We chummed with the usual mixture of chicken mince, suet and tuna oil, attracting a range of seabirds and catching a male Antipodean Albatross race gibsoni, the first we’d seen this year, and an Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross.
Arctic Tern
With the birds not being very active in the calm conditions, we decided to move, so we turned 5.3 km shoreward to the inner part of the shelf edge in 200m+ waters at 34° 43’ 29” S; 151° 09’ 10” E, 27.4 km SSE of the harbour, where we stopped for about an hour, chumming and drifting 900 m SE. Here the banding team caught a variety of species: a large male Wandering Albatross from the Indian Ocean, an adult Campbell Albatross and two of the day’s target birds—Brown Skuas. At 13.15 hrs we moved on again, travelling 11.6 km further shoreward in an effort to find shearwater flocks. We stopped and chummed at 34° 42’ 16” S; 151° 01’ 17” E, 15.2 km SSE of the harbour in 126 m/69 fathom shelf waters, 14.00-14.38 hrs, but bird numbers were very low and the shearwaters were absent except for a single Wedge-tailed Shearwater. At this point we decided to call it a day and proceeded back in to harbour, arriving at 15.50 hrs.
Wandering Albatross
Sea conditions were comfortable for all aboard with in a >1.5m swell. Sea temperature at the shelf edge was 18°.
Highlight for the day was the good views of the Arctic Tern, an unusual species off Kiama, which had presumably been travelling along the shelf edge, parallel to the shore.
Species seen outside the harbour, maximum at any one time in brackets:
065 White-faced Storm Petrel - 3 (2)
086 Wandering Albatross - 2 (1) one male caught & banded
847 Antipodean (Gibson’s) Albatross - 3 (2) one male caught & banded; all birds seen were subspecies gibsoni
088 Black-browed Albatross - 10+ (6) mainly adults, but a few immatures present
859 Campbell Albatross - 3 (2) one adult caught & banded; one juvenile seen
091 Shy Albatross - 6+ (2) adults & immatures; not identified to subspecies
864 Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross - 15+ (8) one adult caught & banded; mainly adults, but one immature present
931 Buller’s Albatross - 3 (1)
937 Northern Giant Petrel - 1 (1) immature
083 Fairy Prion - 10+ (2)
971 Providence (Solander’s) Petrel - 10+ (4)
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 10+ (4)
068 Fluttering Shearwater - 2 (1)
104 Australasian Gannet - 25+ (10) adults and juveniles
100 Little Pied Cormorant - 1 (1) just outside the harbour entrance
125 Silver Gull - 10+ (4)
115 Greater Crested Tern - 25+ (7)
952 Arctic Tern - 1 (1)
980 Brown Skua - 7+ (4) two caught & banded
We saw several Humpback Whales, a small whale which was probably a Dwarf Minke Whale, and many small pods of Common Dolphins hunting baitfish.
Report prepared by Graham Barwell