Saturday 22nd February 2020 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA

Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA Kiama pelagic on the MV Kato on Saturday 22 February 2020. The trip list uses the IOC Checklist v10.1 (Jan. 2020) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species. This is a change from previous Kiama pelagic reports with the species sequence differing significantly. 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 07.25 hrs, we travelled directly out to the shelf edge at 34° 39’ 04” S; 151° 10’ 19” E, where, at 09.15 hrs, we made the first of our four stops for the day. This was in 214m/117 fathom waters 28.6 km east of the harbour. Here we set up a slick and chummed with the usual mixture of suet, chicken mince and tuna/vegetable oil. Soon after we arrived we were visited by a couple of small terns, which caused some debate over identification, eventually resolved by photos which clearly showed the diagnostic characters of Common Tern.

After 45 minutes drifting slowly north, we decided to go further out, so moved 5.8 km east to 34° 39’ 10” S; 151° 14’ 05” E, 34.3 km east of the harbour in much deeper (371m/203 fathom) shelf edge waters. Here we set up a slick and began chumming at 10.30 hrs, drifting slowly back westward in the easterly wind. The high point at this stop was a White-tailed Tropicbird which was seen fairly high up flying away from the boat. It did not come back but the photographers got sufficiently good photos for its ID to be confirmed. The banding team began their work here, catching a mix of Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed Shearwaters and some Grey-faced Petrels. Some of the Wedge-tails were already wearing bands, indicating they were probably locally-breeding birds. The banding team did a sterling job over the day, catching and banding 110 birds.

At 11.30 we thought we’d try shallower waters, perhaps with a more pronounced upwelling, so we moved 9.3 km west to 34° 39’ 33” S; 151° 07’ 34” E, 24.4 km east of the harbour in 161m/88 fathoms. We drifted slowly 780m northwest over the next hour or so, catching and banding a similar mix of species, before continuing further west to our last stop at 34° 38’ 12” S; 151° 01’ 10” E in shelf waters. From 13.50 hrs we spent a further hour drifting 2.2 km northwest, before heading back into the harbour, arriving at 16.00 hrs. As we drew closer to the harbour we were treated to excellent views of a Streaked Shearwater, saw the first jaegers of the day and watched an immature White-bellied Sea Eagle chasing a jaeger which managed to elude the larger bird.

Sea conditions were comfortable in a >1m swell slowly decreasing in the afternoon. Sea temperature at the shelf edge was 23.6°.

Highlights of the day were the White-tailed Tropicbird, which is a rare summer visitor in our region, and the Streaked Shearwater.

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

125 Silver Gull - 5 (5)
112 Caspian Tern - 1 (1) seen on departure just outside the harbour
115 Greater Crested Tern - 15 (7)
953 Common Tern - 3 (2)
945 Pomarine Jaeger - 5 (3)
108 White-tailed Tropicbird - 1 (1)
088 Black-browed Albatross - 2 (1) both adults
091 & 861 Shy Albatross - 6 (2)
075 Grey-faced Petrel - 15 (5)
853 Streaked Shearwater - 1 (1)
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 250 (40+) several previously banded birds retrapped
071 Short-tailed Shearwater - 5 (1)
072 Flesh-footed Shearwater - 100 (20)
068 Fluttering Shearwater - 3 (1)
913 Hutton’s Shearwater - 3 (2)
104 Australasian Gannet - 4 (2) adults and 1 immature
099 Australian Pied Cormorant - 1 (1) just outside the harbour on our return
White-bellied Sea Eagle - 1 (1) immature bird chasing a jaeger

The only cetaceans recorded was a pod of about 15 Common Dolphins.

Report prepared by Graham Barwell