• Sunday 4th October 2020 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA

     
    Published on 04-10-2020 11:08 AM
    Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA Kiama pelagic on the MV Kato on Sunday 4 Oct. 2020. This replaced the September pelagic which had to be cancelled due to very strong winds. The trip list uses the IOC Checklist v10.1 (Jan. 2020) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species. This is a change from Kiama pelagic reports from previous years 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 7.30 hrs, with no participants having failed to adjust their clocks for the beginning of daylight savings time this morning, we travelled directly out to our first chumming spot at 34° 39’ 25” S; 151° 08’ 42” E, about 26 km east of the harbour on the edge of the continental shelf in 183 m/100 fathoms. Here we set up a slick with tuna/vegetable oil and began to chum with the usual chicken mince. Things got off to a good start when a hungry Brown Skua came in and was caught and banded. After this we had most of the usual range of species for this location at this time of year, except for albatrosses, which were completely absent. Distant flocks of Short-tailed Shearwaters passed by on their southward migration to southern Australian waters, and Providence Petrels, some looking particularly smart (very early, if they were newly-fledged youngsters), came in regularly. Over the approximately 2.5 hours we spent here, we drifted nearly 5 km south in the strong NE wind.

    The bird activity diminishing, we decided to move into slightly shallower waters to see if we could locate more diversity, so we stopped for our second chumming session at 34° 41’ 06” S; 151° 06’ 43” E, 23 km east of the harbour, again in shelf-edge waters around the 159 m/87 fathom mark. We repeated our activity from the first session, drifting 1.7 km south in the strong wind, 11.58-12.46 hrs, but had very little luck in attracting birds in any significant numbers or variety. At this point we made the decision to return to harbour, passing en route through large flocks of Fluttering/Hutton’s Shearwaters, which were not always separable, especially at a distance in bumpy seas. Apart from a brief stop to view Humpback Whales, the trip back to harbour was uneventful.

    Sea conditions were quite bumpy in a 2-3 m swell in the morning, easing to 1-2 m as the afternoon progressed. Sea temperature was 17° at the shelf edge.

    Highlights were the large flocks of Shearwaters and viewing a Brown Skua in the hand. Very unusual was the absence of any species of albatross.

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

    125 Silver Gull 5 (3)
    115 Greater Crested Tern 15+ (6)
    980 Brown Skua 2 (1) one caught & banded
    063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel 4 (1)
    971 Providence (Solander’s) Petrel 20+ (3)
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 50+ (15) several caught & banded
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater 500+ (100+)
    068 Fluttering Shearwater 500+ (100+)
    913 Hutton’s Shearwater 100+ (20+)
    Fluttering/Hutton’s Shearwater 1000+
    104 Australasian Gannet 25+ (10+)
    099 Australian Pied Cormorant 1 (1)

    Mammals
    We saw a Humpback Whale on the way out to the shelf edge and several on our return, including what might have been a mother and calf. A few Common Dolphins came up to the boat but didn’t stay.

    Report prepared by Graham Barwell.