Saturday 28th November 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 28 Nov. 2020. 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 07.30 hrs, we headed straight out to the shelf edge, some 26 kms offshore, with only a brief stop on the way. Reaching 34° 45’ 20” S; 151° 07’ 21” E in 214 m/117 fathoms at around 09.20, we stopped and began our first chumming session with chicken mince and vegetable/tuna oil. Bird numbers since we left shore had been significantly higher than two weeks previously, so we were keen to see what might come in to our slick. As we watched and waited, the banding team got to work catching and banding some of the Flesh-footed Shearwaters which were feeding voraciously behind the boat. A few Grey-faced Petrels came in, many moulting their inner primaries, as they do at this time of year, which gives them a very distinctive wing shape. Several of these petrels were caught, including one which was sporting a band which SOSSA had put on it on a previous occasion.

Over the around three hours we spent at the shelf edge, we attracted birds from a good range of species groups, including several which had been absent two weeks previously, e.g., storm petrels, albatrosses and jaegers. We were also entertained by a pod of Oceanic Bottlenose Dolphins which spent some time around the boat.

Eventually we had to leave and headed c. 10 km back into shelf waters of 126 m/69 fathoms, about 16 km offshore. Here at 34° 44’ 35” S; 151° 00’ 28” E, we stopped and drifted for about 40 mins from 13.10 hrs, watching to see if our chum would attract anything different, but the range of birds present here were rather similar to what was at the shelf edge. Accordingly we headed back into harbour arriving at 14.55 hrs to heatwave conditions, which had not affected us while we were further out to sea.

Sea conditions were characterised by a rolling swell of >1.5m in the morning, diminishing to 1 m in the afternoon. Sea temperature was 20.7° at the shelf edge.
Bird highlight was the good numbers of very hungry Flesh-footed Shearwaters which crowded round the back of the boat and were readily caught and banded.

125 Silver Gull - 6 (4)
115 Greater Crested Tern - 15 (4)
945 Pomarine Jaeger - 3+ (2)
128 Parasitic Jaeger - 1 (1)
933 Long-tailed Jaeger - 1+ (1) one bird accompanied us for an extended period
063 Wilson’s Storm Petrel - 15+ (10)
088 Black-browed Albatross - 2 (2) immatures; a third bird was an immature of either this species or Campbell Albatross
091 Shy Albatross - 1 (1)
075 Grey-faced Petrel - 10 (3) one bird had been banded previously
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 20 (5)
070 Sooty Shearwater - 1+ (1)
071 Short-tailed Shearwater - 15 (2)
072 Flesh-footed Shearwater - 150 (50)
104 Australasian Gannet - 3 (2)
Galah - 2 (2) flew past just outside the harbour as we left

The pod of Oceanic Bottlenose Dolphins round the boat at the shelf edge was about 10+ animals including some calves. A pod of about the same number of Common Dolphins came in to the boat and accompanied us briefly on our return journey.

Report prepared by Graham Barwell.