• Saturday 23rd January 2021 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA

     
    Published on 23-01-2021 03:39 PM
    Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA Kiama pelagic on the MV Kato on Saturday 23 Jan. 2021. The trip list uses the IOC Checklist v10.1 (Jan. 2020) 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 7.30 hrs, we headed directly east out to the shelf edge, where we stopped at 34° 42’ 53” S; 151° 08’ 52” E, 26.7 km from the harbour, and began the first of our chum and drift sessions for the day. It was 9.30 hrs, the water was a glorious blue and we had plenty of our usual chicken mince and tuna/vegetable oil to attract the birds. There wasn’t much to be seen, though this spot was right on the shelf edge in 205m/112 fathoms. The banding team caught some shearwaters as we drifted slowly 2kms north-northwest, before we drove along the slick to see if we’d missed anything (we hadn’t) and set up our second chumming session 500m away at 34° 42’ 04” S; 151° 08’ 17” E.

    With not much happening in the next 15 mins, we decided to try our luck in deeper water, so moved 5 km further east to 34° 42’ 29” S; 151° 11’ 28” E in 283m/155 fathoms and 30.5 km from the harbour. Birdlife here was again quiet, but the banding team continued to catch Flesh-footed Shearwaters and Grey-faced Petrels. A Greater Crested Tern was caught and regurgitated four crickets when brought aboard. Fish are their normal prey, but they have been recorded eating insects as well. Perhaps this bird picked the crickets up from the surface of the sea. There were a number of moths about, so the crickets may have been blown out to sea. We had a small pod of Risso’s Dolphins pass by in the 45 mins we were in the area, but with birdlife fairly sparse, we decided to see how things would be back in shallower water again.

    We made our fourth stop 5.7 km back west at 34° 41’ 50” S; 151° 07’ 21” E, where we slowly drifted northwest for 1.1 km over 40 mins. At this point, attracting only the species we had already been seeing, we decided to call it a day at 13.15 hrs and set off back to harbour, arriving at 14.45 hrs.

    Sea conditions were comfortable in a swell of <1m which diminished in very light winds as the day progressed. Sea temperature at the shelf was 25°.

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

    125 Silver Gull - 10 (9)
    115 Greater Crested Tern - 4+ (2)
    091 Shy Albatross - 1 (1) subspecies not determined
    075 Grey-faced Petrel - 4+ (2)
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater - 10+ (3)
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater - 10+ (8)
    072 Flesh-footed Shearwater - 20+ (8)
    068 Fluttering Shearwater - 3+ (1)
    913 Hutton’s Shearwater - 2 (1)
    104 Australasian Gannet - 2 (1)

    The only cetaceans seen were a small pod (5+) of Risso’s Dolphins at our stopping point furtherest from the shore.

    Report prepared by Graham Barwell