Sections
CalendarBoat: M.V. Contagious, skippered by Dale Wellham.
CONDITIONS
We had a gentle south-easterly breeze for the run out, on virtually no swell. We took a rather northerly bearing out from the heads given the strong downhill currents that had been experienced by the skipper recently. We commenced our first drift at -32.772390, 152.691210, drifting for just over an hour before moving from -32.801320, 152.657360 into 250+ fathoms at -32.85182,152.69540. Winds didn't really pick up until about half way through the return leg when everyone sat on the port side had to retreat once the spray from the choppy sea from a brisker sou-easter came into the boat. Water temperature about 25 degrees at the shelf.
ACTIVITY
Because the inter-club game-fishing tournament was on, we departed Soldiers Point today. We left at 7:09am returning at 4:17pm. Very quiet outward leg, with just a few Wedge-tailed Shearwaters and the odd Fleshy-foot. No birds followed us to the shelf. In fact, in complete contrast to our January trip, not a single bird fed at the back of the boat the entire day. This made for a pretty frustrating experience overall, particularly given the low diversity of birds. Whilst storm-petrels set the scene for our January trip, not one was seen today.
It did look very promising early on though. Barely had the engines been switched off when a Gould’s Petrel flew across from the west, staying very distant. Not long after that the call of “Tahiti Petrel!” went out and cameras went into overdrive as we enjoyed the first Tahiti Petrel off Port Stephens since 2014. With ‘Contagious’ being the old ‘Grinner’ from Southport we thought it was long overdue that a ‘chook’ came to visit!
Tahiti Petrel. Photo: Mick Roderick
However, from there it went extremely quiet. After drifting for about an hour and only having a couple of Grey-faced Petrels to add to our list, we went wider where there were a few thousand Wedge-tailed Shearwaters spread out across the ocean. These birds would occasionally alight on the surface and we eventually found schools of Slimy Mackerel breaking the surface. Once again though, we couldn’t attract any birds to the boat, with the only new bird here being a distant Shy-type Albatross. We figured the birds must have been well fed, so we took it as good news that they weren't feeding behind the boat!
Slimy Mackerel. Photo: Mick Roderick
BIRDS
12 bird species were recorded outside of Port Stephens; a pretty poor day for diversity. Counts are totals for birds seen outside the heads (with the maximum number visible from the boat at one time in brackets) – many are estimates. Taxonomy follows the BirdLife Australia Working List V3. Pomarine Jaeger and Little Penguins also seen inside the heads.
Wedge-tailed Shearwater: 4500 (3000). The count of 3000 was what we estimated out wide. There was a flock of around 1000 birds inshore on our way home which would almost certainly have been different to those birds in pelagic waters. The additional 500 is for other birds encountered during the day.
Flesh-footed Shearwater: 25 (7). Generally scarce and never in numbers today.
Short-tailed Shearwater: 5 (2). Mostly in neritic waters.
Sooty Shearwater: 8 (3). Mostly in neritic waters, slightly greater in number than Short-tailed.
Shy-type (likely White-capped) Albatross: 1. Lone adult bird amongst the hordes of shearwaters in 250+ fathoms.
Grey-faced Petrel: 5 (2). Singletons except for just as we left the final drift we had 2 birds arrive.
Gould’s Petrel: 1. Called as a Cookilaria within a minute of arriving at our first drift spot. Confirmed as Gould’s through photos as the bird remained frustratingly distant.
Tahiti Petrel. 1. Came into the boat about 10 minutes after the Gould’s. Fortunately this bird showed a lot of interest in the boat and did several passes, allowing for excellent views.
Arctic Jaeger: 3 (1). Two birds seen as we travelled, one bird in deep water.
Crested Tern: 4 (3). All inshore.
Caspian Tern: 1. Bird flying high over the boat about 2 miles off the heads on the return leg.
Silver Gull: 3 (1). Inshore on the way back.
MAMMALS
Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin: A few pods about, with one of about 12 strong that came into the boat at our first drift.
FISH
Marlin sp. – one fish seen free-jumping about ten miles out on the outward journey.
Slimy Mackerel – judging by the breaking of the surface and presence of fishing boats (combined with direct visual observation) there would have been big numbers of this baitfish in the 250+ fathom mark.
Moderate numbers of small flying-fish seen throughout the day (maybe ~20 seen).