• Saturday 20th November 2021 SOSSA PELAGIC TRIP, KIAMA, NSW, AUSTRALIA

     
    Published on 20-11-2021 09:59 AM
    Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the SOSSA Kiama pelagic on the MV Kiama on Saturday 20 Nov. 2021. The trip list uses the IOC Checklist v11.1 (Jan. 2021) 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.

    A group of happy seabirders met at Kiama Harbour on Saturday morning, having been deprived of any opportunity to go to sea since last March, because of a combination of poor weather, boat unavailability and especially the lengthy NSW Covid lockdown. Even now with restrictions easing, the boat is not yet able to carry a full complement of passengers, so those fortunate enough to secure a spot were looking forward to what the day at sea might offer, despite the gloomy overcast conditions.

    Leaving the harbour at 07.30 hrs, we headed straight out to the shelf edge at 34 47 41 S; 151 10 53 E, 32.4 km southeast of Kiama harbour in 337m/184 fathoms. Here we began our first chumming session involving three periods of drifting slowly 0.5-1.5 km north in the southerly wind, then travelling up the slick and beginning afresh. At first we were close to a boat carrying people fishing, drawn to the same patch of sea over the shelf edge, but we soon moved away from them. The predominant birds here were shearwaters with a few Grey-faced Petrels, Greater Crested Terns and the odd storm petrel. We saw our only albatross for the day in this location.

    After about two and a half hours, we moved about 8 km back towards land and set up our second chumming session at 34 45 43 S; 151 06 17 E, 24.5 km SE of the harbour in shelf waters, where we drifted north for about 1.9 km, 12.35-13.40 hrs. There wasn't any greater variety of birds here so, with the weather threatening rain, we decided to head back in, arriving back in the harbour at 15.10 hrs.

    Sea conditions were comfortable with a swell of up to 1 m out at the shelf edge as the wind rose, and were more benign inshore. The wind was very light in the morning, rising to a moderate southerly as the day wore on. In the afternoon we encountered occasional light showers of rain. Sea temperature at the shelf edge was around 19 degrees.

    Highlight was being able to get out to sea again after a wait of eight months.

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

    125 Silver Gull: 6 (4)
    115 Greater Crested Tern: 12 (3)
    945 Pomarine Jaeger: 2 (1)
    063 Wilson's Storm Petrel: 2 (1)
    065 White-faced Storm Petrel: 1 (1)
    091/861 Shy Albatross: 1 (1) subspecies not determined but considered most likely to be cauta
    075 Grey-faced Petrel: 8 (3)
    078 Gould's Petrel: 1 (1) photographed some distance from the boat but not seen by most on board
    069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater: 80+ (5)
    070 Sooty Shearwater: 2 (1)
    071 Short-tailed Shearwater: 100+ (20)
    Fluttering-type Shearwater: 10 (1) generally poor and distant views
    913 Hutton's Shearwater: 3 (1)
    104 Australasian Gannet: 12 (3)

    A sunfish was seen at the shelf edge and a large stingray at our mooring, but no cetaceans were seen all day.

    Report prepared by Graham Barwell