Sections
CalendarBoat: M.V. Contagious, skippered by Dale Wellham.
CONDITIONS
We took a punt on a borderline forecast this morning, with winds up to 30 knots from the north appearing in the Hunter Coastal Waters forecasts, which were supposed to peak between 7:00am and 10:00am. We thought we'd beaten it after travelling out in only 10-15 knot northerlies (and seeing a handful of inshore Wilson's Storm-petrels as well). But by about half an hour short of our drift the winds hit 25 knots with a few consistent periods of 30 knots. This made for a very 'roly-poly' drift but exciting conditions to be seabirding in. We commenced our drift at -32.77631, 152.6849 and very rapidly drifted south-west, again along the contours of the shelf break. We did make one relocation into deeper water before the skipper decided we d better start making tracks for shore given the conditions. Water temp at shelf taken as 26.7 degrees.
Black Petrel
ACTIVITY
Departed Nelson Bay Public Wharf at 7:01am, returning by 3:34pm. Although nowhere near as quiet as our March trip, we really did feel like we 'deserved' a better diversity of species. For the most-part, the shearwaters (which we only had two species Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed) did not feed at the boat or in the slick and at times the only birds visible were Pterodromas. Numbers of birds were reasonable but the highlight of the day was watching the Grey-faced and Solander's Petrels in their element, tilting beyond the vertical in the high winds. A Black Petrel did provide some excitement and gave great views to all on board and even returned to the boat after a 30 minute absence. A lone Shy-type Albatross also added to the day's tally late in the drift. And similar to last month, we barely saw a Cetacean all day and we do wonder if the lack of dolphins in particular might correlate to a lack of bird diversity.
BIRDS
12 species were recorded outside of Port Stephens. 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 V4.
Wedge-tailed Shearwater: 200 (40). No really large aggregations today and very few birds stayed at the boat.
Flesh-footed Shearwater: 14 (3). Lower numbers than expected in April.
Shy-type (likely White-capped) Albatross: 1. An adult bird that came into the boat from the north late in the drift. Did not show much interest in the boat.
Wilson's Storm-petrel: 55 (6). There was evidence of a northward passage of Wilson's today, with virtually no birds sticking around the boat; all seemingly flying past to the north. Also some birds seen in neritic waters, which is not commonly seen.
White-faced Storm-petrel: 2 (1). Both pelagic and neither sticking round for particularly long.
Grey-faced Petrel: 30 (4). All pelagic, and numbers hard to estimate there could have been double this number. It was amazing to watch these and the Solander's making truly acrobatic flights around the boat.
Solander's Petrel: 12 (2). All pelagic.
Black Petrel: 1. A single bird that arrived about halfway through the drift, left then reappeared.
Australasian Gannet: 9 (2). All young birds, and all but one inshore.
Crested Tern: 5 (1). Four birds inshore and one bird following the boat on the way out for a short time.
Caspian Tern: 1. Just outside the heads.
White-bellied Sea-eagle: 2 (1). Individuals seen separately over the ocean not too far from the heads.
MAMMALS
Common Bottlenose Dolphin: Two offshore animals observed surfacing during the drift and a pod of about twenty individuals inshore.
FISH
Flying-fish: 2
Mackerel?: One leaping out of the water during the drift.