Sections
CalendarBoat: M.V. Contagious, skippered by Dale Wellham.
CONDITIONS
A gentle offshore breeze made for a pleasant trip out, with the nor-westerlies picking up during the middle of the day (but never topping 15 knots), then backing off in time for the trip back to port. The day had been preceded by 36 hours of persistent strong westerly winds - not ideal and this was reflected in the lack of diversity today. We commenced the drift at -32.7933524, 152.6911261 at 1017 drifting very slowly parallel to the shelf for a while before relocating into deeper water at -32.8045102 152.7198298. We moved because of what appeared to be dirty water, with fine particles of some sort in the water. It was definitely clearer further wide, but still not a lot of bird activity. Water temperature 19 degrees inshore and 23 degrees at the shelf.
ACTIVITY
Departed Nelson Bay public wharf at 7:23am returning by 3:48pm. The very first bird we saw on the ocean was a juvenile Giant-petrel, which was later confirmed to be a Northern. Then with a few Indian Yellow-nosed and an adult Black-browed Albatross (as well as a spectacular breaching Humpback close to the boat) we were all abuzz at what was looking like being a solid winter pelagic. This excitement was reinforced when we encountered a massive bait-ball with upwards of 500 gannets feeding, flying in from all directions to plunge into the water. We couldn't tell what the bait was, but a sizeable Yellowfin Tuna was seen jumping out of the water.
Australasian Gannet's. Photo: James Bennett
But the trip out was really to be the peak of activity for the day. The shelf offered very little apart from a couple of Wilson's Stormies and a few more Yellow-nosed. There were however good numbers of Solander's Petrels, with birds visible the entirety of the two drifts. For the second consecutive trip we had Crested Terns foraging in the slick at the shelf and those two birds were briefly joined by a White-fronted Tern. A Buller's Albatross came in and as always (especially on quiet days) was a crowd-pleaser. The trip back in was virtually birdless aside from a raft of Gannets and Yellow-nosed Albies not too far from the islands.
BIRDS
10 species were recorded outside of Port Stephens; a very lean day. 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.
Wilson's Storm-petrel: 3 (1). Two pelagic, one seen in about 140m of water.
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross: 25 (4). Four adults and two juveniles.
Black-browed Albatross: 1. An adult on the way out.
Black-browed-type Albatross: 1. One unidentifiable bird.
Buller's Albatross: 1. One bird at the shelf.
Northern Giant-petrel: 1. First bird seen on the ocean, probably only two miles from Little Island.
Solander's (Providence) Petrel: 170 (6). Good numbers and evidence of a turnover of birds - also a few seen within the last few miles before the shelf break.
Australasian Gannet: 700 (500). Easily the most abundant bird today, particularly owing to the massive concentration of birds at the bait-ball about 5 miles short of the shelf.
Crested Tern: 4 (2). Two birds at the shelf.
White-fronted Tern: 1. Single non-breeding bird at the shelf briefly, plunging into the slick.
Silver Gull: 3 (1). Again, very scarce.
MAMMALS
Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin: 100. Majority associated with the bait-ball.
Humpback Whale: 15. Mostly seen distantly except for one massive adult that breached suddenly about a third of the way out - breathtaking.
FISH
A moderate-sized Yellowfin Tuna seen jumping at the bait-ball.