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CalendarKiama Pelagic Trip Report - Saturday 28th October 2023
Here's what was seen outside the harbour on the Kiama pelagic aboard the MV Kato on Saturday 28 Oct. 2023. The trip list uses the IOC Checklist v13.1 (Jan. 2023) for taxonomy, nomenclature & order of species. It gives fairly conservative numbers, which are estimates for the commoner species.
Leaving the harbour at 07.25 hrs, we travelled directly out to the edge of the continental shelf at 34 44 54 S; 151 09 11 E in 120 fathoms/219 metres 28 km from the harbour, where the engines were cut and we began our first chumming session as we drifted slowly back west. After an hour or so, we decided to try deeper water, so we went out to 31.8 km east of the harbour in 181 fathoms/331 m at 34 45 39 S; 151 11 24 E. We drifted here for the next hour and a quarter, attracting a wide range of seabirds including an Antipodean Albatross subspecies gibsoni from the Auckland Islands and a White-chinned Petrel, which made a couple of passes but didn t stay. As we drove back up the slick we counted good numbers of Wilson's Storm Petrels attracted to the tuna and pilchard oil we had put in the water. These birds were probably on their migration back to their southern breeding grounds.
We stopped again in the deeper water for half an hour or so, but didn t find anything different, so at 12.30 hrs we headed 7.4 km back west and stopped at 34 44 31 S; 151 06 20 E in 91 fathoms/166 m 24 km from the harbour. Pickings here were slim, with just a few Short-tailed Shearwaters, a Shy Albatross and a Wilson's Storm Petrel, so we continued back westwards at 13.20 hrs. We had another brief stop at 34 42 00 S; 150 58 28 E in 62 fathoms/113 m for 15 mins but again had mainly Short-tailed Shearwaters passing by on passage southwards, so we didn't linger and continued back to the harbour, arriving at 15.00 hrs.
Highlight of the day was the White-chinned Petrel, an uncommon species off Kiama.
Sea conditions were choppy on the way out in 1.5-2 m seas, but these calmed as the day progressed. Sea temperature was 20 degrees at the shelf edge.
Species seen outside the harbour, maximum at any one time in brackets:
125 Silver Gull: 70 (25)
115 Greater Crested Tern: 8 (2)
Jaeger sp: 1 (1) a distant bird
933 Long-tailed Jaeger: 2 (2)
063 Wilson's Storm Petrel: 50 (40)
847 Antipodean Albatross gibsoni: 1 (1) probable female
088 Black-browed Albatross: 10 (2) mainly immatures
859 Campbell Albatross: 1 (1) adult
091/861 Shy Albatross: 12 (6) subspecies not determined
931 Buller's Albatross: 2 (1)
937 Northern Giant Petrel: 3 (2)
915 White-chinned Petrel: 1 (1)
069 Wedge-tailed Shearwater: 30 (2)
070 Sooty Shearwater: 2 (2) not seen by all on board
071 Short-tailed Shearwater: 250 (100) flying south along the continental shelf.
Fluttering/Hutton's Shearwater: 1 (1)
068 Fluttering Shearwater: 2 (1)
913 Hutton's Shearwater: 2 (1)
104 Australasian Gannet: 30 (4)
106 Australian Pelican: 2 (2) outside the harbour entrance
There were a few Common Dolphins at the edge of the continental shelf, but no other cetaceans.
Report prepared by Graham Barwell