SOSSA Wollongong Pelagic 6/9/14

Evening all, A TAFE course had booked the Sandra K for a seabirding field trip today, but a few spaces were left over to fit in a couple of birders. The attrition rate of the students was exceptionally high – over 80%, so most probably didn’t appreciate the exceptional sightings as much as we did. I don’t have Lindsay’s notes, but since none of the regulars were on board, we thought we’d put up a quick report, because we got some VERY nice birds. A fair few Diomedea were banded out at the shelf. The approximate and probably conservative species counts from memory were as follows (maximum at one time in parenthesis): Exulans Wandering Albatross: 4 (2) Gibson’s Wandering Albatross: 15 (7), including Antipodean – 2 (1) Shy Albatross: 30 (8) – both cauta and steadi Black-browed Albatross: 60 (20) – nominate only Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross: 2 (1) Buller’s Albatross: 3 (1) NORTHERN ROYAL ALBATROSS: 1 (1) Northern Giant Petrel: 10 (6) Southern Giant Petrel: 2 (1) BLUE PETREL: 1 (1) Solander’s Petrel: 15 (4) Great-winged Petrel: 1 (1) CAPE PETREL: 1 (1) Fairy Prion: 40 (30) White-faced Storm Petrel: 1 (1) Wedge-tailed Shearwater: 70 (10) Fluttering-type Shearwater: 15 (3) White-fronted Tern: 6 (2) Crested Tern: 20 (5) Australasian Gannet: 25 (4) Inshore: Silver Gull 150+ Kelp Gull 5 (2) Sooty Oystercatcher (3) Australasian Darter (2) Pied Cormorant (1) Australian Pelican (6) Cetaceans: Common Dolphin – 50 Offshore Bottlenose Dolphin – 1 Unidentified x2 (Minkie?) Unidentified x1 (Rorqual?) Also 2x seal spp. Cheers, Joshua Bergmark and Ashwin Rudder