Hi all,
A very quick note as I’m off to Canberra in an hour. We decided that Port Stephens may have been a little too north for this bird, and with the good weather we (me, Steve and Allan Richardson) took Steve’s 16 foot tinny out to a FAD (Fish Attracting Device) about 11 miles of Swansea, NSW. After seeing a good number of Fleshy-foots and a few Wilson’s Stormies we were lucky enough to have a Great Shearwater come up the wake of the boat and settle on the water next to us, before we’d even cut the engine for a drift. The hunch paid off!
The bird seemed reasonably interested in the berley but was getting a hard time from the Fleshies. The final straw was when a Fleshy attacked it whilst on the water. He flew off and could not be found again.
We were surprised by the number of Wilson’s Storm-Petrels – we must have had close to a hundred through the day (0730-1130), with about 80 being the maximum count down our slick at one time. Also present were about 80 Fleshy-foots / Wedgies, a Black-browed and a Campbell Albatross, a couple of Yellow-noses and a handful of Pomarine Jaegers.
Who needs to go to the shelf!?
Cheers,
Mick ===============================
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