Hi All
Seawatch from 8.00 – 13.30 yesterday (30.12.12) proved quite fruitful. South-easterly winds 25 – 30 knots, increasing , choppy, white-capped, irregular seas, 40% cloud cover causing continuously changing light and glare conditions.
Wedge-tailed and Short-tailed Shearwaters in good numbers (~100/hr each), some passing very close, until 10.00 when the passage dropped off to a mere trickle. 2, possibly 3, Sooty Shearwaters and a single Flesh-footed, 2 Pomarine and 1 Arctic Skua and a distant large, very pale, white wing-flashed Skua which could only have been a South Polar.
6 large Manta Rays feeding on the surface just off the rocks provided several hours of entertainment for the visiting hordes and a school of approx 40 Bottle-nosed Dolphins was the biggest single group we have seen off Pt Lookout.
Cheers
