Hi all,
This is my version, as a passenger, of last weekends Portland pelagic complete with my normal digressions and impressions. It includes important trivia such as the excellent food we were served and the fact that I was wowed by a particularly beautiful Portugese Man-of-War jellyfish. If anyone is interested in photos etc please go to my blog at the link below.
When I looked at my birding records I saw that the last Birds Australia Port Fairy pelagic that I had been on was in March 2007. That was more than 6 years ago. Quelle horreur!! The situation had to be remedied. Of course here was that one spectacular trip out of Port Fairy, organised by Neil Macumber, to see the Great Shearwater when it was in town, in 2011, but apart from that I had not been on a Victorian trip for far too long. The situation rectified itself when the weather was pronounced as “good” for the 5th May Portland trip.
Sunday morning was overcast when we arrived at the boat but the strong winds of the past week had dropped off and we had about 5 knots out of the south east. This meant that, while the swells were still enormous, there were no serious waves. So, the boat went up and down a lot but wasn’t at all uncomfortable. The ride out to the shelf takes a couple of hours and on this trip the birds were few and far between. A White-fronted Tern went past as did a few Fluttering Shearwater and the occasional distant Australasian Gannet.
Even when we got to the shelf it remained quiet for some time. We bobbed around on the swell for about ten minutes, maybe more, as we waited but come they did. First on the scene were some of the smaller albatross, mollymawks, and we soon had a nice following of Black-browed and Shy Albatross. Fairy Prions joined them and then the storm petrels arrived; Wilson’s, Grey-backed and White-faced. It was turning into an excellent trip.
A surprise for me happened when the lid on one of the big iceboxes was opened and a huge tray of very yummy sandwiches appeared. This was a pelagic first for me and the instant swarm of hands over the platter was as thick as a swarm of gannets diving on prey. What I really liked was they were cut into quarters, garden party fashion, so they could be eaten in two bites so letting you get back to the birds without worrying about what to do with a half eaten sandwich. I was going to take a photo of this event but as I had one hand on my binos and the other around an egg and lettuce sandwich the photo never happened.
The first large albatross, a Northern Royal, arrived at this stop and when they appear I know I am on a pelagic. They are just so beautiful as they glide in on their 2 metre wingspan. By the time the trip was over we had seen four large albatross, two Royal and two Wandering, one of which was still in its all-brown juvenile plumage.
The second stop was the spectacular stop of the trip. As we threw the berly over a Sooty Albatross approached the boat and landed. Spectacular. The Sooty is an uncommon sight off Victoria so everyone was thrilled and many people onboard ticked off a new species. It was then that things started to get ridiculous. This uncommon bird was joined by a second, and we had 2 Sooty Albatross sitting beside us, unheard of!; and then a third bird arrived. Never before have I seen three Sooty Albatross together. What a trip. Magic.
To maintain the quality of the day the call went out that there was a “different looking” prion behind the boat. We all then got good looks as the bird joined the feeding birds. Antarctic Prion? Salvin’s Prion? No one was sure but as it turned out after consulting various people and sending photos around it was agreed that it was an Antarctic Prion. Another tick for many on board. More Magic.
Researching the very pretty blue and iridescent-spotted Man-of-war jellyfish we saw provide me with some fascinating trivia. It had a body maybe 7 or 8 cm long but evidently the multiple tendrils that hang from below it can be over 10 metres long and can give a sting bad enough to hospitalise, sometimes kill, an adult. I am glad I was not in the water with it.
When I finally got my list worked out and photos checked I had seen 24 species for the day, including the inshore species such as Black-faced Cormorant, Pacific Gull, Silver Gull and Australasian Gannet. Bird-wise, the surprise for me was that we had not seen many petrels other than a Southern Giant Petrel and a few Great-winged, but hey, with Antarctic Prion and Sooty Albatross on the list, who could complain?
cheers
Jenny http://jenniferspryausbirding.blogspot.com.au/ ===============================
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