Friday 13th of April to Monday 16th April 2012.
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| The TexasT (image from website) |
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| Looking aft (image from the website) |
Sometimes opportunities have to be grabbed fast. An email
from Paul Walbridge said that, due to a cancellation, two places were available
on a pelagic trip to the seamounts off Southport, Queensland. Now, I have a
particular thing about boats so when there is an opportunity to combine a
boating trip with a birding trip I am in faster than a diving gannet. I rang
Paul and grabbed one of the spots. Yea.
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| My cabin (image from the website) |
Then I started on my research. Where were these seamounts?
What birds are out there? Google Earth answered the first question for me and I
found them about 100 nautical miles off the coast from Brisbane. For the second
question I went to the BirdLife atlas website and there I found that no one had
done a record sheet for that spot. It appeared that this was going to be the
first trip ever to look for birds at these “tablemounts”. There might be
anything out there.
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| Course map (Google Earth) |
Then I went to the website for the boat we were to use, the
TexasT. Not the most romantic name ever but the website showed me a “25 metre
luxury motor yacht”. This was going to be some trip. I was going to be sharing
an en-suite double cabin that even had its own TV. And for creature comforts
she is fitted with a deck bar, teppanyaki BBQ (whatever that is), icemaker,
stabilisers and a covered rear deck to keep the rain and sun off while we bird
watch. Sigh, so different to anything I had ever been on. This was going to be
fun.
I flew out of Melbourne and was collected in Brisbane by
Paul and Kathy, Queenslanders are so nice, and we headed for Southport and the
boat. She was moored at Sanctuary Cove, a nice enough little spot, and after
dinner we went on board at 1900 and headed out to sea.
When we woke next morning, Saturday, we were about 100
nautical miles off the coast at the Queensland Seamount, and it was a perfect
morning for a pelagic. The sun was out and the wind was about 25 knots from the
south-east. As the TexasT has stabilisers there was no serious movement of the
boat, not even enough to spill a cup of tea, and we sat down to breakfast with
flocks of Flesh-footed and Great-winged Petrels circling in our wake. Once we
started putting out some berley more and more birds arrived. Wilson’s
Storm-petrels were first to join the berley slick and soon after, at 0915, the
cry went out, “pale breasted storm petrel – and its got streaks!” All the
cameras and binocular swung and sure enough, we had our first New Zealand
Storm-petrel for the trip. There is going to be some study needed of the
hundreds of photos taken over the two days but it looks like we ended up with
about 10 different birds. What a wonderful find.
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| New Zealand Storm-petrel © |
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| New Zealand Storm-petrel © |
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| New Zealand Storm-petrel © |
In fact it really turned out to be a storm-petrel trip as we
ended up with five different species; White-faced, Black-bellied,
White-bellied, Wilson’s and New Zealand. This was a spectacular count of
storm-petrel species and all from on top of the seamounts, a strip of water
about 100 nautical miles long and 30 nautical miles wide.
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| White-faced Storm-petrel |
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| Wilson's Storm-petrel showing yellow webbing on feet |
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| Black-bellied Storm-petrel |
The morning progressed and we motored slowly south at about
3 knots spreading berley all the way. Kermadec Petrels came in as did
Providence Petrels, and these were soon joined by Gould’s Petrels and
White-necked Petrels. Over our lunch of sandwiches filled with fresh roast
chicken or other meats and salads we discussed the New Zealand Storm-petrels
and watched Flesh-footed and Great-winged Petrels fight for lumps of shark
liver. How good can it get?
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| Gould's Petrel |
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| White-necked Petrel |
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| White-necked Petrel |
The bird count grew as we added Red-tailed Tropicbird, a
very beautiful and very young Wandering Albatross and more storm-petrels to our
list. By the time the sun was going down and we were starting to think about
pre-dinner drinks my list for the day was 16 species. This is a respectable
list for a day of pelagic birding and we discussed plans for the next day. It
was decided to continue south for the night, to the Britannia Seamount, and
then motor slowly north the next day.
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| Juvenile Wandering Albatross |
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| Wandering Albatross |
On Sunday morning the wind had dropped and for the first
hour or so, from about 0700 to 0800 bird-wise things were fairly quiet and our
bacon and eggs breakfast was consumed in relative peace. By about 0900 the wind
was once again freshening and more birds began to appear. We motored on to our
most southerly point of the trip (28º 48’ 01” 155º 50’ 25”), then turned and headed north. We added
Red-tailed Tropicbird and Pomarine Skua to our lists as well as Brown Noddy
and Sooty Tern. Two more Wandering Albatross joined the berley trail and at
last, at about mid afternoon, we added Tahiti Petrel. This bird came in very
close and we had wonderful views as it arced across the stern.
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| Red-tailed Tropicbird |
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| Pomarine Jaeger |
By the time evening came around my list was 21 species but
as usual one bird, an Arctic Jaeger, had done a fast fly-by and escaped my view
so the boat count was 22. As the sun went down I had seen Wandering Albatross,
Great-winged Petrel, Providence Petrel, Kermadec Petrel, White-necked Petrel,
Gould’s Petrel, Tahiti Petrel, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Short-tailed
Shearwater, Flesh-footed Shearwater, Wilson’s Storm-petrel, *New-Zealand
Storm-petrel, White-faced Storm-petrel, *White-bellied Storm-petrel,
Black-bellied Storm-petrel, Red-tailed Tropicbird, White-tailed Tropicbird,
Brown Noddy, White Tern, Sooty Tern and Pomarine Skua. (*Ticks)
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| Great-winged Petrel |
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| Kermadec Petrel |
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| Providence Petrel |
After dinner on Sunday we turned west and headed for port.
This trip had been the first time a group of birders had visited the seamounts
east if Brisbane, and it was a resounding success. Twenty-two species of
seabird including five species of storm-petrel had been seen, and one of these
was the Critically Endangered New Zealand Storm-petrel.
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| Tahiti Petrel |
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| Flying fish |
Details of the New Zealand Storm-petrel can be found on the
BirdLife International website at:
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=30105
Some information copied from that website states:
“Previously
assumed to have been Extinct following the lack of records since three
specimens were collected in the 1800s, this species was spectacularly
rediscovered in 2003, with multiple annual records subsequently. Although there
is very little information on which to base an assessment, the species has been
precautionarily classified as Critically Endangered on the basis of an
extremely small population which could be susceptible to the impacts of
introduced predators … .
“… one
individual was observed and photographed off the Mercury Islands, North Island
in January 2003, and subsequently a flock of 10-20 were observed and
photographed north of Little Barrier Island, North Island in November 2003.
Since then birds have been observed in the Hauraki Gulf each summer (October to
April). It is thought to be a summer-breeding visitor to the Hauraki Gulf,
although a nest site has yet to be found. A bird apparently of this species was
seen well and photographed off the southern end of New Caledonia in April 2008,
which may represent a bird in, or migrating to its non-breeding range, and up
to three were reported on pelagic trips off New South Wales, Australia in March
and April 2010. …
“Population
assumed to be tiny based on small number of records since 2003. Most have been
of small numbers, but flocks of 10-20, 11 and 10-30 birds have been recorded.”
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| Office work - someone had to do it |
With the Southport Pelagic trip on the TexasT seeing
approximately 10 New Zaland Storm-petrels spread over the length of the
seamounts it represents an internationally important find, both because of the
number of birds seen and also the discovery of a new location for these rare birds. I
knew this trip was going to be special but I had no idea just how special. It
can only be hoped that further trips will be made to the seamounts and that
more information can be gained on the habits of this special bird.
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| The back deck late in the afternoon |
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| Sunset on the Britannia Seamount |
All images on this blog are © to Jenny Spry 2012 unless stated otherwise and can not be used without permission
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