Southport Pelagic

I had been really looking forward to this Saturday's Pelagic out of Southport. Mainly because I wanted to have another crack at getting Streaked Shearwater on my list, but also to try out my new lens (Canon 70-300mm). This lens seems to be ideally suited for pelagics because it has some weather proofing, and it seems to lock on to flying birds pretty well. 300mm is enough reach for pelagics because the birds come in pretty close. Sadly the forecast clear skies and calm seas  didn't correspond to reality and it was quite rough heading out to the shelf with several rain showers.

Wedge-tailed Shearwater

Wedge-tailed Shearwater

Most of the shots suffered from the poor light conditions but I was happy with some. As expected the most common sea bird at this time of year is the Wedge-tailed Shearwater with dozens around the most for most of the day.                                                                                                                                                                      









The next most common bird was the Flesh-footed Shearwater, a quite similar bird, but with a more substantial look about it with a two toned bill and flesh coloured feet.

Flesh-footed Shearwater

When we stopped to burly at the shelf the boat was rolling about a bit and, as usual, some of the the poor punters succumbed to the dreaded seasickness. One poor fellow from Canada spent the day lying on the deck in a foetal position. He asked us to prop him up if any Tahiti Petrels made an appearance and eventually they did and I hope he went home happy. When we get international birders on the boat its usually the Tahitis they're after...Southport probably being the easiest place in the world to see this beautiful seabird. I never tire of trying to get better shots of these birds.

Tahiti Petrel

Actually it was a pretty quiet day species-wise with only one other Petrel species making an appearance: the Great-winged Petrel. The subspecies we see here is the "Grey-faced Petrel" or gouldi. It will surely be split in future, being quite different from the other race seen mainly down south.

Great-winged Petrel

No other Pterodroma Petrels turned up which was a little disappointing so we headed back inshore rather earlier than normal. This meant, however, that we would have a little time to look for inshore species such as Buller's and Streaked Shearwaters, which was exactly what I wanted. 

                                                                                                                                                                   

Hutton's Shearwater

After a long and boring trip back across "No-Man's Land" (the vast area between the shelf and the inshore waters where you don't see squat), we finally started seeing birds again and after a while large rafts of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters just off the coast.

Streaked Shearwater

Among these we found a few Hutton's Shearwaters and finally some Streaked Shearwaters!!! We couldn't get very close and my photos are rubbish but any day you see a new bird is a good day.