Stradbroke Seawatching

So not having learned my lesson from the failed seawatch attempt at Pt Cartwright a few weeks back, I responded to an invitation from local birder Colin Reid to head over to North Stradbroke Island for the day to look for seabirds from Pt Lookout. If you wanted to take a car over to the island, it would make for a very expensive day, however there is a fast catamaran across that is quite cheap as a return ticket, and is met by a bus that takes you all the way to the lookout at the northern tip of the island. Using this method of transport, we had a very pleasant journey out and back, and from that side of things the day was highly successful.

As I drove to the ferry in the morning, rain was pouring down nearly the whole way to the terminal. By the time I reached Cleveland, I was ready to turn around and go home, but as I pulled up the rain had cleared and the horizon was looking promising. I figured I should give it a go, as Colin, Rob Dougherty and Stuart Warren were all heading over. At least I'd have good company if it was miserable. By the time we stepped off the bus at the point, it wasn't raining at all, and in fact, apart from a brief shower, we didn't have any rain for the four hours we spent looking. Of course, as soon as we left the weather moved in and it started raining again. It was almost like someone was watching out for us!

In terms of what we saw on the day, it was a huge success. I didn't really know what to expect in a morning, but we managed to find three year birds for me. The first was a pale morph Arctic Jaeger the cruised by at speed, and later in the day came in a little closer for some better views, along with a brief visit from an intermediate Pomarine Jaeger. We had a near-constant stream of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters going by all day, and at one point a Fluttering/Hutton's type Shearwater too, though the hoped-for Streaked Shearwaters didn't appear. At one point we had a Bridled/Sooty Tern cruise past about 500m offshore, but we couldn't see it well enough to confirm an ID. The stars of the day though were the noddies. All through the hours we spent there we had a small but constant trickle of both Black and Common Noddies, both new for me for the year. It was great to get good looks at both as they cruised past flying against the wind, because it gave me a chance to really get to know the ID features. My previous experience with the two species was from snorkelling trips, where I got so close to the birds I never had to try hard to make an ID. From a distance, in windy conditions, it is a lot harder! Our final great birds of the day were a flock of seven Wandering Tattlers, including one in partial breeding plumage. They were calling near-constantly for a few hours, kicking up a fuss and flying between rocky pillars. A great, sustained view of a good bird.

On top of all the great birds we had hundreds of Bottlenose Dolphins cruising back and forth around the point, surfing waves and breaching, and quite a few Green Turtles and a few HUGE Loggerhead Turtles surfacing right off the rocks. Colin even had an eagle ray breaching at one point. The day was so successful we are going to have to go back in winter for another go. Another bonus of going back at that time of year is the Humback Whales will be back by then, playing around offshore and breaching. Something to look forward to!

Total birds to date: 291

Photo 1: Black Noddy
Photo 2: Common Noddy
Photo 3: Arctic Jaeger, courtesy of and (C) Rob Dougherty
Photo 4: Bottlenose Dolphins

Pelagics: Gould's Petrel, Black-winged Petrel, White-necked Petrel

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... our first pelagic for the year. I have a love-hate relationship with pelagic birding - I love it, it hates me. Well, actually, to be more specific, its mostly just the Southport pelagic that hates me. You see, I get seasick. Sometimes. Actually, mostly just off Brisbane. In the boat that we use for the Southport pelagics. Its true, I don't seem to get sick anywhere else, or in any other boats. So signing up for the February pelagic this year, I knew there was a chance it would end badly for me. The week leading up to the pelagic was ideal. There were two storm cells approaching the region, one from the north over the ocean, the other from the south, also over the ocean. The prevailing wind was from the south-east, originating in the seas north of New Zealand. All this combined to mean that seabirds would be concentrating in the ocean off Brisbane, culminating on Friday night, the day before the pelagic, when conditions would begin to ease, allowing us to get the boat out. And that's how it panned out. Winds were 10-15 knot south-easterlies, swell was 2.5 - 3m. It was pretty rough, for Southport, and with the nasty cross-currents that the area is known for the boat was tossed around a bit like a cork in a washing machine. Or at least that's how it felt to my stomach. Needless to say, two seasickness tablets had little effect, and I was sick as a dog all day. That about covers the "worst of times", however, despite this challenge, the perfect lead up produced a near perfect day bird-wise. We had everything we could have hoped for and more, with 3 lifers for me, and 13 year birds all up, all of them difficult to get any way other than on a boat.

We started the cruise out well, with the occasional Pomarine Jaeger mixed in amongst the Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed Shearwaters. We had one Hutton's Shearwater do a flypast on the way out. When we reached the continental shelf things started to get really exciting. Our first petrel of the day was a Black-winged Petrel, a good rarity for Australia and my first lifer for the day. This was joined by a second, and then by a Gould's Petrel, another cookilaria-type petrel, and my second lifer for the day. The action didn't stop, with Tahiti Petrels joining in the flurry, and then a flypast from a Kermadec Petrel which fortunately approached on the side I was throwing up over, because otherwise I probably would have missed it.

After about half an hour of watching the cookilaria petrels circle the boat, we decided to head over to a flurry of activity we could see about a kilometre away. This turned out to be a flock of a few hundred shearwaters, but sadly, the petrels didn't follow us over. We did start to pick up oceanic terns, with Sooty Tern being almost common through the day, and later on a single Bridled Tern making a pass by the boat. A Great-winged Petrel did a couple of fly-bys of the boat before disappearing - another good local rarity. Through this section of the day I missed several White-necked Petrels that passed us well back from the boat. We finally ran out of time and started heading back, and I was feeling pretty good about two lifers and a whole bunch of year birds. But the excitement still wasn't over.

On the cruise back we finally had a White-necked Petrel cruise close by the boat, affording another photographic opportunity, and my third lifer of the day. Further on, we had Lesser Frigatebirds circling over the water near a pod of offshore Bottlenose Dolphins and some Common Dolphins, all of which came and rode our bow wave for a while. The Bottlenoses, nearly twice the size of the Commons, chased the little guys away pretty quickly, but they did put on enough of a show for me to confirm Common Dolphin as a cetacean lifer for me. Not done yet, the day had one more surprise in store, with a White-tailed Tropicbird coming off the ocean near us and making a near-complete sweep of tropical pelagic species that can be seen off Brisbane.

Andrew managed to get one back on me, as I had seen Wedge-tailed Shearwaters in my disastrous sea-watch a few weeks ago. This brought our totals back to within four of each other. It does mean I'm pulling out of the March pelagic - the massive success of the bird list we came away with, coupled with the debilitating sea-sickness mean I don't want to step on a boat until winter, preferably late winter. We'll see how we go.

Total birds to date: 273

Photo 1: Black-winged Petrel
Photo 2: Gould's Petrel
Photo 3: White-necked Petrel
Photo 4: Common Dolphin

http://southportpelagics.wildiaries.com/trips/286