Pelagic!

A somewhat unusual blog post today, as it is coming to you from the Northern Territory!

I'll be posting a LOT about that later though, so this post is about my first pelagic, which was on Sunday of Wollongong :D sadly I can't make it a very long post as I am short of time and wifi here. Apologies in advance for the lack of pictures, I'll edit them in later, I don't have my hard drive with me.

I left Canberra on Saturday evening, and took the bus to Wollongong. I was staying with a friend, who had very nicely offered to put me up and also get up stupidly early to drop me at the boat!

We arrived at the boat at 6.45am, and we were setting off by seven. Australian Pelican, Little Black Cormorant and Darter were seen before even leaving the harbour.

As we proceeded out to sea, a few Silver Gulls were following us. Very quickly, the first Albatross appeared, giving us short but nice views.

Throughout the day, we were followed by Shy and Black Browed Albatross. We had brief views a couple of times on the trip out of Fluttering and Hutton's Shearwaters, which someone called out were accompianied by a Common Diving Petrel, which I succeeded to miss, along with the one shout of Fairy Penguin. There were several Wedge Tailed Shearwaters following the boat, which Duade Paton and I spent a lot of time attempting to get decent shots of (mostly without success, annoyingly! Although I'm sure Duade has some excellent ones, he always seems to). A Fairy Prion barrelled past, and I just got a glimpse.

A White Fronted Tern put in a brief appearance, not long enough for me to get photos sadly.

Once we got out to the shelf, we were all so preoccupied with the appearance of a Northern Giant Petrel that it took several minutes for anyone to notice that there was an Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross sitting right next to the boat!

A few moments of excitement when someone called out a Northern Royal Albatross. I can't remember who it was, but someone told me they hadn't seen one out on the Wollongong Pelagics for several years. It stayed. Long way off and didnt come in towards the boat, but I managed an ID shot to annoy Ashwin and Simon with! :D

After a while, we started heading back. It had been a very calm day, and we hadn't picked up any petrels or new shearwaters a the shelf. On the way back, we were joined by a couple of Gibson's Wandering  Albatross, one of which was banded on the boat (very cool!!), and a short while later, an adult male Exulans Wandering Albatross came up. They caught him, and I got to band him!!

The only other birds of interest we saw were a juvenile and later an adult Australian Gannet, a single Brown Skua, and a pair of Kelp Gulls as we got into the harbour.

It was a fantastic trip, and I've booked in for another one from Eden on the 21st of September, which I'm really looking forward to!

Now that that report's over. I'm currently sitting in Darwin Airport, waiting for a friend from Melbourne, Derek Burton. We're setting off on a three-week trip from here in Darwin to Wyndham in WA! His flight gets in at 5pm, so I've had just enought time to write this post. From here on, I'll be writing most of my posts in advance and posting them whenever I have Internet! Until then~

Julian

Sydney has a bark

Monday 5th August

After 3 barking owl reports in Sydney, I couldn't resist the urge to get out to Jamieson Park, Narrabeen and have a look for myself. Two birds had been reported roosting earlier in the day and on my 1 hour drive to the site, after many hundreds of texts to Josh Bergmark, it was realised these Narrabeen barking owls could possibly attempt to breed... lets hope so!!!

Once I arrived the first birds seen where King Parrots, a flock of 7 flying around in the casurinas. As I proceeded along the walk, White Browed Scrubwren, Eastern Yellow Robin, Whipbird and other wet forest species were encountered. On reaching the water, Wood Duck, Intermediate and Great Egret were seen as well as both Hoary-headed and Australasian Grebe were seen. As we moved further along the track, we bumped into a man with binos and another with a rather large camera and tripod, both with 'Pittwater Council' logos on their shirts. They quickly pointed out one of the Barking Owls roosting to our right which I would have missed had it not been for them and told us where to go for the other bird. I took the opportunity to get a few shots of the owl before the light totally died and my dad headed off up the track to try find the other bird whilst there was still some light.

Barking Owl 1

Barking Owl 2

Barking Owl 3

Barking Owl 4

Sadly we couldn't locate the other bird. As it got dark, the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos came in to roost accompanied by a flock of 10 or so Glossy Black Cockatoos. The barking owl we had seen started to call softly, and was almost impossible to see. We decided as it was possible they could breed that calling back and using spotlights was not a great idea, so we refrained. As we headed out, a Powerful Owl called near the creek but sadly we couldn't locate it.

Somewhere along the track my dad managed to lose his glasses so he had to return the next day. He found his glasses neatly folded up and placed prominently upon a large moss covered log. He looked up around the log and managed to locate what was hopefully the other barking owl! Great for him as the night before he didn't really get a decent look at the bird!!!

Thanks dad for driving me!!! More blogs coming up!

Exciting Sighting!

Yesterday evening, a message came through the COG Chatline, announcing a Powerful Owl had been seen (and photographed!) at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra.

Now before anyone from Sydney jumps all over me (Simon summed it up nicely by saying to me "Oh man, the ACT is a S***thole. the way that a Poweful Owl is an amazing sighting") I'd just like to say:
Firstly: Simon, Powerful has an R. ;)
and secondly, this is the second PO in the ACT that I know of since 2009. So it's pretty exciting!

I went out this morning not expecting much, and I wasn't disappointed. No owl in the area it had been the day before.

I spent the 40 minutes to home on the bus rather dejected. Powerful Owl isn't a life tick for me (or even a year tick) but seeing as I missed the 2009 bird, I really wanted to see it in the ACT.

About an hour after I got home, my birding friend Matt called, saying he had eyes on the owl. Begin another 40 minute bus trip back to the gardens!!

Matt had to leave before I arrived, but when I got to the site there were 5 or 6 other people wandering the area. No one had seen it yet, but they'd all come for a look.

Following Matt's directions, I quickly located the owl waaaaaaaayyyyyyy up in a very twiggy tree (where he was very well camouflaged and, as Matt said, looked suspiciously like a beehive). Everyone got a look, and I took about 50 photos (none of which are really any good).

I hung around for a while watching him, and then forayed off into the gardens, dismally failing to find the Crescent Honeyeaters and Bassian Thrush for the second time in one day. Next time.

Here's my best picture of the owl :D

Julian