Its been a long time since I have written anything but a visitor on a recent Portland pelagic was too good not to share. Wandered down with the crew as usual on Saturday afternoon with the most interesting low-light being a road-killed Grey Goshawk at Panmure - this ended up in a bag for deposit at the museum and surprisingly was not forgotten in the hotel room fridge. The forecast had deteriorated some what so we were expecting a bumpy trip but it was actually quite pleasant.
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| Grey Goshawk |
After the usual steak and a few beers at Macs we were up early. Quite a bit of activity on the way out with a few jaegers the highlight. Just before the shelf a cookilaria type petrel escaped from view, the brief views I had indicated Gould's but could not be sure. This and a good number of Fairy Prions were hopefully a good sign. The first berley point had a good variety of common species and just as we were leaving an early Brown Skua provided brief excitement.
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| Kangaroo Fairy Prion |
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| Shy Albatross |
On arrival at the second berley point there was immediate excitement as a White-headed Petrel flew through - a first on a Victorian pelagic for me but it did not stick around. Soon after in the slick immediately behind the boat was another Pterodroma which threw me for a second until I realised it was a Soft-plumaged Petrel with quite a bit of pale underwing. This proved to be the star performer of the day and stuck around for at least 20 minutes - even landing in the slick to feed. I have seen these a number of times on Southern Australian pelagics but never had one behaving like this. Many photos taken by most onboard.
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| Soft-plumaged Petrel |
After that it was all a bit anti-climactic although there continued to be plenty of birds around the back of the boat. A young black-browed was of interest with the horn colour coming through on top of the bill.
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| Black-browed Albatross |
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| Wilson's Storm-Petrel |
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Great-winged Petrel
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The trip back in was largely uneventful with a couple of jaegers again being the highlight. A thick bodied bird flew away from the boat at one stage and was probably a Pom but alas got away. As sea conditions were deteriorating and running out of time we skipped Lawrence Rocks so missed a few usual species. All in all a great day at sea and an enjoyable weekend with some very good people.
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