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| Wandering Birder | Australia New Zealand 2002 | 6. Wollongong Pelagics | Comments | Table of Contents |
Chapter 6 Wollongong, Australia
|
 Sandra K sails out of Wollongong Harbor |
Back in the early 1990's when the internet and electronic mail were just starting to impact our lives, I was an early participant in the E-mail birding discussion group BirdChat. The most exciting chat came from Australia about the pelagic trips out of Wollongong. I began to look forward to the reports about the large number of Albatrosses. It wasn't long before WIR (when I retire) began to include a long trip to Australia including Wollongong pelagics.
Wollongong is a fairly large industrial city south of Sydney and. home to a large university. Other than a Buddhist Temple, the city has not exploited its potential for tourism.
Prior to leaving home, I reserved a place on the Sydney Pelagic on the second Saturday in July and the Wollongong Pelagic on the fourth Saturday in July. I also planned to take the September and October Wollongong Pelagics. These trips tend to fill so you should definitely make advance reservations.
The southern oceans around Australia and New Zealand are rich in seabirds and birding is good all year long with the winter months of July and August being the best opportunity for Albatross species.
While Wollongong is granddaddy of pelagic birding in Australia there are other trips from other cities. It is very hard to find information about some of the other locations and also hard to plan your land trip to be in the right place at the right time for both land and seabirds. If you go out of your way for the pelagics you may find the trip cancelled because not enough people signed up or at the last minute because of the sea conditions. Pelagic birding is always tough. By the time I arrived in Sydney, the Sydney pelagic in July had been cancelled because not enough people signed up. This is a shame because I understand the Sydney pelagic is run on a fairly nice boat.
SOSSA - Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association
Wollongong pelagic birding trips are sponsored by SOSSA and are the most reliable trips. Trips are rarely cancelled for weather and almost never cancelled because not enough people show up. Trips are scheduled on the fourth Saturday of every month. If the Saturday trip fills, a second trip may be scheduled on Sunday. During the prime months of July and August trips may be scheduled on other weekends.
SOSSA or the Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association uses the Wollongong pelagics to support their "at sea" studies into the local marine environment. The organization bands birds at sea and breeding birds on islands near Wollongong. On every SOSSA trip you can count on having one or more very knowledgeable observers aboard. Unlike the Kaikoura trips, this group is out looking for rarities and compiling accurate counts of the birds seen. Participants are serious birders not just tourists interested in big birds.
On most trips the boat will stop to capture and band some of the birds. Since the trips are 8 hours or more in length you will still have plenty of time to cover the area. Time will also be spent on whales and dolphins. Almost any naturalist will be happy to see some of the rarer whales such at the Pygmy Killer Whales Feresa attenuata that has been sighted on several trips. Humpback Whales migrate off the coast of Wollongong and there are people aboard who will be excited to see them. On my first trip we spent some time waiting for 3 feeding Humpbacks to surface. It was even more frustrating because we sailed away from the first great Albatross in order to chase the whale (at 7 knots).
One of the things I did was to join SOSSA while I was there. I felt I would really like to stay in touch and to support this worth while ecological effort.
Setting Expectations - The Sandra K
I know I am spoiled when it comes to boats. There are great whale watching boats in the Boston area. I have taken pelagic trips in North Carolina, Oregon, and California and I think even experienced pelagic birders from these areas are in for a bit of a shock when they see the Sandra K and meet the captain.
All of the following comments about the Sandra K and its captain are my opinion only and based on my experience and observations on many pelagic birding trips. Despite all this criticism of the boat, I took 3 trips because I knew the birds would be good. If I ever go back to Australia I will take as many Wollongong pelagics as I possibly can, but I do so with the full knowledge that I am taking a risk and that I am responsible for my own safety especially moving around on the boat and getting on and off.
The MV Sandra K is 43 feet in length and weighs 17 tons,. It carries 23 passengers and has a top speed of 7 knots. The boat is primarily used as a party fishing and whale watching boat. There is nothing inherently unsafe about a small boat. I believe that with some modifications and a more safety conscious captain this boat could be safe.
The first problem is the total lack of any system for getting passengers on and off the boat. The boat docks next to stone stairway and you get on by jumping from the stairs down to the boat. I could only to do this with help and at times I had to wait for and insist on getting some assistance. Then you have to get off by climbing over the boat rail and jumping up to the stairs.
In the worst possible scenario you fall between the boat and the stairs and I saw one young man do just that. He was very lucky and landed on a narrow stone ledge just at water level. On a higher tide the ledge will be underwater. If the boat is not secure to the dock you could fall into the water between the boat and the stairs and that is life threatening. To make matters even worse, returning from the third trip, the captain was distracted by something on the dock and passengers were disembarking before the boat was secured to the dock. Careful captains I have observed, do not allow any passenger to disembark until the boat is fully secured to the dock and the captain himself (herself) has inspected the moorage. There is no question in my mind that this boat needs some method of boarding passengers and that with a bit of effort this can be provided. I was told that the problem is the tide, but every ocean going vessel has to deal with the tide.
There is limited seating on the outside lower deck. The only real seats are on the upper deck which is reached by a vertical, narrow ladder. The railing around the upper deck is not very high and very open. The boat rocks with the swells and at times I felt I would slide overboard if I was not holding on. In rough seas, spray washes over the upper deck soaking everything. I always take my camera in a backpack which I can strap to some structure on the boat. Anything loose on the upper deck is likely to fall overboard. It is only safe to go up and down the ladder when the boat is stopped.
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I hope someone is paying attention to things I was unable to assess like communication and navigation equipment, testing of the life saving gear, and the emergency training of the crew. Observations like the above do not lead to confidence about other safety aspects.
I am not the only one to voice complaints about the Sandra K. A professional birding trip leader told me his company would not take clients on Wollongong Pelagics. I hope that my loud and direct complaints will get the sponsors to make some other arrangements because the birds are great. In the meantime each participant should consider their physical condition and boating experience and decide if they can participate.
July Pelagic
I arrived in
Wollongong a day before the pelagic. I drove down to the harbor to make sure I
knew where the boat docked and where I would be able to park. It was still dark
the next morning when I arrived. for the 7:30 AM departure.
The top
deck was the only comfortable seating and I perched up there and stayed there
for the duration of the trip. One really nice thing about the Sandra K is that
you can easily see over the rail on the top deck and you can bird sitting down
most of the time. It was a beautiful winter day and as the trip progressed it
became warm enough to shed my heavy coat. The sea was fairly calm, but the
Sandra K rocks pretty badly even on calm water.
Birds in the harbor
included: Little Blue Penguin ( my life bird), Australian Pelican,
Pied Cormorant. Shortly outside the harbor we had Common Dolphin, 4
Australian Wood Ducks, and the first Albatross.
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The Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche bassi is a new albatross for me. I have been to the Antarctic Peninsula, Midway Atoll, and Kaikoura, NZ and this is my 15th species of Albatross using the new taxonomy of 23 Albatross species. Some Australian birders are not happy about the new taxonomy and one birder on this trip was quite indignant whenever you talked about it.. The Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross appears to have no gray on the head in the field. |
We had Fairy Prions and Crested Tern before hitting a relatively quiet area. The regulars call this the Abysmal Plain. They know the birding will pick up after we get to the edge of the shelf. We are chumming with loose bait fish and always have a flock of gulls.
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The trips support the SOSSA "at sea" study program and from time to time the boat stops to capture and band some of the Albatross. Here leader Lindsay Smith examines a captured Albatross. Notice how lightly people are dressed on this warm winter day. The guy at the bottom is recording the data and band number. |
| Carefully and gently holding the bill closed, the bird is
banded. This was not our first or only Yellow-nosed on this trip. It is always
nice to see several individuals of a life bird. This banding occurred about 3
miles short of the shelf edge. The capture using a net attached to a long pole.
is very traumatic to the great birds. The banding should give information about the breeding locations of the birds seen off Wollongong. |
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Birding picked up with White-capped Albatross (Shy), Gibsons Albatross (Wandering), Slender-billed Prion, Providence Petrel ( Solander's Petrel), White-headed Petrel, Southern Giant Petrel, Brown Skua( see below for skua details.), Cape Petrel, Hutton's Shearwater, Fluttering Shearwater.
At some point in the afternoon, the captain and one other guy started fishing. Three large tuna could be seen circling the boat, but refused to take the bait. The captain would not give up. At first the birders were occupied with the birds around the boat, but as time dragged on we were getting impatient. Still the captain fished. Lindsay Smith started asking him to move on. Still he fished. Most of the birds had drifted off before he finally gave up. If birders have chartered the boat, it should be a birding trip not a fishing trip.
| Brown Skua According to Olson, the Brown Skua subspecies lonnbergi is the largest and most fierce of skuas. You are very likely to get good looks and to see several individuals on Wollongong pelagics at all times of the year. See Great Skua Nomenclature for a discussion of Skuas in the southern oceans. |
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September Pelagic
After the July pelagic, I was off see the central part of the country in August and then spent September in Queensland. I returned to Wollongong the end of September for a spring pelagic. This time my luck was not as good. The night before the winds were so high I parked Willy crosswise on the site to face into the wind. The wind tore the canvas annex from the camper next to me. I was sure the pelagic would be cancelled.
I arrived at the dock at 6:30 AM to find that it was on. This was an add on trip and it was not very full. Despite the high wind we took off. We were barely out of the harbor when we turned around and went back to the dock. One person aboard was too frightened and it just seemed reasonable to take her back. The rest of us doggedly went back out. The swells were at least 2m high and the Sandra K was rocking and rolling. Spray continually washed over the top deck and I was soon totally soaked. I wisely left my cameras ashore on this trip and didn't take my binocular out as they were of little use. I needed both hands to hold on at all times and besides they just got covered with salt spray as soon as I took them out.
The birds were good anyway. We had four albatrosses: Campbell Island (Black-browed), White-capped , Indian Yellow-nosed, Gibson's (Wandering). Brown Skua, Australasian Gannet, Whiskered Tern, Crested Tern, White-naped Tern, Fairy Prion, Antarctic Prion, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Short-tailed Shearwater, Sooty Shearwater.
The winds were so strong that the gulls instead of hanging over the wake, hung over the back of the boat. Soon everyone standing on the lower deck was covered with bird droppings. I stayed on the top deck until I had to come down to use the head. Instead of trying to climb back up the ladder I stayed below and got covered too. We returned to the dock at 1 PM. The trip cost AU$70. We did not go very far offshore and never made the continental shelf edge.
I went back to the campground and washed everything I had on including my winter coat. The wind was so strong that my clothes were dry in about an hour.
October Pelagic
After the September pelagic, I headed south to Tasmania, Phillips Island and the Wilson's Promontory returning to Wollongong for the October pelagic. This was my last week in Australia and my final Wollongong pelagic. History repeated itself and the night before there were high winds. The next morning at the dock even the captain wanted to cancel and said that he will not be able to make the shelf . There is another trip scheduled for the next day when conditions should be better. I decided to wait until the next day. Everyone else decides to go on the shortened trip and while they had a rough day they reported good birds.
The next morning was Sunday and the first day of daylight savings time in New South Wales. When you are traveling and not watching TV news you can miss the switch. I arrived at the dock about 6::00 to find people chasing a Common Koel singing from a tree above the parking lot. It was really 7AM. A group of 12 British birders was expected for this trip and they were not there yet so we waited aboard the boat . Perhaps they too had forgotten about daylight savings time or had underestimated the time it would take to drive to Wollongong from Sydney.
There was a good show on the dock to entertain us during the wait. During the night a small boat the Emily Rose had broken its mooring, drifted across the harbor and sunk next to the wharf. They attached large slings around the Emily Rose and by the time we returned a large crane had lifted her to the dock.
The Brits never did show and the trip had to run at a loss for SOSSA. What is important to visitors is that you can count on the Wollongong pelagics to run.
It was a beautiful sunny day and the winds have died down, but not the sea swells. Swells are waves caused by distant winds. We were in for a day of rocking and rolling and again did not make the shelf edge. October is late spring and Albatross are not expected on the spring and summer trips.
It was a good day for jaegers and we had three: Pomarine, Arctic (Parasitic), and Long-tailed. Also several Brown Skua.
We laid a slick on the water and attracted the first Storm-petrels of my trip. We had a good little flock of Wilson's Storm-petrels and at least 5 White-faced Storm-petrels. These White-faced Storm-petrels hung around bouncing over the slick. The White-faced we had off the coast of North America two summers ago paid no attention to our chum and moved quickly away from the boat. This leads to speculation that the Atlantic White-faced Storm-petrels may be very different from these birds.
We also had Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera formerly a subspecies of the Westland Petrel. Also Providence Petrel, Fluttering, Sooty, Flesh-footed, Wedge-tailed, Short-Tailed Shearwaters.
The next morning a Common Koel was singing its monotonous song in the bushes outside my camper.
Great Skua Nomenclature
Not only will you have trouble sorting out the Albatross species, but you may find that pelagic guides in Australia identify the most common skua as a Great Skua. More general seabird references use the common name Great Skua to refer to the northern hemisphere Catharacta which breeds around Iceland and Greenland and according to Olson is a short distance migrant in the Atlantic Ocean. The skua downunder is the skua called Brown Skua by Olsen and Larson and Antarctic Skua by Harrison. The following table will help you sort out the nomenclature of this bird. As you see there is not even agreement about the latin name with the Australian books using the Catharacta skua latin name. Sibley and Monroe actually treat the lonnbergi subspecies as a full species called Subantarctic Skua.
An American cannot hope to argue with the Australians about nomenclature of the skuas. Indeed many Australian birders dislike Sibley and Monroe and refuse to recognize the subdivisions of the Albatross species. Best to keep your silence and your own bird list.
| Birds of Australia Simpson and Day 1996 |
Great Skua | Catharacta skua lonnbergi |
| Field Guide to Australian Birds Morcombe 2000 Checklist of the Birds of Australia Hicks |
Great Skua | Catharacta skua |
| Field Guide to New Zealand Seabirds Brian Parkinson 2000 The Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand Robertson & Heather 2001 |
Brown Skua | Catharacta skua |
| Seabirds An Identification Guide Harrison 1983 |
Antarctic Skua | Catharacta antarctica |
| Skuas and Jaegers A Guide to the Skuas and Jaegers of the World Olsen and Larsson1997 | Brown Skua | Catharacta antarctica lonnbergi |
| Sibley and Monroe | Subantarctic Skua | Catharacta lonnbergi |
Reservations For Australian Pelagics
| Sponsor/ Dates | Phone | Internet |
| Wollongong | ||
| SOSSA Lindsay Smith 4th Saturday of each month additional trips are organized at popular times of the year. AU$65 |
Phone 02 4271 6004. | Email:
sossa@ozemail.com.au
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~sossa/ |
| Sydney - | ||
| Tony Palliser 2nd Saturday of each month |
Ph; 02-99001678 (w), 02-94115272 (h) o 0416 095875 (mobile) |
http://users.bigpond.net.au/palliser/pelagic/ palliser@zip.com.au |
| Eden | ||
| Barbara Jones 5th Sunday of some months . Eden is on the coast south of Wollongong |
Ph (02) 6495 7390 | dbjones@acr.net.au |
| Brisbane | ||
| Paul Walbridge South Queensland |
07 3391 8839 | prion@powerup.com.au |
| Port Fairy | ||
| Mike Carter West of Melbourne on the west end of the Great Ocean Road |
03 9787 7136 | pterodroma@bigpond.com |
| Newcastle | ||
| Richard Baxter North of Sydney on east coast |
02 4959 0212 mobile: 0412 540 212 |
randrbaxter@uahood.com |
| Perth | ||
| Frank O'Connor Western Australia- west coast |
08 9386 5694 | foconnor@iinet.net.au |
Other Contacts:
Captain Carl Loves - Sandra K Phone: 0427 423
500 fishing@wollongong.hotkey.net.au
Pete Milburn:
Mobile 0428 249 506, 02 6255 1313 (AH) or 02 6125 4173 (BH)
Peter.Milburn@anu.edu.au
Accommodations in Wollongong
Fairy Meadow is a suburb of Wollongong on the north side. The Fairy Meadow Surf and Leisure Resort on the beach just north of a large public park is really a sort of low rise condominium complex. Most residents seemed to be permanent, but I know they do rent cabins. There is an indoor 25 m swimming pool used by a swim school in the afternoon, but open to residents, club members, and campers the rest of the day. They have a large amenities block with toilets, showers, and laundry. There are a number of powered camp sites on the ocean side of the resort. In summer it is probably necessary to make reservations. I found plenty of space there in July, September, and October. It takes about 5 minutes to drive to the Sandra K dock at the municipal harbor and the office printed a map with directions for me.
There are 2 beach campgrounds further south along the highway at Kiama. I stayed twice in Kiama both times at the Big Four campground on the southern outskirts. Kiama is a very nice little town with a train that goes all the way to Sydney. I actually spent my last two nights in Australia in this campground cleaning up the campervan and mailing some stuff home before going into Sydney to turn in the campervan and fly to New Zealand.
The Barron Grounds Bird Observatory is within driving distance of Wollongong and I met some people on the pelagic who stayed there.
Thomas and Thomas say that they spent the night camped on the dock at the municipal boat harbor. I did not see any toilets on the side of the dock near the Sandra K berth, but there were public toilets in the park across the harbor. Perhaps you could park in the lot of the park overnight.
There are hotels and a youth hostel in Wollongong.
| Wollongong Pelagic Trips |