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On My Own - Australia and New Zealand 2002 Emmalee Tarry |
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Wollongong Pelagic Trips |
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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 Prior, 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.
End Wollongong Pelagic Trips
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