|
Red-footed Booby |
We've just returned
from a week-long South Pacific cruise aboard P&O's Pacific
Dawn. Gusty northerlies in Brisbane delayed departure from the
Hamilton cruise terminal by 7 hours which meant missing our first
port of call, Noumea in New Caledonia - no great loss as we've been
there before. Our two other landings – the New Caledonian island of
Lifou and Port Vila, Vanuatu – are the subject of a separate post.
|
Red-footed Booby |
|
Red-footed Booby |
Typically for
tropical sea cruises, it was not unusual for several hours to pass
without a single seabird showing. Easily the commonest bird at sea
was Wedge-tailed Shearwater, which was nonetheless scarce for much of
the time in the Coral Sea, but abundant in waters around New
Caledonia and Vanuatu.
|
Wedge-tailed Shearwater |
Another problem was that our approaches to
land were at night, so while at sea we were generally in very deep
water.
|
Red-footed Booby - intermediate phase (L) light phase (R) |
The second commonest
bird was Red-footed Booby, which first showed in Australian
territorial waters on the first day and was a regular presence around
the ship. As many as 20 boobies would be wheeling around the vessel,
trying to catch flying fish which skimmed across the water as they
were disturbed by the boat. About two-thirds of the boobies were dark phase and a third pale phase, with many showing
characteristics of both phases.
|
Red-footed Booby - juvenile |
|
Flying fish |
|
Masked Booby |
I also saw just one
Masked Booby, about 20nm north of New Caledonia.
|
Brown Booby |
Two Brown Boobies
rounded out the booby haul.
|
Sooty Tern |
Sooty Terns were
common throughout. I saw 3 White-tailed
Tropicbirds and 2 Red-tailed Tropicbirds scattered across the voyage
but all were distant and these lousy images were all that I managed.
A big disadvantage of cruise ship seabirding is the generally
considerable distance between the observer and birds, but birds were
not the primary reason for this trip.
|
White-tailed Tropicbird |
|
Red-tailed Tropicbird |
I saw just 4
Pterodroma petrels: 2 Gould's Petrels and 2 that were too far
to be identified, with none offering a picture opportunity. Apart
from the spectacular antics of the Red-footed Boobies, the highlight
of the trip was a White Tern in the Coral Sea on the last day in
Australian territorial waters – 24.6797S; 155.5082E – 115nm east
of Fraser Island. Unfortunately, as the image shows, the bird was typically distant. I've tried without success to enter this sighting on ebird; for some reason it will not accept any starting time.
|
WhiteTern |
No comments:
Post a Comment