Blue petrel, thin-billed prions - Otago Canyons

[Oscar Thomas]

A memorable encounter today with some southern seabirds on my charter out to the underwater Otago Canyons. A beautiful blue petrel, two thin-billed prions, a white-headed petrel, a grey petrel and a friendly fulmar! My first encounter with the former two species in the Otago region and the first local records since 2017 and 2018 respectively. Antarctic fulmars show up each winter but we've never had such a cooperative one before. Also of note were at least two Northern Buller's albatross.

Species day estimates:
16 Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi
20 Southern Royal Albatross Diomedea epomophora
40 Southern Buller's Albatross Thalassarche b. bulleri
2 Northern Buller's Albatross Thalassarche b. platei
20 White-capped Albatross Thalassarche cauta
1 Salvin's Albatross Thalassarche salvini
4 Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris
1 Grey-backed Storm-Petrel Garrodia nereis
3 Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli
1 Antarctic Fulmar Fulmarus glacialoides
115 Cape Petrel Daption capense
1 Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea
5 Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica
1 White-headed Petrel Pterodroma lessonii
1 BLUE PETREL Halobaena caerulea
30 Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur
2 THIN-BILLED PRION Pachyptila belcheri
1 Australasian Gannet Morus serrator
3 Little Pied Shag Microcarbo melanoleucos
1 Spotted Shag Phalacrocorax punctatus
200 Otago Shag Leucocarbo chalconotus
2 Little Penguin Eudyptula minor
303 Silver Gull Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae
93 Southern Black Backed Gull Larus dominicanus
7 Black-fronted Tern Chlidonias albostriatus
6 White-fronted Tern Sterna striata
1 South Island Pied Oystercatcher (SIPO) Haematopus finschi
1 Variable Oystercatcher Haematopus unicolor
15 Black Swan Cygnus atratus
1 Dusky Dolphin Lagenorhynchus obscurus
3 New Zealand Arctocephalus forsteri
2 New Zealand Sea Lion Phocarctos hookeri

eBird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/259351