BirdingNZ.net

Awesome day out at the 'Petrel Station' yesterday on the Tutukaka Pelagic Seabird trip with 8 of us venturing out via the Poor Knight Islands to the explore the deep beyond. Conditions were very strong NW winds blowing (around 20-25+ knots) and 2-2.5 metre swells.

Despite these great conditions nothing out of the ordinary turned up but the regulars put on a great show for us. Highlight was approx 90 Grey-faced petrels and lots of Fairy prions that were flying and soaring everywhere round and round the boat (often within a metre of us) for most of the time at the chum spot which was a stunning sight.

We had such a fantastic chum and bird setup going, that if any birds had been in the area they would have had to come for a look to see what was going on. Some Cooks turned up every now and then, and the 4 Molly species put on their usual impressive displays, but it was the general chaos of the scene that was so spectacular.

Unfortunately the Sunday trip of the Tutukaka double weekend was cancelled (due to bad weather).

During the trip we saw 17 different seabird species.

Cheers Scott
021 322 324 | scott@ourspot.nz

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So here’s the full trip results:
5 x White-capped mollymawk
2 x Black-browed mollymawk
1 x Campbells mollymawk
1 x Buller's mollymawk
1 x Northern Giant petrel
200+ x Fairy prion
75 x Fluttering shearwater
10 x Little shearwater
10 x Cook's pretrel
90+ x Gray-faced petrel
1 x White-faced storm petrel
80 x Common diving petrel
500 x Gannet
43 x Pied shag
1 x Little black shag
25 x Red-billed gull
6 x Black-backed gull

Other bird and marine life on the Poor Knights Islands:
38 x NZ Fur seals
2 x Kingfisher
3 x Wood pigeon
1 x Poor Knights bellbird
3 x red-crowned parakeet
7 x Starling
4 x Swallow
3 x Harrier

Thanks again Scott, great trip. Highlight for me was the chance to inspect so many Grey-faced in the air up close and see the minor differences

Here a couple of photos from the trip

Here are a couple of Mollymawks photos from the trip

Bullers Mollymawk from Saturday.

This was a great trip - thanks to Scott for organising, and it was great to meet some of the people from the forum!

I'm only just now looking back through my photos, and am wondering if there's any way we can make this black-browed mollymawk into a Campbell's (apologies for the poor photo quality)? I believe it is the same individual as the one in Mike's photo above. There was some talk about this being a young Campbell's while on the boat, but we were leaning towards black-browed. Any thoughts, or are the photos ultimately inconclusive?

Cheers,

Warwick

Hi Warwick,

I think it was me who suggested it was a Campbell, and I stand by the comment. It differs from a black browed juvenile of the same age by having a two-tonal eye. Which even at this young age (probably 2 or 3 cy bird) is diagnostic even if the facial and underwing patterns aren’t fully developed.

Does this shot help?

Excellent - thank you David and Mike for your help in identifying the bird. I just noticed that a Campbell's was on the trip list, which I must have overlook before.

The bird in Mike Vincent's photo is a first year bird (fledged in April 2019). All the dark feathers are exactly the same age and have no obvious wear showing. The only time in an albatrosses life it has feathers the same age are in the first year of life. After that the plumage gets mixed up as they have incomplete wing moult with only some primaries and coverts moulting each year and the same on other upper wing feathers.

The slim looking head and hint of honey colour in the eye in one of the other images rather than fully brown eye strongly suggests it is a juvenile Campbell albatross. They are regularly caught as bycatch in the northern seas of New Zealand. Nice images.