KIAMA PELAGIC

Plans were already in hand for me to do my annual Kiama pilgrimage hoping for a White-necked Petrel, when I unexpectedly saw not one but two White-necked Petrels off Southport earlier in the month. Of course I still wanted to go to Kiama. Who wouldn't? We left on Wednesday and had a liesurely drive to Gundagai. The bird of the day was an Oriental Dollarbird, sitting high up on a dead tree, giving us great views. On Thursday, we drove to Gerroa, where our cabin had a first floor balcony, allowing us to admire Australasian Figbirds at eye height in the adjacent palm trees. The bird of the day was a very beautiful young Pacific Koel, also at eye height in a palm tree.

All the beautiful photos on this page were taken by Ken Haines. The other birdy highlight on Thursday was a visit to Jerrara Dam. The birding was so good that we went back again on Friday. There were Silvereyes and whipbirds, Beautiful and Red-browed Firetails, Eastern Yellow Robins and Crimson Rosellas, Black-faced Monarchs and Leaden Flycatchers, Grey Butcherbirds and Australian Golden Whistlers, and lots of Red-whiskered Bulbuls. There were several Lewin's Honeyeaters, but the only other honeyeaters we saw were a couple of Eastern Spinebills and just one New Holland and just one White-cheeked. Likewise, I saw just one Australian Reed Warbler. There were Superb Fairywrens and White-browed Scrubwrens. Most exciting (for me at least) were Topknot Pigeons, a bird I don't see often enough. We could see swans, swamphens and moorhens on the dam below. Not a bad list at all. We visited Bomaderry Creek looking for Rockwarbler. Alas, the only bird we saw or heard was a Red Wattlebird. Last year we had been unsuccessful at Bomaderry Creek too. I wonder if the Rockwarblers are still there? They are certainly not as common and easily seen as they used to be. We went to Spring Creek Wetlands, which accommodated a large colony of very noisy flying foxes. There were also Satin Bowerbirds and bulbuls, but not much else. And we went to the mouth of the Broken River, hoping for Little Terns. All we saw for our effort was Silver Gulls.

Saturday's pelagic, aboard 'Kato', was great. I had not realized just how much my recent Kiama pelagics have been influenced by my overwhelming desire (obsession?) to see a White-necked Petrel. With this bird happily on my list, I could sit back and enjoy myself. I really didn't care what we did or didn't see. What we did see were lots of shearwaters (Flesh-footed, Wedge-tailed and Short-tailed), some Grey-faced Petrels, at least one Kermadec, a couple of jaegers and at least one Wilson's Storm Petrel. We had great views of a Wandering Albatross and difficult sightings of one Black Petrel. I say difficult, because I for one, thought it looked exactly like the Flesh-footed Shearwaters beside it. Until I saw its black feet, I could not tell the difference, even when the birds were right in front of me.

And then, beleive it or not, we saw (again) not one, but two, White-necked Petrels! What is the chance of that! With a couple of terns and seagulls, I recorded a total of 16 species for the day. Others saw more. But I was extremely happy with my White-necked Petrel. The Wandering Albatross and the Black Petrel were icing on the cake. I will certainly return to do more Kiama pelagics, but I will no longer be driven to undertaken an annual summer pilgrimage. That, at least, is behind me.

The problem with setting targets is that you might not meet them! I did not achieve my target of seeing 100 new birds in February (after I'd seen 100 in January). I think I would have made it had I managed to visit Werribee. For a variety of reasons, I did not get there. However, I'm hoping to get there next week, so we will see if I can top up my total to 200 birds for the year. I am presently sitting on 175. Wish me luck!