Trip Report

Napier ‘mini’ pelagic – 12 December 2005

Spent the day out birding off Napier, whilst under the guise of a fisherman. Saw some good birds and even managed to get a feed of fish! Not a lot of bird activity for much of the day, being in reasonably close with maximum water depth of 60m. Stopped at two main locations, with the common birds being what would be expected, however, a BLACK PETREL right beside the boat amongst the flesh-footeds was a surprise!

Salvin’s alb 1-2
White-capped alb 1
Buller’s alb 1-2
Northern giant petrel 2
Cook’s petrel 2
BLACK PETREL 1
Fluttering shear 10+
Buller’s shear 5+
Flesh-footed shear 30+
Sooty shear 5+ (1 probable short-tail)

We then headed in and located a huge flock of 500+ gannets feeding amongst a school of kahawai – probably the most spectacular display of diving I have ever seen. Amongst them were 30+ fluttering shearwaters and at least 2 Arctic skua, with one Cape petrel.
BRENT