A.W.Birder: Always on the lookout for fine birds...: South Australia Pelagic Trips 2019

Thursday, 26 December 2019

South Australia Pelagic Trips 2019

After returning to the UK from South America for the 2019 British Bird Fair I headed over to Australia where I'd spend the final 4 months of the year (with about a month in New Zealand thrown in the middle). I had some pretty amazing tours lined up covering a large proportion of this great birding country (updates on those coming soon)...... but for now lets concentrate on the amazing seabirds on offer...

During my time in Australia I took two pelagic trips off Port MacDonnell, South Australia, one in August and the other in November. Both were very different but equally rewarding. In August the birds were very hungry and sat off the back of the boat feeding and there were a couple of rarities in with them (like Blue Petrel and Slender-billed Prion) and a couple of unseasonable species (e.g. Buller's Albatross). November was very different as the birds were just not hungry (apparently some fishing trawlers had been working the area!) but despite that there were a lot of birds present, just not hanging around our boat so much. We still had plenty of great birds such as White-headed Petrel and Soft-plumaged Petrel and Skuas/Jaegers were very much present with Arctic, Long-tailed, and Pomarine all photographed.

Full lists can be found on my ebird checklists linked below:

August 2019: https://ebird.org/checklist/S59407938
November 2019: https://ebird.org/checklist/S61733424

I can't recommend these trips highly enough and can't wait to try and get on some trips in 2020! Here are a few photographic highlights from my two 2019 trips....