1 to 3 Dec 2023
THE PETREL STATION MULTI-DAY TOUR REPORT
3 DAYS --> 37 SEABIRD SPECIES --> 180,000 SEABIRDS!!
That's what happened when 8 super keen Australian seabirders came over to NZ last week and did 3 days of back to back pelagic seabird charter tours out to The Petrel Station (offshore from Tutukaka, Northland, New Zealand) … an outstanding result and everyone (including me) was buzzing after the 3 days were over :)
Each day offered up different conditions: Day 1 was fine with light SW winds and small swell, Day 2 was 10-12k Easterly winds, and Day 3 delivered 15knot Northerly winds and 1.4m swell. This delivered up a wonderfully varied range of seabirds across the 3 days including some scarcer ones like South Polar Skua, Mottled Petrel and Black-winged Petrel to name a few.
Aside for the 37 species (see full tour report list below) a highlight for all on board were the massive feeding workups Fairy Prion and Buller's Shearwater that were seen on each day - up to 50,000 at once!! They really are a spectacle to witness
Another highlight for me was a stunning Southern Royal Albatross which was a new seabird species for The Petrel Station – we've now recorded 68 seabird species (of which 51 are tube-nose species) to date, and it really highlights this area as one of the world's most diverse seabird locations 😁
A huge thanks to the Aussie crew for coming over just to do this - it was such a pleasure getting out on the ocean with you all to see the stunning NZ seabirds, and I'm so happy the 3 days were such a great success - I'll see some of you on next years tour :)
The 3 days back to back was so much fun I might make it an annual event ... or maybe do it over whole a week long :) If you've great a group of people keen to do a 3 day charter tour like this then get in touch for an extended adventure of sea birding madness :) Or if you’re interested in coming out on our 1 day pelagic seabird tours to The Petrel Station then check out the upcoming tour dates and get in touch – it’s always a great day out.
Here’s the full tour results from the 3 days:
Numbers in brackets indicates how many seen on each of the 3 days.
Seabirds seen:
1 x Southern Royal Albatross (0,0,1)
2 x Northern Royal Albatross (0,0,2)
3 x Antipodean Albatross (ssp. Gibsons) (1,0,2)
1 x Antipodean Albatross (ssp. Antipodean) (0,0,1)
5 x White-capped Mollymawk (0,5,0)
3 x Salvin's Mollymawk (0,2,1)
1 x Black-browed Mollymawk (0,0,1)
3 x Northern Giant Petrel (0,0,3)
58,850 x Fairy Prion (56,000, 1,250, 1,600)
411 x Cook's Petrel (67, 154, 190)
18 x Pycroft's Petrel (1,6,11)
6 x Black-winged Petrel (0,4,2)
5 x Mottled Petrel (0,4,1)
7 x Grey-faced Petrel (0,4,3)
51 x Black Petrel (13,18,20)
115,500 x Buller's Shearwater (8,000, 52,500, 55,000)
2,600 x Fluttering Shearwater (2,350, 50, 200)
1 x Hutton's Shearwater (0,1,0)
16 x Little Shearwater (1, 9, 6)
267 x Flesh-footed Shearwater (48, 59, 160)
13 x Sooty Shearwater (3,4,6)
25 x Short-tailed Shearwater (9,8,8)
105 x White-faced Storm-Petrel (35,44,26)
19 x New Zealand Storm-Petrel (3,7,9)
3 x Wilson's Storm-Petrel (1,0,2)
370 x Common Diving Petrel (250,60,60)
2 x Little Blue Penguin (1,1,0)
1 x South Polar Skua (1,0,0)
2 x Arctic Skua (1,1,0)
1 x Grey Noddy (1,0,0)
1,380 x Australasian Gannet (1,350, 18, 12)
1 x Caspian Tern (0,1,0)
1 x White-fronted Tern (1,0,0)
1,762 x Red-billed Gull (1,600, 56, 106)
10 x Black-backed Gull (3,1,6)
152 x Pied Shag (52, 53, 47)
1 x Little Pied Shag (0,0,1)
2 x Little Black Shag (0,1,1)
Other marine life included:
12+ x Orca (12,0,0)
2 x Bronze Whaler Shark (2,0,0)
1 x Hammerhead Shark (1,0,0)
1 x Blue Shark (1,0,0)
2 x Mako Shark (0,1,1)
2 x Sunfish (1,0,1)
4 x Flying Fish (2,1,1)
Huge schools of tens/hundreds of thousands of Trevally and Slimy Mackerel fish in the various feeding workups