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

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