5 Nov 2023
THE PETREL STATION TRIP REPORT
Had a great day out on the latest pelagic seabird tour to The Petrel Station, offshore from Tutukaka (in Northland, New Zealand). Conditions on the day were fine, 1-1.5m swell, and light 7-10 knot S winds.
On the day I had some 'user-generated' camera issues so unfortunately I only managed a few decent shots ... and here's one of them ... showing the massive feeding workups of Fairy Prion that we encountered – at the time this shot was taken there would have been a similar number on the other side of the boat!!! There's was something like of 50,000+ Fairy Prion around us!
We also had a Grey Noddy (Ternlet) show up - this is very early as they usually don't start turning up for the summer season for another 4 weeks or so!
During the trip we saw 25 different seabird species, and enjoyed watching nearly 80,000 stunning seabirds in total! See the full trip list below.
If you’re interested in coming out 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 trip results from the day:
Seabirds seen:
1 x Wandering Albatross (Gibsons)
2 x Campbell Mollymawk
2 x Salvin's Mollymawk
15 x White-capped Mollymawk
1 x Northern Giant Petrel
60,000 x Fairy Prion
40 x Cook's Petrel
1 x Pycroft's Petrel
8 x Black Petrel
8,000 x Buller's Shearwater
8,000 x Fluttering Shearwater
3 x Little Shearwater
4 x Sooty Shearwater
80 x Flesh-footed Shearwater
8 x New Zealand Storm Petrel
23 x White-faced Storm Petrel
2 x Wilson's Storm Petrel
1,000 x Common Diving Petrel
3 x Little Blue Penguin
1 x Grey Noddy
1,400 x Australasian Gannet
850 x Red-billed Gull
5 x Black-backed Gull
30 x Pied Shag
1 x Little Black Shag
Other marine life included:
15 x Long-finned Pilot Whales
9 x Bottlenose Dolphin
20 x Common Dolphin
8 x NZ Fur Seal
1 x Huge Mako Shark jumped and somersaulted right out of water!
1 x Huge Blue Shark