Vagrants, Pirates, Storm Riders… Ocean Wanderers

By Keith Hutton on May 17, 2013 in Other

It’s May already! Summer seems long gone and the days are noticeably shorter. Cold stiff breezes are more regular and frequent again, and the warm waters off the coast are receding north. Any cool changes now will be colder as the weakening sun and cooling sea increase their influence over our weather for the next four months or so.

Humpback Whales will soon be migrating north to breed and many seabirds, including albatrosses, giant petrels and whale birds from the Southern Ocean, will move into milder areas such as the southern coastal waters of Australia. More than fifty species of seabirds can be seen regularly off the coast around Sydney. Some pass through on their annual migrations and many of them visit in winter to escape the severe cold further south. There are wanderers that visit in the hot months too, but not all of them come every year.

Last summer was remarkable for the numbers of tropical seabirds that turned up in our region close to shore on wild and stormy days. Severe cyclones off the Queensland coast produce the conditions that result in oceanic seabirds from the tropics being driven into Sydney’s bays and headlands by powerful onshore gales. They are usually in small numbers, sometimes alone, but occasionally in significant flocks. Red-tailed and White-tailed Tropicbirds, with a few Common and Black Noddies, were seen in January and February this year on a number of days in the worst weather, and one loose flock of Sooty Terns numbered at least 150 birds; there were also sightings of delicate and diminutive White Terns. On some memorable occasions, spectacular, piratical Lesser Frigatebirds – kleptoparasitic masters of the air – were seen harassing other visitors. All these tropical seabirds breed on Pacific islands or the Great Barrier Reef and are seldom seen so close to land in Australian waters this far south.

In addition to tropical vagrants and a few albatrosses, which are much less common in summer than in winter in coastal waters off New South Wales, there were Arctic, Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaegers off Maroubra in good numbers in January and February this year too. These birds are wide ranging predators not unlike frigatebirds in their parasitic foraging behaviour. They breed in arctic regions and migrate annually to oceans and offshore waters of southern continents for the duration of the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Sydney is a great place to see spectacular ocean wildlife from some of the best viewing places in New South Wales. Ease of access is improving as work on the coastal walk progresses south. However, you may need to be dressed in all-weather clothing, or watching over the ocean from inside a strategically parked car, even in summer, to take advantage of the best opportunities in the wildest conditions. Nevertheless, you will be able to experience rare, amazing and rewarding natural events as a consequence without the need to travel too far.