Eaglehawk Neck is a sliver of land barely a few hundred metres wide that divides the Tasman peninsula, SE of Hobart, into two larger land masses. The scenery here is dominated by Australia’s highest sea cliffs, which are topped by temperate wet schlerophyll forest. Nikki and I visited in January and admired the Tesselated Pavement, Tasman Arch and the Blowhole, as well as the pristine beaches here and further south.
But in addition to its spectacular scenery, Eaglehawk Neck has over the last decade or two become famous in birding circles as arguably the spot for the best pelagic trips in Australia. I’ve done many trips out of Port MacDonnell in South Australia where I have seen most of the regular species (which include world-bucket-list birds like exulans Wandering Albatross), but seeing lifers from Port Mac has become a much less regular occurrence. So when Paul Brooks advertised on Facebook that as a result of a late cancellation, there was a space available on a trip on 27th Feb, I was sorely tempted (especially since 3 weeks earlier they’d had one of the most spectactular trips ever, seeing NZ Storm Petrel and Amsterdam Albatross, as well as several potential lifer pterodromas). Amazingly, when I checked the family calendar I was not committed to anything this weekend. And there was availability on the (relatively) cheap Jetstar flights on Saturday evening to get there and Sunday evening to come home. And Nikki was unfazed when I suggested it. This had to be a sign! I confirmed with Paul and most unexpectedly I was looking forward to a whistle-stop trip to Tasmania.
I arrived into Hobart as the sun was setting, Saturday evening and stayed overnight in a quaint and comfortable loft room in the Sorrell Barracks, only about 10 minutes from Hobart Airport. I would happily stay here again but sleep-walkers should avoid: check out those stairs!
My rendezvous with Paul the following morning, as he passed through from Hobart on his way to Eaglehawk Neck, was very conveniently at Banjo’s Bakery, a mere 200m away from the barracks. I grabbed a coffee and a tasty treat for breakfast, and a sandwich to stash in my bag for lunch. Soon after 6am Paul and I and fellow sea-birder Murray Lord were on our way south to EHN.
Once boarded on the Pauletta, we ploughed slowly out to sea in choppy seas under overcast skies.
Birds were initially few and far between until we reached a an area where several hundred (at least) Short-tailed Shearwaters were zipping back and forth across the seas. An excited shout went up as we came across a pair of Buller’s Shearwater. These would actually prove to be fairy common with birds seen everywhere we went, with perhaps 30 or more different birds over the 8 hours we were at sea.
Buller’s Albatross are one of the prettiest mollymawks and also one of the commonest off Eaglehawk at this time of year. We get them off Port Mac also, but usually only in ones or twos. Today we saw around 7-8, and I spent some time trying to get reasonable shots, despite the poor conditions for photography.
White-chinned Petrels were one of the commoner species round the boat for most of the day. In fact when we pulled up at our first spot just over the shelf, at least two settled on the water behind the boat before we had even started to berley. These birds clearly were already accustomed to Pauletta’s visits! In fact they seemed to outnumber Grey-faced Petrels, a few of which put in appearances.
My first lifer of the day came as the weather deteriorated and Paul called a Gould’s Petrel. It was distant, and even through bins in the misty air and boat bobbing about on choppy seas I struggled to get the kind of self-diagnosed ID that I could be satisfied with for a lifer. This kind of performance turned out to be typical for Gould’s on the day — sweeping past the boat at some range, rarely coming closer. Fortunately we saw enough of them — probably more than 20 — for me eventually to get sufficiently good views for a satisfactory identification, and even a distant but unequivocal record shot.
For most of the day we were joined by small numbers of each of White-faced, Wilson’s and Grey-backed Storm Petrels. I’d not positioned myself very well for pics, and I’ve seen dozens (even hundreds) of each off Port Mac, but eventually tried to get at least record shots of each for the trip.
Mid-morning, the birding seemed to have settled into a fairly consistent pattern and I was not seeing anything new for the day. I happened to be gazing out the port side with Mona Loofs-Samorzerwski (a stalwart of these trips, and also the Tasmanian Birdlife Twitchathon organiser) when a small bird, dark above and white below buzzed across the surface before disappearing completely behind a wave: Common Diving Petrel! A nice addition to my Australian list (I’d seen on off Stewart Island, NZ in 2010). Of course it was way too fast for photos.
It got better — Paul joined us and as we gazed out to port again, a pterodroma which we initially assumed to be another Gould’s tracked straight towards the boat. I was looking forward to nice close views of a Gould’s when Paul exclaimed: “White-necked Petrel“. there was much excitement on the boat because this was only the second record off Eaglehawk neck of a bird that is usually found in much warmer waters. It gave a very nice close pass of the boat and those who were concentrating on photography (and, let’s face it, much better photographers than me) got excellent shots of the beauty. I grilled with bins for most of its pass, anxious to take in as much detail live as a I could and keen not to miss stuff because I was grappling with camera; I only switched to photos as it started to drift away. Even so, my record shot is unequivocal. This sighting also justified my trip — I was keen for pterodroma lifers and if I’d left with just distant Gould’s (however many) to show for my efforts I think I would have been disappointed.
Late in the day out first big albies arrived, with a pair of Southern Royal and a lone Gibson’s (NZ Wanderer) Albatross arriving.
We noted a few interesting birds on the way back, especially as we tracked through the big flock of Short-tailed Shearwaters again. We found more Buller’s Shearwaters, then a shout went up for Little Shearwater, and I was just in time to see it shearing through the wake of the Pauletta.
As I gazed out to port another bird, greyer on the back than the Short-tailed Shearwaters grabbed my attention and I called out “Another Buller’s”, but then as it banked I realised it was something even better: I could clearly see dark carpal bars on an otherwise fairly clean while body and underwings. “Pterodroma” I called and I tried to track it as best I could despite it moving rapidly in the opposite direction to our travel. I thought at one point I saw a white collar, and called out White-necked. This would also be consistent with the apparent size of the bird that seemed closer to Buller’s Shearwater (which I had initially mistaken it for) than Gould’s. But I also felt I saw a fairly large dark gray hood, and perhaps those bars were more solid than White-necked’s. Were it not for rarity value and that size inconsistency, I might even be tempted to think Black-winged Petrel (they had only their second ever in EHN in Jan, but La Nina and global warning are causing strange things to happen in the Tasman Sea), but in the end the only firm conclusion can be pterodroma sp. Disappointingly it got away.
A Brown Skua and a couple of Artic Jaegers closer to shore enlivened the last part of the trip.
By 16.30 we were ashore and Paul ad dropped me at Hobart Airport with a mere 4 hours to kill before my flight home. Whisper it quietly, but the whole trip had cost me about the same as a drive down to Port Mac, overnight and boat trip for a Port Mac pelagic (especially given current fuel prices at $2/litre) and I’d actually been away from home for less time!
Official ebird list here
