The Deskbound Birder: Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia

Sunday, 27 December 2015

Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia - 27th November (Day 17)

Today was a day I had been looking forward to for some time, our pelagic from Noumea. We met with Vincent Ventrella (vincent-ventrella@live.fr) whose boat we had chartered. We paid Vincent 90, 000 CFP (£556) for the full day, Vincent supplied 20 litres of chum for the trip which I had provided some guidance on and we added bran flakes and cod liver oil, the latter we had brought from the UK. Vincent was very well organised and professional and his boat was fast and stable and ideal for the trip. It took around one hour to steam out across the reef (known as the lagoon) to the deeper water where it became somewhat rough as the boat powered out to sea. We travelled south-east from Noumea, past the island of Ile Ouen. The lagoon supported species such as Black Noddy (we saw an estimated 800 during the course of the day), Wedge-tailed Shearwater (500), Bridled Tern and Roseate Tern. We headed eastwards out past the reef edge and into deeper water where we deployed the first load of chum using approximately half of it. We stayed with this slick for around 1.5 hours and attracted at least three Wilson's Storm-petrel, up to five White-winged Petrel and a single Tahiti Petrel. We then headed a little closer to the reef edge seeing further White-winged Petrel (23 in total), Tahiti Petrel (five in total), a single White-necked Petrel and five Short-tailed Shearwater. We chummed in this area but with little success but for a Red-tailed Tropicbird high over the boat. Having decided that this chumming session was going to be unsuccessful, I believe we were too close to the reef edge, we decided to head back to the harbour birding occasionally en-route, we passed many Wedge-tailed Shearwater heading back towards the harbour, presumably they breed on offshore islands. Highlight, at last light was a small shoal where hundreds of Roseate Tern were roosting and displaying. We arrived back at the harbour in the dark after a fantastic day.

Route of pelagic, the marker to the east shows our main chumming area (-22.37074, 167.3214)

Vincent's boat

The crew on-board

Terns (Greater Crested Tern, Roseate Tern and Black-naped Tern) in Noumea Harbour, New Caledonia

Roseate Terns with Black-naped Tern to left - Noumea Harbour, New Caledonia

Roseate terns with Black-naped Terns (11), note the left hand Roseate Tern is colour ringed and appears to have a white ring with a flag on the right leg - Noumea Harbour, New Caledonia