Lord Howe Island Nature Tours

naturalist • tour guide • author • photographer • museum curator • researcher

Ian's Blogg

New Bird record for Lord Howe Island.

On Good Friday 2008, during a seabird cruise to Balls Pyramid as part of Birdweek Lord Howe Island, Ian Hutton and Jack Shick sighted a Tahiti Petrel. This is the first record from the Lord Howe Island area.

Jack had stopped his boat Noctiluca half way to the Pyramid to berley up seabirds when amongst the dozens of Flesh footed shearwaters, a dark petrel, with belly white to the upper chest where a clear cut line changes to the black head appeared. The bird circled the boat numerous times over 20 minutes and all on board had a good view. the accompanying photograph conforms the sighting.

Sixteen people took part in the March Birdweek, coming from Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Victoria and New Zealand. The weather was kind and all the best birding spots were visited. Apart from the Ball's Pyramid trip, the highlight for most people was North Bay day. Here we enjoyed close company of Back and Brown noddy juveniles coming close to inspect us. Grey ternlets put on a good show at the Old Gulch, as did the Red-tailed Tropicbirds. A good low tide gave us great views of Bar-tailed Godwits and Pacfic Golden plovers starting to change into breeding plumage; along with Red-necked stints, Ruddy turnstones, Double banded plovers and a Grey-tailed tattler.

	Bar-tailed godwits at North Bay
	Enjoying Red-tailed tropicbirds close up
	Providence petrels
	The 16 who enjoyed aweek of fine birding on Birdweek Lord Howe Island
	Tahiti petrel off Lord Howe Island