WA Big Year 2024: Bremer Canyon
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross
I remember when I was little, I had a book about the animals of the Arctic. Me and my brothers poured over it. It was one of those fantastic books with cut outs that went through to the other pages. The animals poking their wonderfully illustrated faces through into different habitats and then revealing themselves over the page alongside an enormous diversity of life packed into a single ice flow. Below the ice, beside the Narwhals, were Orcas. An animal that's captured just about everyone's hearts one way or another. They were worth obsessing over, dreaming of seeing them with a pine tree backdrop, wolves poking their heads from the forest. But never did I think I would see them in WA, let alone the Southern Hemisphere. For whatever reason I'd filed them away as American - such was the influence of their culture on a young mind.
But there they were, likely for my entire life, bullying Beaked Whales to the surface and tearing Colossal Squid apart within the bounds of the Southwest. Right there in Western Australia. I think I've heard somewhere that your best chances of seeing an Orca in the world is a single day trip out to the Bremer Canyon system. That wouldn't surprise me. When working out there in my past life as a marine scientist, we saw them every day for a week except one and I'm pretty sure the Orcas were avoiding a certain guest on that day.
But more recently, and I feel a little bit guilty about this, I didn't have much desire to see the Orcas. Spoiled over recent years, my younger self would be absolutely appalled. I had a different priority list that started with birds I'd not yet seen this year. White-faced Storm-Petrels, Grey-faced Petrels, Short-tailed Shearwaters. Birds not commonly seen during a Winter seawatch. So, unless the Orcas had brought one of their victims to the surface and caused a feeding frenzy, I wasn't all that interested. With apologies to my inner child, I wanted to crack 450 for the year in WA.
Sooty Albatross - My highlight of the trip!
Nine extra species would bring the WA big year total to that nice round 450. It was possible. Those three mentioned previously, a couple of Wandering Albatross species, a White-chinned Petrel made up what I considered the most likely in approximately that order. Throw in three more much sought after irregular visitors and 'it was possible'.
And in roughly that order they did appear behind a well burleyed boat, ID's pending on the Antipodean and Snowy Albatross. John Graff was the first to drag one of those much sought after irregular visitors into reality. Speeding across the slick, a Cook's Petrel. One of the least likely of the irregular visitors from my perspective. It continued on its single pass as a haze of grey as many Cookilaria do. Two days later we'd have a similarly grey passing, albeit much closer. Barau's Petrel have been seen with increasing regularity off the Southwest coast and many of those sightings have been during trips to see the Orcas. John Edmond nailed one ripping down the port side on our return journey to light the boat up after a relatively slow day. 450 was right there. The beers were just about cracked on day four of four. Stu Ford had taken a seat looking over my shoulder as I looked straight back over his. His postured straightened and as his binoculars reached his eyes I swung to focus on what was being called out as a Gould's Petrel. It flew directly at us then peeled off. Floppily flying off at a distance allowing phone videos. Not a bad 450. A bird not yet seen on single day pelagics in WA and a brand new WA one for John (503ish?), Stu (497ish?) and literally everyone else on board (477ish for me).
451 for the year was the cherry on the cake. It was my birthday after all. As I'd dreamed of Orcas when I was young, I'd dreamed of Sooty Albatross as an adult birder. Stu and John were on again. It circled over and over spoiling everyone with open eyes on board. I'd felt that was an appropriate finale for four days out at sea.
You can see the additions to the year list here including some Esperance and Nullarbor birds which all appeared without too much fanfare. Stay tuned during the new year for a summation to a year I couldn't have dreamed of and a review of the numbers. I'll recount the misses, highlights and those that were left on the table. Importantly I'll compare my year with the current record and assess my years worthiness as the new record holder.
