For this March Bird week, participants came from far-flung parts of Australia — from the Grampians to Sydney, Perth to Mackay and Darwin.
It was an excellent time to visit for the seabirds — as many had their chicks growing up and we were of course able to get very close and enjoy these — White terns, Black-winged petrels, Black noddies, red-tailed tropicbirds and Wedge-tailed shearwaters.
The Providence petrels had been back for a few weeks, and everyone enjoyed the experience seeing thousands of these birds flying into their mountain homes late in the afternoon at Little Island.
The weather was good, and we did manage the Ball’s Pyramid pelagic cruise, and enjoyed the Kermadedec petrel, the White-bellied storm petrel and Flesh footed shearwaters in particular.
We had a couple of very keen photographers, with big 500mm lenses to get the most of this opportunity to visit the seabird colonies. Probably the highlight for the photographers was the morning hike to Mount Eliza over at North Bay, where we were mesmerized by several Red-tailed tropicbirds flying around many times close to us, coming in for a landing at their nest few metres below us on the cliffs. All on the trip also enjoyed the other aspects of Lord Howe Island’s nature — the low tide reef walk, a glass bottom boat and snorkel tour, plus looking at the geology and flora.
We sampled a variety of island restaurants, and the weather was perfect for meals at the new al fresco verandah deck at the Museum café.