We left Yokohama Port at 4pm and sailed south through Tokyo Bay, getting nice views of Mount Fuji in the distance. On some pontoons I saw a few Common Black-headed Gulls, several Slaty-backed Gulls and a couple of Black-tailed Gulls. The best bird was a single Japanese Cormorant perched on a buoy, and followed a few sightings of Great Cormorants - so making a good comparison.
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| Mount Fuji across Tokyo Bay |
A flyby Grey Heron seemed a little odd as we sailed along, but it wasn't until late in the day that Streaked Shearwaters started appearing, and I counted approx 260 birds. It was a little frustrating as I was just getting into these shearwaters and would possibly have had something really good but the light was fading fast.
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| Grey Heron |
Two days at sea followed s we steamed south. The first day was very breezy with choppy seas and it made viewing difficult even from the stable platform of this large cruise ship. I only noted a few Streaked Shearwaters, but did have a bit of excitement with Leach's Storm Petrel appearing in the morning and a dark petrel flying parallel to the port side for a while, that proved to be a Bulwer's Petrel. Rather frustratingly I had two other birds that were too far away and kept disappearing behind the huge waves.... The first was a small storm petrel with a white rump, and I was thinking it could have been a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel as the white on the rump wasn't too obvious plus the bird seemed to have quite 'stiff' wings and wasn't so flappy as a Wilson's... The other bird was another dark-looking petrel without a white rump, that seemed different to the earlier Bulwer's, and had kind of a lighter flight reminiscent of a Swinhoe's Storm Petrel, but I just couldn't be certain. So frustrating indeed.
The second full day at sea was calmer with more birds, the bulk of which were Streaked Shearwaters.
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| Wedge-tailed Shearwater |
I also had some nice views of several dark phase Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, and some came reasonably close to the ship but my photos are poor. There were lengthy periods with no seabirds at all, during which i'd wander around the ship, call in to one of the bars for a coffee, or meet Mrs B for lunch. It was during one of these lengthy seabird-less periods that I retired to the cabin to cool down (it's very hot and sultry during mid-June here) and I sat on the bed to catch up with some news on the tv. After a few minutes something caught my eye in the mirror next to the tv, as I could see the port hole reflected in the glass, and I thought it was a booby. No, couldn't be. Shrugging this off I returned to the news and shouted a few choice comments at Slimy Sunak on BBC news when something flew past the port hole again. Yes it was a booby. So I shot outside onto the deck but nothing was around, so on a hunch I made my way to the aft and found 2 Brown Boobies trailing in the ship's wake.
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| Brown Booby |
Well, it's something!!!!! Must admit I was a little rejuvenated with this sighting (yes i'm easily pleased) and stayed out until early evening and was rewarded with some Short-tailed Shearwaters mixed in with the other two shearwater species in a large, loose flock all heading south. Again I had a couple all dark petrels that defied identification but i'm pretty sure they weren't Bulwer's Petrels...... And that's it. Now for Taiwan....
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