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Beachcast Seabirds Recovered at Zeally Bay, Torquay, Victoria, 1991-2003

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Beachcast Seabirds Recovered at Zeally Bay, Torquay, Victoria, 1991-2003 AUSTRALIAN FI ELD ORNITHOLOGY 2004. 21. 1-20 Beachcast Seabirds Recovered at Zeally Bay, Torquay, Victoria, 1991-2003 JOHN PETER Birds Australia, 415 Riversdale R oad, East Hawthorn, Victoria 3123 (Email: j.peter@birdsaustrali a.com.au) Summary The number of beachcast seabirds recovered along the shoreline refl ects several variables. including the abundance of seabirds present in nearby waters, their seasonal distribution at sea. rates and causes of mortality and the effects of the wind, currents, waves and tides that deposit their bodies onto the sand. These aspects are d iscussed in relation to the 18 species of seabirds, comprising 898 individuals, that were recovered during 140 regular beach patrols over a 2 km stretch of beach along Zeally Bay. Thr:.guay, Victoria. T he species that were recovered most often were Short-tailed Shearwater Pujfinus ienuirostris, Little Penguin Eudypwla minor, Fairy Prion Pachyptila /tirlllr and Fluttering Shearwater Puffinus /wuoni, and their occurrence is examined in detail. Introduction For a brief period after 1911 , Zeally Bay at Torquay, Victoria, o n the no rthern shores of Bass Strait, was in the limelight of the seabirding world. In the winter of 1911, 20 specimens of prions (comprising three different species) were recovered after becoming beachcast during winter storms. Two of these specimens were subsequently described as a new species, Heteroprion (Pachyptila) belcheri (M athews 1912, Belcher 1914), even though the species had been well known by sailors, but undescribed by scientists, since the late 1700s (Murphy 1936). Zeally Bay is therefore the type-locality of the species, o ne of few such sites in Victoria. However, since that time the shores ofZeally Bay have not been regularly surveyed for beachcast birds, although records of seabirds washed ashore there have occasionally been published (e.g. Wheeler 1955, Pescott 1957, Wheeler 1957, G ibson 1964). More than 50 species of seabirds have been recor<led in Bass Strait, some only a handful of times, whil e others occur regul arly. A few of these nest in breeding colonies in the area, on islands scattered from King Island and the Hunter G roup, in the west of the Strait, east to Gabo Island off Cape Howe in Far East Gippsland; many others breed farther afield, such as in New Zeala nd or on windswept subantarctic islands in the Southern Ocean (Simpson 1972, Emison et al. 1987, Marchant & Higgins 1990, Higgins & Davies 1996, Brothers eta!. 2001). A few of these species have only ever been recorded in Bass Strait as beachcast specimens, and any of them, given the right combination of circumstances, could potentially occur as a carcass washed up along the high-tide line. Regular beach patrols afford us a brief glimpse at the variety of bird-life that occurs off the coast and farther out to sea which would otherwise go largely undetected. Study site and method Zeally Bay (part of which is known as Fisherman's Beach), Torquay, about 15 km south of Gee long, is situated at the western end of the Bellari ne Peninsula, on the northern edge of Bass Strait. It is a shallow bay with a sandy beach running roughly north-east from Yellow Bluff, a low limestone headland, and is mostly backed by low vegetated sand-dunes up to 20 m high. AUSTRALI AN 2 PETER FIE LD ORNITHO LOGY During the highest tides, the water may reach the base of these dunes; at low tide the beach is up to 120 m wide. Method Since la te 1991. when the Australasian Seabird Group of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (now Birds Australia) established its Beach Patrol Scheme, I have conducted regular monthly surveys along a section of the beach at Zeally Bay, from Ye llow Bluff north-east to a large revegetatecl blow-out in the sand-dunes. a distance of 2 km. I also conducted several additional, often incomplete, incidental surveys. Regular surveys were conducted o n the fi rst weekend of each mo nth. except for the fi rst two, which were walked later in the month. Beach patrols were not co-ordinated with any particular phase of the tide, so that a full variety of tidal stages was experienced over the course of the p roject. During each patrol, the beach was thoroughly searched for beachcast corpses of birds. Although all beach cast b irds were recorded. the main focus of the survey was to record seabirds: for the purposes of this study, these are classed as those occurring in the orders Sphenisciformes (fam il y Spheniscidae (penguins)], Procell ariifonnes [families D iomcdeidae (albatrosses), Procellariidac (fulmars. petrels, prions and shearwaters). Hydrobatidac (sto rm-petrels), and Pelecanoididae (diving­ petrels)] and Pelecaniformes [families Pelecanidae (pelicans). Sulidae (gannets and boobies). Phalacrocoracidae (cormorants and shags) and Phaethontidae (tropicbirds)]. All surveys were made on foot: the high-water mark was examined first. and the lower littoral zone was searched on the return. The length of each survey was 2 km. the length of the beach: the return leg of the patrol was not treated as an extra distance. Where necessary, beachcast seabirds were identified with the aiel of Rowe & Plant ( 1989) and Marchant & Higgins ( 1990), and a few were identified afte r consultation with seabird experts Paul Scofield and David Eades at Birds Australia. However. most birds were identified on the beach and then disposed of, either by burying in the sand or depositing in the nearby sand-dunes beyond the high-water mark. so that they would not be recorded on a future survey: otherwise, beachcast birds can sometimes persist on the shore fo r some weeks as a decaying or dried corpse or a skeleton (Powlesland & Imber 1988) and potentially be recorded on a subsequent survey. Because they were disposed of at the beach, the corpses were not dissected or otherwise examined internally. All analyses dealt only wit h seabirds recorded on regular surveys. The results from each regular survey were submitted to the Birds Australia Beach Patrol Scheme. An interim report of this project was published in 1995, after three years of surveys (Peter 1995). Terminology T he 'Reporting rate' is the total proportion of surveys on which a species was encountered. expressed as a percentage. In this survey, a 'wreck' is defined as the recovery of a species at the rate o f at least five birds per kilometre; this has been modified sl ightly from the definition given in Reid & Scofield (1996). A juvenile is considered to be a bird in its first year after hatching. Results Overall, the re were 140 regul ar surveys conducted between November 1991 and July 2003, covering a total of 280 km of coast; 898 seabirds, comprising 18 species, were recovered at a mean rate of 1.47 species/survey, o r 0.74 species/km of coast covered; and the actual number of seabirds recovered was a mean of 6.41 seabirds/survey, or 3.21 seabirds/km of coast covered. In addition, a further two species of seabirds (Sooty Shearwater and White-tailed Tropicbird) were recovered only as incid ental records. The greatest diversity of species recovered was in late spring, summe r and early autumn, peaking in March, with a mean of 2.58 species r ecovered/survey (standard d eviation S.D. = 0. 67, ra nge = 0-4 species, number n = 12 surveys). The lowest diversity was in win ter and early spring, with the lowest recorded in August and September, when a mean of only 0.55 species/survey was recorded (Figure I). The mean number of seabirds recovered per survey was greatest in November [mean of 12.3 birds/km/survey (s.D. = 33.4, range = 0- l 18, n = 12 surveys)], with a steady d ecline thereafter for nearly a ll other months (Figure 2). The large numbers recovered in November and December directly re fl ect the number of wrecks that occurred in these months VOL. 21 (I ) Beachcast Seabirds, MARCH 2004 Zeally Bay, Vic. 1991-2003 3 3 2.5 2 1.5 0.5 0 ~ ~ . ~ . J F M A M J J A s 0 N D Figure 1. Mean number· of species recovered per survey by month. 14 12 10 8 6 4 ·~ 2 ~ ~ f/l l7l I 0 ~ ~ I ~ I I J F M A M J J A s 0 N D Figm·e 2. Mean number of seabir·ds r·ecove 1·cd per· kilometr·e per survey by month. (sec Wrecks, below). There were 33 surveys (23.6%) where no seabirds were recovered (this includ es two surveys where only birds other than seabi rds were found). The most commonly recorded species were Sho rt-tail ed Shearwater Puffinus tenuirostris, Little Penguin Eudyptu/a minor, Fairy Prion Pachyp1ila turtur and Fluttering Shearwater Puffinus hulloni, comprising 96% of the total number of birds recovered (Figu re 3). Of these species, only the Flu tteri ng Shearwater does not breed on islands in Bass Strait. Not coincidentally, these fo ur species were also generally (but not always) the most commonly recovered in the Birds Australia Beach Patrol Scheme between 1992 and J996. in which most surveys were conducted on beaches in southern Australia (Reid & Scofield 1996: Reid 1999a,b). Wrecks Ten wrecks were recorded, at the rate of nearly one every year, with three species involved: Little Penguin, Fairy Prion and Short-tailed Shearwater. Only one wreck, o n 29 D ecembe r 1991, comprised two species, Short-tailed Shearwaler and Fairy Prion. Most wrecks were of Sho rt-tailed Shearwaters, and the magnitude of one was so great that it spanned two monthly surveys.
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