We had a great day out to sea. It was mostly cloudy throughout the day, although we did get some rain towards the end. The ocean was very flat to start off with, and as we headed out of Wollongong harbour there was very little to speak of, apart from Silver Gulls and lots of big tankers.
After a while things started picking up, with several Black-browed (mostly young birds) and a fair few Indic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses joining the boat. Soon after we were joined by several Wanderer-type albatrosses, of which this youngish Gibson's (above) was one.
Throughout the day, we were visited by an Antipodean Albatross, an Wandering (exulans) Albatross, several Gibson's Albatross, two Buller's Albatross (very beautiful), a couple of Providence Petrels, one Northern Giant-Petrel, two Cape Petrels (love these birds), two or three White-fronted Terns and lots of Black-browed and Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses.
Annoyingly, the flock of over a hundred Silver Gulls followed us all the way out to the continental shelf. They were really annoying, getting in all the photos, eating the food thrown to the albatrosses etc.
In all, a good solid day of seabirding, with 9 species of albatrosses (lots of Black-browed, one Campbell's, several Shy, two White-capped, heaps of Indian Yellow-nosed, two Buller's, one Wandering, several Gibson's, and one Antipodean).
Africa (entire continent rather than south of Sahara)
AN
Antarctica
AO
Atlantic Ocean
AU
Australasia (Wallacea (Indonesian islands east of Wallace's line), New Guinea and its islands, Australia, New Zealand and its subantarctic islands, the Solomons, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu)
PAL
Eurasia (Europe, Asia from the Middle East through central Asia north of the Himalayas, Siberia and northern China to Japan)
IO
Indian Ocean
LA
Latin America (Middle and South America)
MA
Middle America (Mexico through Panama)
NA
North America (includes the Caribbean)
NO
Northern oceans
OR
Oriental Region (South Asia from Pakistan to Taiwan, plus Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Greater Sundas)