Singapore Strait 5May12

From Con

http://confoley.com/pelagic-outing-may-2012

From Colin

We took the boat out Sat an east along the north shore of Batam on Sat morning returning via Changi and west along port limits. It was initially rather slow with small numbers of terns, a handful of Swinhoe's Storm Petrels and some distant all dark shearwaters that were too far and moved too fast to be identified. Then on the return, along the edge of port limits east of Kusu Island we hit a passage of storm petrels and recorded 91 birds moving rapidly east in the space of about 15 mins.

Final totals for the days were as follows:

Swinhoe's Storm Petrel 96 (minimum) - a record spring count?
Shearwater sp (all dark) 4
Lesser Crested Tern 30
Black-naped Tern 8
Bridled Tern 2
Little Tern 2

The other highlight was a group of 5+ Bottle-nosed Dolphins north of western Batam.

Map of our route with dolphins and Swinhoe's passage location.

And some of Con Foley's Swinhoe's and bottle-nosed shots are below:

Storm Petrels (it's amazing how fresh and clean they look compared to the worn and tatty autumn birds we see):
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099006
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099007
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099008
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099009

Dolphins:
http://www.pbase.com/image/143099294
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099295
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099296
http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/image/143099297