Sub-Antarctic petrels spotted live off NSW coast for first time

Sub-Antarctic petrels spotted live off NSW coast for first time Sat 18 Jul 2026 at 6:16am Certain species of sub-Antarctic seabirds are almost never seen along the New South Wales coast, but experts are not linking recent sightings to bird flu detections. There were no signs of illness in a Kerguelen petrel and grey petrel spotted off Port Macquarie by wildlife photographer James Bennett in the past fortnight. "This is a bird I'll remember for the rest of my life … it was incredible,"he said. Neither species had been recorded "live at sea" in New South Wales before. "I'm just reeling. It's going to take me a long time to fully process seeing these birds," Mr Bennett said. BirdLife Australia's Mick Roderick, a member of the New South Wales Ornithological Records Appraisal Committee (NSW ORAC), said the sightings were "irrefutable". "It's truly remarkable," he said. "Stunningly rare, is how I would put it." Mr Roderick said before now NSW ORAC had accepted only one report of a grey petrel in NSW, when a bird was found washed ashore at Ballina in 1985. NSW ORAC also accepted a report of a single Kerguelen petrel found ashore at Callala Bay in 2016. Rare seabird event Monash University ornithologist Rohan Clarke said the appearance of sub-Antarctic seabirds off the NSW Mid North Coast was part of a broader "very rare event". He said "relatively large numbers of cold-water species", which typically disperse over vast distances across the Southern Ocean, were being reported much farther north than usual, and that some had been seen as far north as central Queensland. Some of the other species recently seen off NSW included blue petrels and light-mantled albatrosses. "I've seen something similar before … back in the 1990s, when large numbers of Kerguelen petrels washed up on beaches. In that case, though, they were found on beaches in southern Australia," Dr Clarke said. "Most of the species involved in this event regularly occur as far north as Tasmania." Is this seabird event linked to bird flu? Dr Clark said the arrival of bird flu coincided with "significant movement of seabirds" rarely seen in Australian waters. One of the 17 detections so far in Australia was in a native bird species. The remaining H5 bird flu cases have been migratory seabirds. Giant petrels accounted for the majority of detections, including the most recent, on Thursday at Hawks Nest, on the NSW Mid North Coast. Mr Roderick said it was not unusual to see giant petrels off NSW waters each year, including Hawks Nest. "These birds would have just roamed the oceans for the next five to six years, but obviously because they are not well, carrying [bird flu] virus, they have made landfall," he said. Dr Clarke said the detections in sub-Antarctic seabirds such as giant petrels made sense, "because these birds that have been detected with bird flu are species that are typically breeding on our sub-Antarctic islands". But Mr Rodderick said the southern seabird species rarely seen in Australia, including the two sightings off Port Macquarie was "a very different story". "They are very much Southern Ocean birds that have probably been pushed north due to a lack of food availability in the Southern Ocean," he said. Why are we seeing these sub-Antarctic birds? Dr Clarke agreed food was one factor along with the possibility of warmer weather conditions. Australian National University climatologist Janette Lindesay said global ocean temperatures reached a record high in June and that warmer water could influence storm activity. "The higher ocean temperatures translate into warmer air temperatures and more moisture evaporating into the atmosphere, giving storm systems more energy as they move through," she said. Dr Clarke said the storm events occurred when the birds were mobile. "We get big storm events every winter, and we don't see this number of seabirds from the cold southern oceans in these sorts of locations every winter," he said. "This event … doesn't seem to also involve large numbers of birds being washed up on beaches, so most of the sightings that are really novel, the special rare birds that are being seen are being seen live at sea." Dr Clarke said the eventual movement of the seabirds south again could be a relatively quick, with vast distances covered in a matter of days if conditions allowed. "It's hard to know at this stage whether [this event] is going to have a negative effect on the birds, or whether the birds that are circling and cycling through the Tasman Sea will find their way south again," he said. Dr Clarke said it was unclear whether these sub-Antarctic bird species would become less of a rarity in parts of Australia.