31st August 1769

Society Islands to New Zealand

The first part a fresh breeze and cloudy. At 6 p.m. hauld the wind to the South-West and close reefd the Topsails. At 1 a.m. being very squally with rain, took in the Topsails and brought too under the Mainsail. At 6 made Sail under the Courses. Saw some seaweed, sounded, but had no ground at 65 fathoms of Line. Some Albetrosses, Sheer Waters, and a great many Pintado Birds about the Ship with some hundreds of Birds that were smaller than Pidgeons, their backs were grey, their Bellies white, and the ends of their Tails black, and have a blackish line along the upper parts of the wings from the Tip of one to the other. We saw birds very like those near Faulklands Islands on the Coast of Patagonia, only they had not the black streak along the wings; they fly low like sheer waters or mother Carys birds, and are perhaps of the same Tribe, for Distinction sake I shall call them Doves.* (* Probably petrels of the genus Prion.) Wind Westerly; course South 4 degrees 15 minutes East; distance 68 miles; latitude 39 degrees 28 minutes South, longitude 147 degrees 0 minutes West.

Joseph Banks Journal

Blows fresh this morn with a good deal of sea; about 7 in the morn a heap of sea weed passd the ship. An immense quantity of birds are about her today: Albatrosses of both kinds which are easily distinguishd one from the other by their beaks, which in one is white in the other black; also large black shearwaters and a smaller sort with grey backs, Pintados; but above all many millions I may safely say of the small bird mentiond yesterday about as large as a dove, greyish on the back, some with a dark colourd mark going in a crooked direction on that and its wings. I try'd today to catch some of these numerous attendants with a hook but after the whole morning spent in the atempt caught only one Pintado which provd to be Procellaria capensis of Linnaeus.

Sydney Parkinson’s Journal

The same weather continued all the next day, the 31st, accompanied with a high swell from the west, which made the ship run gunnel-to under water. A vast number of birds, of different kinds, followed us all day, sporting on the surface of the water. These were Pintados, (a bird of a silver colour, such as we saw in the Atlantic ocean,) Albatrosses, and various sorts of Procellariæ. Several parcels of rock-weed were also seen by some of our people.