With the beaches north of Townsville reporting only small numbers of
migratory waders we approached the September wader count at Lucinda with
some apprehension. In the 4 weeks since the 'base' count was conducted
'Spring' has truely sprung in the tropics: in Townsville koels are in full cry
and in Ingham the metallic starlings are busily building nests in the
raintree in the main street. At Lucinda 2 torres strait pigeons flew over
the bulk sugar terminalas we arrived.
(Before anyone protests - I hate the name 'pied imperial pigeon')
Like the northern beaches the sheltered (north facing) beach at Lucinda
was empty except for a few silver gulls; the Spit which lay exposed at one
hour after high tide seemed empty and we were beginning to think the 300
km round trip from Townsville was going to be a fizzer with birders
outnumbering the birds. As we trugged up the middle of the spit we
caught sight of the sand bars lying offshore from the exposed (east facing
beach) and disappointment gave way to momentary panic......over 1000 birds
at least....where to begin?
After a few minutes we gathered our wits and assembled into two teams
behind the scopes, each with a scribe. We divvied up the species - 'you
count the crested terns, we'll count the great knots, etc'.
We were joined by a local Diane, who had been waiting nearly a month for
us to turn up so that she could learn a bit more about the birds. Another
local with dog thought we were all crackers; we thought worse about
him as his dog put up a cloud of terns from the end of the spit - they
hovered monentarily before dropped directly onto the sand bank where we
were counting. Groans (and the odd swear word) filled the air and the
counter was reset to zero.
After a solid hour's counting we gave it away. The tide was receding
exposing a larger feeding area; the beach at 9.15 was already a furnace
and the shimmer denying any chance of speciating birds at the far side of
the sand bar. In the hour we had counted 700 but knew there were many
many more.
The details:
Date: Saturday 27 September. High tide (offshore) 2.45m at 0707.
Weather fine to hot, c30 degrees. The count commenced at 0820 and
fininshed at 0920.
Highlights: The Bird of the Day was a solitary common noddy sitting
nonchalently amongst the crested terns on the more northerly sand bar.
Arrivals since the previous month: whimbrels
Biggest disappointment: no sanderling.
Human disturbance: One man and his dog
Observers:
Marleen Acton, Alex Appleman, Dr Rolf Jensen, John Maddy, John Mant, Pat
Mant, Barbara Reidy (Townsville), Diane Shineberg (Lucinda).
Bird list & numbers
australian pelican 12
little egret 1
osprey 2
white bellied sea eagle 1
bar tailed godwit 9
eastern curlew 3
whimbrel 11
marsh sandpiper 1
grey tailed tattler 26
ruddy turnstone 2
great knot >250
red necked stint 5
pied oystercatcher 8
pacific golden plover 9
red capped plover 4
lesser sand plover 10
greater sand plover 184
silver gull 36
caspain tern 14
gull billed tern 6
crested tern 67
lesser crested tern 14
little tern 6
common noddy 1
In the parkland adjacent:
helmeted friarbirds
varied honeyeaters
sacred kingfisher
welcome swallows
torres strait pigeons
Total species 29 Total waders speciated ~ 700 counted - a fraction of
those present.
Okay, so it's not exactly Broome. But the pasta's pretty good in
Ingham.
Alex Appleman
Townsville
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