As Moreton Island [SEQ] has only been atlassed a few times in this
cycle, I decided to survey Mirrapool - a site used by migratory waders.
Getting to the southern end of Moreton isn't as easy as it used to be.
In place of the old clunking barge that used to run from Redland Bay to
Kooringal, you now catch a faster boat to Dunwich [North Stradbroke
Island] and either drive or catch a bus up to Amity Point, and then
catch a 4 car barge across to Kooringal.
The highlight of the inter-island hop was watching a raptor repeatedly
dive-bombing a smaller bird [possibly a willie-wagtail or similar sized
bird]. It was too far off to ID - by its behaviour I would suspect
either a peregrine or hobby [I have seen a peregrine a few km northof
Kooringal previously]. I couldn't see the final outcome, because the
action wound up close to the surface of the sea, before the raptor set
up in a direct flight to Straddie.
Leanne and I checked into our accommodation [Moreton Moorings - good
self-contained flats dirt cheap], before I set off to Mirrapool.
There were 40 odd species in the 500 m area search. There were also
clouds of mossies [courtesy of the king tides last month] so liberal
applications of repellent were the order of the day [I had to do my back
as well as these fems were biting through my shirt].
There was a large flock of white-faced herons, a mixed flock of white
ibis and royal spoonbills, a couple of little terns, a trio of
gull-billed terns, greater and lesser sand plovers, red necked stints,
red capped plovers, bar-tailed godwits, eastern curlews, pied
oystercatchers, the odd sharp-tailed sandpiper, black-fronted dotteral
and chestnut teal. There was also plenty of bee-eaters and a group of 4
osprey.
Actually there were osprey in virtually every one of the five sites I
atlassed on Moreton and Straddie. I wasn't originally intending to
Atlas Pt Lookout when we dropped in for a Bo Peep, but I saw a bush
thick knee [in its preferred habitat] while we were driving through town
[which in the 25 years since I was last there seems to have turned into
a version of Noosa].
Another thing I found interesting at Kooringal was the large number of
birds on the sand bars in the distance. One of them literally had
hundreds of [if not a thousand] cormorants loafing in the sun.
Regards, Laurie.
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