birding-aus

Trip Report: Illawarra / Shoalhaven area

To: birding australia <>
Subject: Trip Report: Illawarra / Shoalhaven area
From: Grant Brosie <>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:56:09 -0700 (PDT)
Everyone,

Spent last Tuesday/Wednesday mopping up some year ticks in the Shoalhaven area. 
The weather was perfect except for the first night when the frost was so thick 
I had to shoulder barge the car door open!
Tuesday morning was spent wandering around Barren Grounds, and despite the cold 
conditions birds were everywhere. Highlights included:
GROUND PARROT (1)
Eastern Bristlebird (1)
CRESCENT HONEYEATER (1)
BASSIAN THRUSH (1)
Southern Emu-wren (1)
Beautiful Firetail (3 including a male displaying)
There were many Spinebill, Red Wattlebird and New Holland Honeyeaters flying 
around and Brown Thornbills were very vocal. White-naped Honeyeater, Eastern 
Whipbird and Satin Bowerbird made brief appearances. The only disappointment 
was not seeing or hearing a Pilotbird.

I then spent the afternoon trying to find Hooded Plover at Barrara and Lake 
Conjola dipping at both spots. Are they still in the area???
Barrara produced Aust. Gannet, Little Wattlebird, Variegated Fairy-wren, 
Collared Sparrowhawk, and a Square-tailed Kite patrolling the beach.
Lake Conjola had Eastern Curlew (1), Whimbrel (1), Bar-tailed Godwit (5), 
Red-capped Plover (15+), well coloured DOUBLE-BANDED PLOVER (10+), Pied 
Oystercatcher (4), White-fronted Tern (4) and Little Egret (2).

Spent the night in Jervis Bay NP and watched an amazing sunrise over a 
completly flat ocean. Atleast 3 pair of Eastern Bristlebird were seen/heard 
around the ruined lighthouse.

A Sooty Oystercatcher was feeding at the Hyams Beach boat ramp and another 
bristlebird was heard in the heath behind, as well as at the corner of Jervis 
Bay Rd and Erowal Bay Rd.

I then headed north through Nowra and Shoalhaven heads. Stopping to look for 
seabirds off Gerroa (the sea still very flat with little to no wind) produced 2 
Black-browed Albatross and a magnificent low flying White-bellied Sea-eagle.

Coledale (north of Wollongong) was my nest seabird stop and once again only a 
few Black-brows were seen sitting on the water, though a Kelp Gull on the rocks 
below was a highlight.

Last stop for the day was Eastlakes Golf Course in eastern Sydney and once 
again, for the 3rd or 4th time this year, I dipped on Greenfinch!!!!

All up I recorded 95 species for the trip including 4 year ticks. Biggest 
surprise was not recording a single Grey Fantail in 2 days!

Until next trip,
Grant Brosie
Raworth, NSW
   


      Win a MacBook Air or iPod touch with Yahoo!7. 
http://au.docs.yahoo.com/homepageset
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
=============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU