The twitch started perfectly.
A couple of minutes after Richard Baxter and I stepped off the ferry
at Home Island on Friday we saw the Blue Rock Thrush fly across the
water to the rock wall. Everyone in the group (except me) saw the
bird on Thursday (I had been chasing the Asian Koel and it had
disappeared by the time I got back to the docks).
Richard and I spent a quarter of an hour on the thrush (there are a
couple of photos on Tom Tarrant's website - http://www.aviceda.org/abid/index.php)
then set off in search of the Dark-sided Flycatcher that had be
reported several weeks previously. We wandered up to the cemetery and
back via the dump to the farming area.
Several of the people we spoke to mentioned that they had seen a bird
matching the flycatcher's description - one farmer said he had seen it
only an hour or so earlier. The habitat seemed very promising for a
vagrant - lots of chook, duck and pigeon pens alongside banana and paw
paw plantations and vege gardens. I found a Buff-banded Rail and
flushed a couple of other birds but we failed to find the flycatcher
in the limited time we had available.
We needed to be on the last of the morning ferries back to West Island
and the airport - the plane was due to leave around 1.15 pm and the
first afternoon boat would not be until 2.00 pm. Richard and I got
separated poking about the last part of the plantation and I couldn't
see him when I returned to the separation point. I cast around for a
while and then walked back to town. I thought I had plenty of time,
but when I reached the terminal the ferry was over 500 metres from the
jetty and heading the wrong way.
<expletive deleted>
While it would be nice to have some more time to look for the vagrants
and to study the Pin-tailed Snipe, Western Reef Egrets and Saunder's
Terns, I needed to be on the plane. I spoke to a couple of dock
workers - one took me to a nearby office where his boss suggested I
call the police. The police suggested I talk the chap in charge of
the rescue boat. He was too busy to help. A speed boat turned up it
had just done a run over from West Island but was low on fuel (and the
service station was closed at the time). The boat owner said to head
over to house number 8. He arrived while I was talking to the
occupants and proceeded to tow another (smaller) boat over to the water.
We zipped across the southern end of the island where his son was
waiting in a Cocos Co-operative car to run me back to town. I arrived
in time to get changed (there was a heavy shower on the way over)
before joining the tail of the check-in queue.
I was most impressed by the kindness shown to a stranger in difficulty
by the Cocos Malays and am happy to recommend the Cocos Islands as a
good spot to go twitching.
I'll post some more notes on the trip organised by Richard to
Christmas and Cocos Islands when I get some more time.
Regards, Laurie.
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