Before the spelling and grammar police start getting upset I advise of the
following corrections to my report - 'morp' should be 'morph' and the raft
of shearwaters 'was' foraging.
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg and Val Clancy
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 12:43 PM
To: Birding-aus
Cc: Warren Thompson ; Bob Carr ; Alan Morris ; ; Gary
& Margaret Eggins ;
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Black-necked Stalkers Twitchathon report (part 2)
One spinoff from searching for nocturnal birds is that you often see other
fauna especially mammals. The only drawback is that you can’t add them to
the tally. We had great views of a Long-nosed Potoroo at the base of the
Gibraltar Range and two Rufous Bettongs between the Range and Grafton. A
young Parma Wallaby in the Washpool and a third Rufous Bettong on the way to
the coast were others seen. Dodging large alpha male Eastern Grey Kangaroos
on the road was also an entertaining pastime which kept us on our guard. It
was still dark when we left the house on the coast north-west of Grafton the
next morning. As we climbed into the Land Cruiser we heard a Brush Cuckoo,
our first bird of the day. Off to the coastal heath where it was still very
dark due to heavy cloud cover. It wasn’t long though until we heard a
Ground Parrot and also ticked off White-cheeked and Tawny-crowned
Honeyeaters. Then to the estuary where we were welcomed by a vociferous
Leaden Flycatcher as we were trying to identify a flock of small terns that
weren’t right to be Little or Common Terns. It turned out that they were
Whiskered Terns, more common in freshwater wetlands than estuaries in our
area. A grey morp Eastern Reef Egret, a Striated Heron and a diversity of
shorebirds were added to the list. Two small plump shorebirds took some
time to identify as the overcast weather made them look darker than normal.
They were Sanderlings, a species not usually found in this estuary. As we
left the estuary an Eastern Osprey flew over the road and brought the total
to 141 at 6.17 am. At a small lake nearby a Swamp Harrier was observed and
a pair of Pied Oystercatchers was at their nest and at a rock platform two
Sharp-tailed Sandpipers were the first seen by us for the season. A large
raft of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were foraging off the rocks but the
Australasian Gannet was nowhere to be seen. Four Coastal Emus were in a
cane paddock on the trip back to the Pacific Highway. As we disembarked
from the vehicle at the Iluka Nature Reserve we heard a monarch. Someone
called out Spectacled Monarch and we all agreed at first but then I the
realised that it was a White-eared Monarch and not a Spectacled Monarch. We
did add Spectacled Monarch as well as Regent Bowerbird and Large-billed
Scrubwren before leaving the rainforest for the estuary. At an inlet we
heard Mangrove Honeyeater and then on to Woody Head. The extremely high
tide meant that all of the shorebirds and terns were clustered together on
rocks, making it relatively easy to check them off. There were Greater and
Lesser Sand Plovers and Little and Common Terns, making 180 species at 9.39
am. To be continued.
Greg Clancy
Head Stalker
Black-necked Stalkers Twitchathon team.
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