Hi all,
Well the twitchathon is over for another year. The
COG team didn’t win but we gave it a good go. We started off with a bang,
both literally and metaphorically after I hit a rather large hole in a track in
Binya State Forest
while watching some woodswallows flying overhead. Poor young Mark Allen ended
up having a Coca-Cola shower and Anthony, Carole and Richard probably left a
dint in the roof of my 4wd. We started in Binya SF then travelled along a back
road along side a main irrigation channel back to Fivebough Swamp
at Leeton. We were fortunate when we first went out to Fivebough before the
twitch had started to run into Mike Shultz, the local wiz, who showed us the
various tracks to take to get to the best sites around the swamp. Fivebough
itself, as evidenced by all the messages on the chat line, is fantastic at
present. I have travelled to a lot of good birding sites throughout Australia,
especially wetlands, and I have never seen the number of Glossy Ibis that were
at the swamp. We reckoned there were over 10, 000 of them and the sight of the
flocks flying in just on dark was both incredible and spectacular.
Carole’s eyesight lived up to her reputation by finding an Australasian
Bittern sitting on top of a clump of reeds just before dark about 100 metres
away. We left the Leeton area and travelled to Ingalba NR trying to find the
resident Barking Owls which Anthony imitated well but the strong wind blowing
at the time made it just too hard to get them to respond. The only nocturnal
birds we recorded were a Tawny Frogmouth that flew over the Newell Highway, a Barn Owl sitting on a
bridge on the edge of Stockinbingal, and a Southern
Boobook calling at our “campsite” near Barren Grounds
NR. Up until this time our tally for Saturday afternoon was 113 species
recorded in four hours. We arrived at our campsite about 1:30 in the morning
and had about one and a half hours “sleep” before driving into
Barren Ground to get the Ground Parrot before sunrise. Many other species were
recorded here and down the Jamberoo
Road to Kiama. At this point things were still
looking pretty good but we ran into a problem on Comerong Island
trying to find all the wader species recorded there. That wasted too much time
as did my decision that I needed something better than M & M’s to eat
for breakfast. We did find some coastal birds near Culburra – Callala Beach
but were stymied in our attempt to reach the highway from Callala Beach
when we found the link road was closed due to major road works, resulting in a
back track to Nowra. At this point we decided to change our plans and come back
to Canberra via
the Tianjara Road
to Braidwood. We probably lost a lot of species by coming this way but time was
starting to run out. We did find 2 – 3 species each time we stopped for a
couple of minutes to listen. Back in the ACT we had a mad dash to Newline
(nothing new), the Fyshwick Sewage Works for two waterbirds then Campbell Park where we recorded three more
species. From memory our last species was a Gang-gang Cockatoo on Anzac Parade.
We arrived at the ANBG at about 3 minutes to 4 (EDST) hoping for a Grey
Currawong, Leaden Flycatcher or some other unrecorded species but alas it was
not to be. Our total for the 24 hours was 189 species, a long way behind the
winners from the Hunter area with 233. With hindsight it is easy to see where
we went wrong – not enough preparation on the route but with me overseas
up until late September and a final decision to participate made even later, I think
we did pretty well. I am not sure just how much money our team raised but I
think it is around $1200.
Which brings me to the collection of the promised
money. For those who offered a certain amount per species the total owing is as
follows:- 5 cents per bird is $9:45, 10 cents per bird is $18:90, 15 cents per
bird is $28:35, 20 cents per bird is $37:80 and 25 cents per bird is $47:25. If
anyone wants to round these figures UP
they are most welcome to do so. I will be at the November COG meeting to accept
money as no doubt will Anthony, Richard and Carole. We will give out the
official receipts when we receive them from the official organiser, perhaps
before Christmas or in January. We will keep a record of who has paid so don’t
worry you will not he harassed by the debt collectors. If anyone wants any
details of the twitchathon please see any of the team.
Thanks to all those who gave us directions to various
species. We may not have been able to use them at the time but there were one
or two other not quite so serious teams in the race who did (we forgot we were
using an open chat line …. Oooppps!). And thanks to all those who
sponsored us, it was a fun but tiring exercise.
Mark
