Hello all,
Myself and John Boyce went down to Philip Is. Victoria (south east of
Melbourne) this weekend and saw a few interesting things and some very
disturbing things. We stayed near Summerland beach where we got excellent
looks during the day at a young distressed short-tailed shearwater out in the
surf. We also saw sooty oystercatcher and hooded dotterel along the beach.
John knows this area very well and has observed successful nesting on
Summerland beach for many years. This year either the conservation dept. or
Penguin reserve personnel intervened in the dotterel nest and they covered it
with a large "protective" wire fence. This was probably meant to protect the
birds from fox predation, the area having a very high fox population which
the Penguin Parade personnel are trying to eradicate (very unsuccessfully by
the number of tracks we saw). This appears to have caused the birds which
are still present to abandon the nest. John's mother observed the birds
exiting the box once but while we were there over the weekend we never saw
them go near the eggs and they are now almost totally covered in sand with no
recent tracks around them. On Saturday the eggs went unattended for several
hours while we watched from a distance, never once being shaded from the sun.
I think this apparatus protected the eggs so well that even the parents
didn't want to go near them. Another possibility is that the cage brought
unnecessary attention from beachgoers who would not have normally seen a
dotterels nest. Has anyone else heard of such a technique to protect a
wader nest?
Unfortunately, we observed something even worse over the weekend.
There has been lots of construction occurring at the Penguin Parade building
which is being expanded. Residents have observed that penguins have been
trapped by unfenced pits created by excavators. In general the construction
sites are quite sloppy for being in a wildlife preserve. On Sunday morning
as we were heading down to the beach we found a distressed and very bloody
penguin caught on a string line near the construction. The very taught
string was carelessly placed at the right height to catch the penguins wing
ring. It clearly spent the night struggling and partially pulled its ring
off and cut itself. Had the line simply been a few centimetres higher in
would not have affected the penguins at all (very careless!). We freed the
penguin and returned it to P. parade staff.
On the way back home to Melbourne I stopped at the heath near the
mouth of the Powlett river east of Kilcunda. This area was loaded with
Blue-winged parrots which were flushing constantly as I walked. There were
also huge numbers of pipits and clamorous reed warblers. Unusually I also
saw two Japanese Snipe in the dry heath quite a distance away from the river.
Another stop was at the Gurdies which was very quiet except for the
entrance which has both grey and rufous fantail, yellow robin, brown
thornbill, rufous whistler, and white throated treecreeper.
P. Scott Chandry
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