PUMICESTONE PASSAGE RAPTOR SURVEY August 1997
Pumicestone Passage is the shallow waterway between Bribie Island and
the mainland, about 50 km north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
I'm conducting regular surveys of the birds of prey found there, supported
by a grant from Coastcare.
We leave from Sylvan Beach at the southern end of Bribie and move north
through the shallow "Skids" and "W's" on the high tide to get to Caloundra
where we turn around and move south, retracing our path but taking in a
western detour around Donnybrook and Torbul.
On Sunday, 3 August we has a successful trip after several postponements due
to bad weather.
The observers were: Jill Denning and Frank Mikula.
Numbers recorded:
Species Going north Going south
Whistling Kite 40 49
Brahminy Kite 8 16
Osprey 3 3
White-bellied Sea Eagle 8 3
Unid. Raptors 7 17
Total Raptors 66 88
Black-winged stilt 91 187
Pied Oystercatcher 2 2
Whimbrel 10 62
E. Curlew 4 59
Bar-tailed Godwit 87
Unid waders 120 300
Royal spoonbill 42 25
Caspian tern 4
Gull-billed tern 12 6
Aus White Ibis 37
Another memorable sighting was of a Jabiru flying past Mission Point.
This provided the highest number of raptors we've counted this year.
Future surveys should indicate whether this was due to exceptionally
good observers or a winter build-up of birds.
Peter Woodall
Dr Peter Woodall email =
Division of Pathobiology
School of Veterinary Science Phone = +61 7 3365 2300
The University of Queensland Fax = +61 7 3365 1355
Brisbane, Qld, Australia 4072 WWW = http://www.uq.edu.au/~anpwooda
"hamba phezulu" (= "go higher" in isiZulu)
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