birding-aus

Lucinda Wader Count Report #2

To:
Subject: Lucinda Wader Count Report #2
From: Alexandra Appleman <>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 21:20:17 +1000 (EST)
With the beaches north of Townsville reporting only small numbers of
migratory waders we approached the September wader count at Lucinda with
some apprehension.  In the 4 weeks since the 'base' count was conducted
'Spring' has truely sprung in the tropics: in Townsville koels are in full cry 
and in Ingham the metallic starlings are busily building nests in the
raintree in the main street. At Lucinda 2 torres strait pigeons flew over
the bulk sugar terminalas we arrived. 

(Before anyone protests - I hate the name 'pied imperial pigeon')
 
Like the northern beaches the sheltered (north facing) beach at Lucinda 
was empty except for a few silver gulls; the Spit which lay exposed at one
hour after high tide seemed empty and we were beginning to think the 300
km round trip from Townsville was going to be a fizzer with birders
outnumbering the birds.  As we trugged up the middle of the spit we
caught sight of  the sand bars lying offshore from the exposed (east facing 
beach) and disappointment gave way to momentary panic......over 1000 birds
at least....where to begin?

After a few minutes we gathered our wits and assembled into two teams
behind the scopes, each with a scribe.  We divvied up the species - 'you
count the crested terns, we'll count the great knots, etc'.

We were joined by a local Diane, who had been waiting nearly a month for
us to turn up so that she could learn a bit more about the birds.  Another 
local with dog thought we were all crackers; we thought worse about
him as his dog put up a cloud of terns from the end of the spit - they 
hovered monentarily before dropped directly onto the sand bank where we
were counting. Groans (and the odd swear word) filled the air and the 
counter was reset to zero.

After a solid hour's counting we gave it away.  The tide was receding
exposing a larger feeding area; the beach at 9.15 was already a furnace
and the shimmer denying any chance of speciating birds at the far side of
the sand bar.  In the hour we had counted 700 but knew there were many
many more.

The details:  

Date: Saturday 27 September. High tide (offshore) 2.45m at 0707.
Weather fine to hot, c30 degrees. The count commenced at 0820 and
fininshed at 0920.
 
Highlights: The Bird of the Day was a solitary common noddy sitting 
nonchalently amongst the crested terns on the more northerly sand bar.

Arrivals since the previous month: whimbrels

Biggest disappointment: no sanderling.  

Human disturbance: One man and his dog

Observers:

Marleen Acton, Alex Appleman, Dr Rolf Jensen, John Maddy, John Mant, Pat
Mant, Barbara Reidy (Townsville), Diane Shineberg (Lucinda). 

 Bird list & numbers
 
 australian pelican              12
 little egret                     1
 osprey                           2
 white bellied sea eagle                  1             
 bar tailed godwit                9
 eastern curlew                   3
 whimbrel                        11
 marsh sandpiper                          1
 grey tailed tattler             26
 ruddy turnstone                          2                     
 great knot                     >250
 red necked stint                 5
 pied oystercatcher               8
 pacific golden plover            9
 red capped plover                4
 lesser sand plover              10
 greater sand plover            184
 silver gull                     36
 caspain tern                    14
 gull billed tern                 6
 crested tern                    67
 lesser crested tern             14
 little tern                      6
 common noddy                     1

 In the parkland adjacent:

 helmeted friarbirds
 varied honeyeaters
 sacred kingfisher
 welcome swallows
 torres strait pigeons           

 Total species   29   Total waders speciated ~ 700 counted - a fraction of
 those present.

   
 Okay, so it's not exactly Broome.  But the pasta's pretty good in
 Ingham. 


 Alex Appleman
 Townsville 
                
 
 
 
 
 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Lucinda Wader Count Report #2, Alexandra Appleman <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU