Don't be like that Alan, when I first came from Sydney to live at Pearl Bay
way back in 1977 I walked out at night and heard the Bush Stone Curlew. I
was surprised and asked the famous Jack Wheeler (brother of Roy) who said
"no Margaret not for years.."
Some years later, on a BOC Challenge Bird Count, not at Pearl Bay but at a
place called Mannerim which is roughly equidistant between Pearl Bay and
the Pearl Bay Hotel, we saw an adult and a juvenile Bush Curlew behind the
Mannerim School block. The habitat is spot on, as there is rather rough
grass with scattered casuarinas with dead branches and bits of log around
the place - it isn't all tidied up. Various people came and looked at them
there but after a year or so we didn't see them again. One afternoon I
crossed the road opposite the school and spoke to an elderly gentleman who
was fiddling around in his garden, and asked him if he knew about the
Curlews at the back of the School, and how long they'd been there.
He said something like "Let's see, I'd be 80, and they've been round the
back of our house as long as I can remember, but sometimes they cross the
road and go over there!"
He also told me they used to be at a place called Hutchinson's Bush much
closer to Pearl Bay and also then looking pretty suitable around the edges
(but now it has houses, dogs etc), and perhaps at Cuthbertson's Paddock
a.k.a. the Ocean Grove Nature Reserve (just past the hilly bit where Rupe
found the paper run too hard, I imagine) - if they had called from there
back in 1977 I could have heard them from home.
The sad thing is that it is now probably 10 years since anyone has reported
hearing them. (So I was really happy when Laura did!)
I agree Olive-backed Orioles don't usually call at night (but they are in
Pearl Bay in summer though not right at the beach) and that you'd want
superhuman hearing to hear the nigtjars whose calls echo round the Brisbane
Ranges (not so far away) on hot still summer nights......
Alan are you suggesting Sea Change isn't TRUE?
Of course it is a great place for birds!
Margaret
At 08:26 PM 18/07/99 +1000, you wrote:
>Hi Birders,
>I have just been watching"Sea Change" and it sure is a great place for
>birds! Somewhere near Lakes Entrance in Victoria I think!! It was a good
>night for birds tonight, and ended with a finale of Olive-backed Oriole,
>White-throated Nightjars and Bush Stone-Curlew! What next!
>
>Alan Morris
>
>
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Margaret Cameron Phone 03 5229 9792
4 Connor Street Fax 03 5229 1520
East Geelong
Victoria 3219 Editor, Australian Birding Magazine
Australia PO Box 2013, Geelong, Victoria 3220
Australia
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