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The Big Twitch-The Convict Trail, Part 1 (Re-send)

To: "Birding-Aus" <>
Subject: The Big Twitch-The Convict Trail, Part 1 (Re-send)
From: "Sean Dooley" <>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 18:32:16 +1100
It looks like Part 1 of my message bounced. Maybe it was too long so Iwill send Part 1 in two parts, so there will be three parts, of which only two will be given the title of part, the the other will be a part of a part.
 
There, I hope that clears it all up.
 
Sean
 
G'day all,
 
Due to my inability to master the technology, I have been unable to send any postings whilst travelling over the last three weeks, and as so much has happened, I will have to take a couple of postings to fit it all in.
 
So here goes...
 
On Jan 30th with the total still at 198, I finally got to Norfolk Island.
 
I had left early in the morning to catch a flight to Sydney, hearing but not seeing Purple-crowned Lorikeet in the Tullamarine Airport Carpark. Once in Sydney I was told to wait around for news of a possible flight to Norfolk. So I spent the entire day hanging around the long term car park, where I had parked my car three days earlier. There is a really nice looking wetland nearby, between the freeway and the airport and I managed to amuse myself there for an hour or two seeing 28 species. No new additions to the year list, but it did contain a few Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, Great and Little Egrets as well as breeding Coot and Swamphen.
 
Eventually there was a flight. The problem had been that the island had been fog-bound for five days- essentially, the planes couldn't find the island!  And so at eleven o'clock at night I finally arrived at Norfolk Island, three and a half days late.
 
What was to have been a leisurely week spent exploring the island now became a mad dash against time to try and see everything. The advantage of trying to do this on Norfolk is that it is only 8 by 5 kilometres long. On the first day I managed to see nearly everything I was after.
 
The first time I hit the coast netted me five year ticks; White Tern, Red Junglefowl, Black-winged Petrel, Red-tailed Tropicbird and White-capped Noddy, the first four being lifers for me. Not a bad return for five minutes birding- can't remember the last time that's happened. My milestone 200th bird could have been any one of the exciting seabirds or island endemics but sadly it turned out to be Red Junglefowl, the ubiquitous chook-a "plastic" bird as some would say, but definitely running wild, probably since the first convict settlement was abandoned in the first decade of the Nineteenth Century.
 
By the end of the day I had covered most of the habitats on Norfolk and continued to add birds to my year list (and life list- those species marked with an asterisk). Onto the list went Slender-billed White-eye*, Masked Booby* Sooty Tern, Common Noddy, Mallard, Emerald Dove, Norfolk Island Gerygone* and Lesser Frigatebird*, quite an unexpected sighting, Whimbrel and Ruddy Turnstone.
 
The White-eyes are a fabulous bird, quite bold at times as they would pass through in noisy feeding parties of up to twenty. They weren't nearly as common though as our Silvereye which would be the most numerous bird of the forest. Maybe it was just because I was looking more closely than usual at all Silvereyes in the forlorn hope of a most probably extinct White-chested White-eye, but the Silvereyes on Norfolk seemed to be brighter and have more obvious black around the eyes and lores than back home, well at least compared to the races in Victoria.
 
I have included Mallard in my list as though I agree with Dion Hobcroft's posting from late last year that they are all probably Mallard/Pacific Black Duck hybrids, I would say the genetic balance is heavily weighted toward the Mallard end. I saw several virtual full Mallard females, and only one bird that I would consider anything like a natural Black Duck. This is a salutary lesson in the genetic swamping capabilities of the M Mallard. According to information at the National Parks Office, the first Mallards didn't arrive on Norfolk till 1971. In thirty years they have come to completely dominate. Surely this is incentive to lobby to get all those "cute" city pond Mallards discreetly taken out before they inflict the same genetic damage on out mainland Black Ducks.
 
Over the remaining two days I was able to pick up most of the birds I'd missed on, namely Grey Ternlet*, Wandering Tattler, Masked Woodswallow (apparently a flock arrived from Australia a while back and are still surviving)and California Quail . It would be interesting doing a Twitchathon here as my daily lists were: 36, 34, 37, 28. Competition would be fierce as every team would be able to cover the same spots about five times over. A score of forty would be the equivalent of getting 250 on the mainland; a two species difference would equate to a landslide victory.
 
On the Saturday I was able to get across to Phillip Island which lies a few miles off Norfolk and is a major sea bird colony, with some species present here that have been eliminated from Norfolk. It is truly a spectacular place, and provides an opportunity to get really close to the birds. Aside from the great views of nesting Tropicbirds, Ternlets, Noddies and others, I also added Kermadec Petrel and Australasian Gannet to the list.
 
To be continued...
 
 
 
 
 
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