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On February 11th, with my year's total on 262, I arrived in
Brisbane to inflict The Big Twitch on that unsuspecting town and its surrounds.
After checking into my bland package deal hotel and unpacking, I wandered down
to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens to ease my way into South East Queensland
birding.
Even though I saw less species here than I did on a similar
stroll through the Melbourne Botanic Gardens at the start of the year, the birds
seemed that much more exciting, with species such as Blue-faced
Honeyeater, Figbird, Torresian Crow, Pied Butcherbird, Australian Brush-Turkey,
and Spangled Drongo adding an exotic flavour for
this "Mexican". At the lilly ponds I was able to get within a ridiculously close
distance of a Great Egret, and any doubts that all the sweat of a tropical
Brisbane afternoon were worth it were dispelled when I locked on to a raucously
calling Channel-billed Cuckoo, embarrassingly a bird I have
only ever seen once before.
Up at dawn the next morning (which due to Queensland's
insistence on not adhering to daylight savings means a five o'clock start) and
down the coast into New South Wales to try for the SIPO which I had dipped out
on eighteen months before.
I stopped en route to look for the Painted Snipe that had been
reported at Hope Island, but failed to find what I thought could be appropriate
habitat apart from a miserable swamp that was little better than a flooded ditch
which had a few birds on it, including Chestnut-breasted
Mannikin, but no Snipe.
Driving down to the SIPO site, without getting out of the car
I still managed to clock up new species, namely: Common Tern, Little
Corella, Bar-shouldered Dove and Osprey. That day
there the weather report later said, there was only one place in New South Wales
that had any rain- Ballina. And I reckon it all fell on me on Patch's Beach.
Just as I found a likely bunch of oystercatchers, the heavens opened
up, the grey curtain of rain obscuring the birds from a distance of
twenty metres. They all flew off for shelter I assume. I stayed trying to
tough it out, but twenty minutes later the downpour hadn't let up, I was
shivering and my equipment (including expensive video camera) was soaked
through. I bid retreat to the car and spent the next few hours driving around,
exploring the country south of Ballina while everything dried out, adding
Gull-billed Tern, Brahminy Kite and White-cheeked
Honeyeater.
Back in the late afternoon, and the Oystercatchers weren't a
convenient two km from the Patch's Beach car park, instead at least
five kilometres further on. After scanning over sixty Pied Oystercatchers I
finally got on to a likely bird. It wasn't as obvious as I had been led to
believe, but eventually I got good enough views of an oystercatcher with
markedly shorter legs, a different, "dumpier" stance, seemingly finer bill,
consistently white patch on the wing edge no matter what the wind conditions,
and a brief flight view revealing a lot more white in the wing and
underwing than the other oystercatchers, leading me to tick off my first
South Island Pied Oystercatcher. One interesting thing I
noticed, that I don't think I'd heard of before was the different way it held
its shorter legs. The OZPOs generally stood upright, knees, barely bent. The
SIPO however most often stood with its legs bent, feet thrust forward, adding to
its different, more crouched posture. I lingered so long trying to get better
views and good video shots that I didn't get back to the carpark until well
after dark, thankfully finding the turn-off into the dunes without too much
trouble.
The next morning I picked up ace local birder and long time
birdwatching buddy Andrew Stafford and we headed up into the hills west of
Brisbane. A brief stop at a "dead cert Jacana dam" failed to find any Jacanas
but we did get great views of Tawny Grassbird, Double-barred Finch,
Olive-backed Oriole, Striped Honeyeater, Pheasant Coucal and later,
Wandering Whistling-Duck. Up into the rainforest at Lacey's
Creek, our prime aim being White-eared Monarch, a bird that had always eluded
me. As Andrew got out of the car he said, "We should get the monarch, but they
can be hard work. Oh look, there's one now." And sure enough in the tree by the
car was both a juvenile and adult White-eared Monarch flitting
about. Oh if only it was always this easy.
There were a lot of other rainforest birds about, but we had
to work a lot harder to get a glimpse of them. By the time we left this spot we
clocked up Little Shrike-thrush, Yellow-throated and
Large-billed Scrubwren, Spectacled Monarch, Pacific Baza and a
brief yellow and black flash of a male Regent Bowerbird.
Further back down the valley we stopped near Lake Samsonvale
hoping for Red-backed Button-quail and King Quail. We briefly heard a
button-quail, but no luck in sighting one, a similar story for Lewin's
Rail.
Walking along overgrown grassy tracks we were
discussing how it looked like we would also dip on the King, when a female
King Quail flew up from immediately beneath our feet- another
species that had eluded me for years.
Back up into the rainforest at Mt. Nebo and we had good views
of Wompoo Pigeon, Green Catbird and Logrunner.
Late afternoon now and we are back down on the coastal plains
at Andrew's sure-fire Grass Owl site. Unfortunately the area had overgrown with
a choking small grass, making the habitat unsuitable. I did add Brown
Quail and Red-backed Fairy-wren, which was not enough
to make up for the disappointment of seeing these magnificent owls.
The next day I was solo again and headed back down to the Gold
Coast to try for the Snipe again. Turns out my "flooded ditch" was the site, so
a careful vigil finally yielded a male Painted Snipe. No young
birds or females were seen, so hopefully the birds had not been moved on by the
acts of thoughtless, impatient twitchers as has been reported. I must say the
whole area was constantly being disturbed by people walking dogs, jogging,
parking their cars and even a council vehicle slashing grass. That the Snipe
were there at all is somewhat of a miracle. Despite these disturbances, I
managed to see 28 species including Buff-banded Rail, Latham's Snipe,
Intermediate Egret, Striated Heron, and a flock of forty-seven
Glossy Ibis.
A detour down to Hastings Point nabbed me a mainland Wandering
Tattler and my 300th bird... drumroll please... Richard's
Pipit! Hardly a stunning milestone bird, and one I should have got onto
earlier but amazingly had missed at places like Werribee.
To be continued...
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