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Christmas Comes in March Part 2
As the last rays of the sun faded over the Indian Ocean, Mike
and I were joined by David James, Jeff Middleton and Glenn and Jenny Holmes who
regaled us with what they'd been seeing whilst on their research postings. As we
sat there, beer in hand gazing out over the ocean to where Java lay just beyond
the horizon, it was odd to think that though we were talking of birds such as
Malayan Night Heron and Asian House Martin, we were technically still in
Australia. Ah the quirks of international politics. Here are two interesting
facts about Christmas Island 1) it is the only Australian territory that once
belonged to someone else- it was for awhile part of the Colony of Singapore, and
2) it is the only piece of Aussie real estate ever to be invaded. Yes in 1942
the British and Australians evacuated leaving the island undefended. The
Japanese occupation force that followed brutally murdered hundreds of the
remaining Chinese and Malay population who had been abandoned by their white
"superiors".
I reckon if Christmas Island was invaded again today, no-one
in Australia would bother much to defend it, except for twitchers, who would
fight to the last to protect this sacred birding soil. Look at the BARC
submissions and a huge percentage emanate from Christmas Island. David James
made the comment that if enough birders visit Christmas Island fifty new species
could be added to the Australian list. All it takes is a good cyclone to whip a
Javan or Sumatran species out of its comfortable existence and onto the Aussie
list- "I don't think we're in Yogyakarta anymore Toto."
Fully armed with all the latest news we turned in early so we
could be up before dawn (5 ish) to be out looking for the Night Heron. Dion
Hobcroft said to me once when describing Norfolk Island, that it was a bit like
the movie "Ground Hog Day" in that every day felt the same. Well Mike and
I lived the Ground Hog life over the next week as we followed the same
routine every day. It went something like this.
Up just after five and out to the patch of forest where Glenn
had seen the Malayan Night Heron. It was less wary of cars, so the best method
of finding it was to drive slowly around the forest tracks. We would do this for
at least an hour every morning. Then we would head back to the Settlement for
breakfast via the rubbish tip, the sports oval and the Poon Saan area where
others had seen Brown Shrike.
Breakfast around nine, then out on our big trip for the
day to a more outlying area such as the Golf Course or South Point or The
Blowholes. Back for lunch via the tip. After lunch a bit of a siesta was planned
but generally the afternoon would find us back out at the golf course, of the
harbour or the tip, re-checking something. As the sun started to sink towards
its cool ocean bed we would haul out to one or other of the spots we had looked
at earlier in the morning (Poon Saan, the tip), winding up the day with a visit
to the tip. On four of the seven nights we went spotlighting. I even checked out
the tip at night just to be sure.
For the whole seven days our routine remained this way. Our
daily totals were: 21, 27, 20, 24, 22, 20, 20. Our total for our time on
Christmas Island was only 32 species- but what species! And always there was the
promise of something more.
On the first day we saw Oriental Pratincole
and the first of White Wagtail of the trip at an open
borrow pits type of area. Later that day at the tip we saw what I thought to be
another individual White Wagtail - they were both of the
race occularis but I felt the second bird had slightly different eye and
chest markings to the first. The second bird hung around the tip for
another day, and why wouldn't it? For a bird that was supposedly off course
there were some easy pickings to be had there. I have some footage of a fly
literally flying into the wagtail's open mouth. We saw no other wagtails of any
species for the trip until the final day when we discovered two magnificently
fresh plumaged males of the leucopsis race. One at, you guessed it, the tip,and
the other sheltering from the tropical sun under a piece of mining
machinery.
Virtually all the endemics on Christmas Island are dead easy
to see. The Silvereye must number in the millions and they have filled virtually
every niche on the island. They even manage to sound like different birds- one
call I thought resembled a fig parrot. Abbot's Booby is easy
enough to pick up incidentally around the island as I did on the first day, but
it is nowhere near as common as the Red-footed.
I notice as I am writing this (9th April) there is a posting
on Birding-Aus alerting everyone to the risk to the boobies posed by the new
detention centre to be built. While we were on Christmas Island, the great
Wilson Tuckey, former Minister Against forests, now Minister against Territories
flew up to announce the construction of the new detention centre. As if
Christmas Island isn't far enough away to hide asylum seekers from all those
pesky journalists and do-gooders, they've decided to build the centre on the
uninhabited western part of the island, about as far from the settlement as
it is possible to be without being in the ocean. The actual detention centre
site is on an old mining lease, but it is surrounded on at least three sides by
the primary rainforest that holds much of the (world) population of the Abbot's
Booby. In order to get to the site, the construction trucks, and all vehicles
will have to drive through roads that cut through the Booby nesting areas. Even
an hour after a downpour, the roads on Christmas start to kick up some dust, so
you can imagine how bad it would be during the dry season. Very worrying
indeed.
By the end of that first full day I had added Common
Sandpiper, and Java Sparrow and only had two endemics
to get. That night we heard the Hawk Owl at the golf course, but couldn't call
any in. Out again the next night, we saw a Black Bittern
by the roadside just before it got dark and then at the golf course managed to
get a close and long look at a Christmas Island Hawk Owl which
is a truly cute little critter.
The remaining endemic is the Christmas Island Goshawk (which
is not yet a full species), which we only saw on two occasions. Some people have
more luck and for a raptor they are meant to be incredibly tame, following the
observer through the forest. Seeing them is a matter of spending enough
time in the forest areas. One of the birds that we saw flew down to the roadside
and appeared to crack open a hollow stick to get at the lizard within. Currently
these birds are considered to be a race of our own Brown Goshawk but they look
nothing like our birds. Structurally and jizz wise they seem much closer to
Variable Goshawk (of which our Grey Goshawk is a race). I am sure that when
somebody gets around to studying this bird's genetics it will be proved to be a
new species and will be added to my Big Twitch list.
And so the routine continued. Same route, a slightly different
mix of species every day. The only other bird I added on Christmas Island was
quite a spectacular one: Pintailed Snipe. Mike and I had
diverted from our usual routine and had gone to the billycart track BEFORE the
tip. As we got out of the car we heard a Snipe like call, but looking around,
could see nothing. Then a bird "parachuted" down in front of us. It seemed
so short-winged and short tailed that our initial impression was that it was a
pigeon. Then it dawned on us that that weren't no pigeon.
"It was a snipe!" I kept repeating to Mike like an idiot.
Before we could move forward to see the bird on the ground, three more flew over
calling the same call- much duller, flatter and less penetrating than the call
of Latham's Snipe. This sent the first bird back up and they all headed off
steadily in the direction of Java.
By the time we left the island, after a week of what in the
almost equatorial sun was quite a punishing schedule, we were exhausted but
happy- well I was happier than Mike as I had seen all my required species and a
couple of bonuses to boot, whereas he had failed to find a newie for his
Aussie list.
What made it all the more galling was that we knew there
were rarities on the island while we were there: Malayan Night Heron and
Watercock being two we failed to turn up. But even more frustrating was the
Bittern situation.
We did actually see a new bird for Australia- a Cinnamon
Bittern. But it was dead in the freezer of Environment Australia. The bird,
an adult female, had been found emaciated two weeks before and had not
survived. It would be interesting to know if there has been a
disturbance on any wetlands in Java or Sumatra as many as nine species of
heron had turned up on the island.
One morning as we headed out again in the pre-dawn light for
another futile search for the night heron, we flushed a Bittern from the gutter
of the main road in the settlement. All we could see of it as it flew to an area
of lawn at the edge of the forest was that it was a small bittern with a
uniformly dark upperwing pattern. We flushed the bird again a few minutes
later and I could see the upperwing colour was a dark brown. We saw the
bird land, and run to the edge of the forest. In the dim light we could see
where it had run to. While I stood watching the dark shape through my bins,
getting slaughtered by swarms of mozzies, Mike tried to get closer to the bird
by using an abandoned building as cover. The theory was that as long as the bird
didn't move we would be able to see it once the light got better, and we
wouldn't have flushed it by spotlighting it. We got into position. The light
improved. Dawn broke and we could see the bird. It was a stick. The bittern had
actually run behind the stick and kept going into the forest while we stood
there staking out a bloody stick.
Adding Australian Ringneck (Twenty-eight
Parrot) and Laughing Turtle Dove near Perth Airport on the way
home did little to dampen the disappointment of what may turn out to be the
biggest dip of The Big Twitch.
So arrived back in Melbourne with my total on 355, and the
news that both the Sydney and Southport pelagics had been hugely successful with
both trips getting birds I still needed, and that there was a Hudwit in
Adelaide. I thought my travels would ease off for a couple of months. Oh how
wrong I was to be.
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