|
With the stroke of a colonial pen in 1879, the
islands of the Torres Strait were designated to be part of Queensland, despite
some of them being less than an Anthony Rocca torpedo punt from the New Guinea
mainland. On August the 21st ten birders gathered aboard the yacht "Jodi Anne
II" to exploit this political anomaly for a ten day trip through the Straits
trying to add a few New Guinea species to their Australian lists.
Here's how we went.
We boarded at Horn
island, acquainting ourselves with our tiny
cabins. I was sharing with Mike Carter in the cabin at the back of the boat,
which was larger than some, though the only way I could achieve a standing
position was to leave the hatch open with my head poking out, gopher-like
up onto the deck. This didn't present much of a problem as very little time was
spent in the cabins. In fact, once we had sailed out of the lee of
Horn Island, and into open waters I was reluctant to go down to the cabin at
all, preferring the fresh,stiff breeze in my face, but when I
did I realised that it was a far smoother ride down there closer to the
waterline.These winds were to be a feature of the trip- all I can say is thank goodness Torres
Strait is shallow, because if it had been deep enough to produce a big rolling
swell, it could have been a most unpleasant ten days.
Our first morning saw us anchored off the cone
shaped peak of Dauan Island. We undertook the first of what would be many beach
landings, everyone dressed in the camouflage gear of the birder, and loaded
up with equipment, no wonder the sleepy locals looked on bemused- they must have
thought they were being invaded by an army of nerds.
Due to the tides, we could only stay on Dauan for
the morning, birding the mangrove fringes,
leaving the central hilly areas unexplored. Even though it lies much closer to
New Guinea, the birds were still very much Australian, with plenty of familiar
species ( Yellow-bellied Sunbird, Spangled Drongo, and Shining Starling) as well
as some less frequently encountered Aussie birds (Channel-billed Cuckoo,
Mangrove Golden Whistler and Broad-billed
Flycatcher) with only a few New Guinea visitors- Eclectus
Parrot, Pied Imperial-Pigeon and even an
early Barn Swallow.
Whereas Dauan has that tropical paradise
look to it, Boigu Island, is a big flat piece of
swampy land. The one village clings to the only beach on the island.
Arriving in the
afternoon after a four hour sail from Dauan we immediately hit the village in search primarily of Singing Starling. This
common New Guinea species had been reported regularly here but I wasn't
confident of success. I needn't have worried,
because after an anxious half hour or so, we managed to come across three
Singing Starlings in the middle of the village. Typically, once
we had all seen them, on every other visit to the village we would get them
almost immediately. You've got to love a bird with a good sense of
drama.
We walked into the interior of the island, which is
flat and swampy and though we didn't see anything spectacular, the birding was very promising, with me adding
Australian Pratincole, Rufous-banded Honeyeater and
Red-backed Button-quail- a lifer for me.
Over the next two days on Boigu
we added some really good birds:
Pale White-eye, (a lifer, and the only Torres Strait specialty
I'd dared allow myself to think of a sure thing) Black
Butcherbird, Tawny-breasted Honeyeater, Northern Fantail, Pectoral
Sandpiper, Large-tailed Nightjar.
These and many others were all good, but there was
better to come. I missed the weird looking raptor that some of the others got,
but had a mystery bird of my own in the form of a very perplexing, extremely dark Cicadabird. Not only was it (and its
call) different to the two types of Australian Cicadabird I have seen, it was
also different from the Cicadabirds we later saw on Saibai and Darnley. I still
think it is a Cicadabird, but perhaps yet another race, though I can't entirely
rule out the possibility of a New Guinea species. A trip to PNG might be in
order to sort it out- I could have done the swim in ten minutes, but the turbid,
brown, fast flowing waters that separated us from there kind of put me off
trying.
On one of the days we were led by a couple of
locals along the mangrove lined channel that splits Boigu in two. Little Richie,
our deckhand and tinnie driver, picked up what ten eager birders' eyes had not,
when he asked, "What's that duck over on the bank. And there, desperately trying
to not become our guides' dinner, was an immature
Spotted Whistling-Duck, a lifer for many, and of particular joy
to me after having dipped on it at Weipa.
To be continued...
|
