Re: Vic Twitchathon Report - Seven Year Twitchers (8 Hour Race)
Hi all,
Following on from the Victorian Twitchathon reports last week, here's a bit of
a rundown on how we went. The Seven Year Twitchers is a newly formed team that
consists of myself (Tim Dolby), John Harris, Greg Oakley and Alex Farias. Our
final total was 132. In the end we were extremely pleased with this total,
especially when you consider we lost approx. 1 ½ through a misunderstanding of
the 'return to Hawthorn by 4:00pm rule' - a very poor excuse particularly
because I'm on the organizing committee! Congratulation to Tang Tang Tintacks
for getting 154, and well done also to the Laughable Kookaburras, who tied with
us on 132. (Don't tell them about the Magpie Goose!)
Just between you and me, our secret itinerary was as follows: Point Addis car
park and Ironbark Basin Nature Reserve, Breamlea, Lake Victoria (Point
Lonsdale), Lake Lorne (Drysdale), Reedy Lake (Lake Connewarre), Werribee and
the You Yangs. We'd also intended to go to Yarra Bend (Melb) but ran out of
time - so we birded along the Melbourne City Link tunnel instead.
After leaving Melbourne at 5:30am Sunday morning, we arrived at Point Addis car
park just before 8:00am. We soon picked up our target bird, a single male
Rufous Bristlebird (best bird), as well as Crimson Rosella, Australasian
Gannet, Pacific and Silver Gull, and scoped Shy Albatross and Short-tailed
Shearwater. A good start. We then did the short drive to the Ironbark Basin
Nature Reserve, an area alive with birds, particularly cuckoo. Birds here
included Shining, Horsfield's Bronze and Fantailed Cuckoo, Blue-winged Parrot,
Buff-rumped, Brown and Striated Thornbill, Gang Gang Cockatoo, Spotted
Pardalote, White-throated Treecreeper, Yellow-faced, Brown-headed and New
Holland Honeyeater.
>From Point Addis we headed to Breamlea, and although we dipped on Hooded
>Plover, we did pick up Caspian Tern, Greenshank, Red-necked Stint, Sharpies,
>Pied Oystercatcher, Little Wattlebird, Grey Butcherbird, Spiny-cheeked
>Honeyeater and Striated Calamanthus. However we spent far too much time at
>Breamlea (well over an hour), due mainly to the walk to the mouth of the river.
Similarly the trip to Lake Victoria, Point Lonsdale was somewhat disappointing
because of time factors. Despite this we picked up Banded and Black-winged
Stilt, Red-necked Avocet and White-fronted Chat. No Little Egret or Fairy Tern,
no Buff-banded Rail (which I had a spot for), and the Double-banded Plover had
all packed their bags and gone home. In retrospect we should have done some
recent reconnaissance at this site to determine its viability.
>From Lake Victoria to Lake Lorne in Drysdale, where we added Freckled (approx.
>150) and Blue-billed Duck, Black-tailed Native-hen and Black-fronted Dotterel.
> By this stage however our time was seriously being chewed up.
We quickly dropped into Reedy Lake (Lake Connewarre) adding Great Egret, Royal
Spoonbill, Little Grassbird, Reed-warbler, Golden-headed Cisticola, Greenfinch
(and Magpie Goose, which we won't mention). A couple of dips: we failed to
flush an Australasian Bittern, and despite seeing a godwit we carelessly failed
to immediately distinguish its identity - thinking we could do this later.
As indicated we were seriously running out of time and we still hadn't covered
our two main sites, the You Yangs and Werribee!! So we made a mad dash into
Werribee (we didn't even get out of the car!), picking up some waders (Curlew
Sandpiper), some ducks (Pink-eared Duck), Crested Pigeon and Tree Martin.
Dipped on Great Crested Grebe and a few others, and forgot to get Australasian
Shoveler!
We had only just over an hour and a half left and we needed to allow for an
hour or so on the Geelong Road. A quick dash into the You Yangs proved
excellent with some really interesting birds that saved our tally from an
embarrassingly low score. Rather than try the main park we headed to Hovel
Creek, an area visited a few days early by Alex. The list here included
Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Restless Flycatcher, White-winged Triller, Diamond
Firetail, White-browed Woodswallow, Mistletoebird, Rainbowbird and finally a
Kookaburra! We dipped on Masked Woodswallow and Crested Shriketit (we just
didn't have the time to look), and amongst others we'd hoped to pick up a
Wedgie. But not bad for a quick 15 minute dash! So finally we all jumped in the
car and headed for Melbourne.
As mentioned earlier we'd assumed that we'd had to finish our 8 hour twitch in
Hawthorn, so we lost about an hour on Geelong Road, as well as some unnecessary
dashing about. In the end though we were extremely please with our effort (132
after-all was not a bad score), and it was also great fun!
Tim
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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