Today, myself and David Mitford enjoyed a pleasant day in the Shoalhaven
area (approx 180-200 km south of Sydney CBD). Our main aim and hope was to find
a couple of lifers for David, a Square-tailed Kite at Culburra and a Beach
Stone-curlew at Orient Pt just east of Nowra. Both have occurred regularly at
these places over recent years but we failed to see any of these two. However,
we did see a whole host of interesting birds around the Culburra area as well as
driving through the Illawarra region between there and Sydney.
One of our most interesting sightings on our way down the coast from
Sydney, was seeing a pair of Grey Goshawks display beside the freeway at Blue
Gum Forest (near Helensburgh) and both Goshawks were seen later perched on one
of the electricity towers beside this road. The stretch of freeway between
Waterfall and Bulli is often good for Grey Goshawks and I have seen a number of
times, a few pairs here and there along the freeway. Further on the road to
Nowra, we saw a small flock of Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos and Pacific Heron
feeding beside the road.
Upon arrival at Culburra, we hoped that the Square-tailed Kites (one or
possibly a pair often frequent this area) but despite a search around none were
about. Probably they breed here and disperse elsewhere for the
winter?
We also checked Orient Pt for a Beach stone-curlew but also failed to
find this bird. However, we did see a Fairy Penguin (swimming near the mouth of
the Shoalhaven
River), a White-fronted Tern amongst
the Crested Terns, 3 Caspian Terns, a Mangrove Heron, a Darter, a Reef Egret, a
Little Egret, 2 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Ruddy Turnstone, 7 Sooty and 2 Pied
Oystercatchers and a few White-bellied
Sea Eagles. Along one of the streets,
a White-headed Pigeon perched prominent on the power lines like a Feral Pigeon
(probably 40-50 or so km away from any Rainforest and I could not see any
fruiting tree in sight and only dry coastal scrub nearby.
Very few seabirds were seen passing Crookhaven Heads including a few
Black-browed Albatrosses, a fairly tight flock of at least 25 Fluttering
Shearwaters and an Australasian Gannet. It?s been quite poor for seabirds this
winter??
At Lake Wollumboola at Culburra, the water level looked quite deep and
there was very few water birds compared to the previous summer (only a handful
of Black Swans remained out of the 10-15,000 last January) but there were at
least 17 Hoary-headed Grebes (many acquiring/moulting away from (?) breeding
plumage, Great Egrets, Royal Spoonbills, a Brown Goshawk over the surrounding
forest, 2 Whistling Kites, 2 White-bellied Sea-eagles, a Swamp Harrier, 2
Red-capped Plovers, 2 Caspian and 3 Gull-billed Terns (all of these Terns were
in non-breeding plumage). Lots of Honeyeaters were about attracted to the
flowering Spotted Gums and Banksias but consisted mainly of Little and Red
Wattlebirds, Noisy Friarbirds, New Holland Honeyeaters and heard Scarlet
Honeyeater. Musk Lorikeets were heard amongst the Rainbow Lorikeets.
We briefly drove on the north side of
Jervis
Bay and were thinking of checking out
the heathland (near Currarong) but ran out of time (as we often do - too many
good places to visit in too little time!). Has anybody seen Eastern
Bristlebirds on this side of the bay or are they only confined to
the south side?
The drive back home produced a Little Eagle soaring low over the partly
rainforest covered hillside just outside Kiama, an Australian Hobby and another
Brown Goshawk flying near Wollongong, 5 Black-shouldered Kites in 5 widely
separate areas beside the freeway (I said to David we should have a 90 % chance
to get one of these on the days raptor list heading back home and having not
seen one until heading back through the Wollongong area) and a Collared
Sparrowhawk near Heathcoate (our tenth raptor for the day).
Our raptor list for the day was as follows:
Grey Goshawk (2 ? a pair)
Brown Goshawk (2)
Collared Sparrowhawk (1)
Swamp Harrier (3)
Whistling Kite (2)
Little Eagle (1)
White-bellied Sea-eagle (7)
Black-shouldered Kite (5)
Australian Kestrel (2)
Australian Hobby (1)
Edwin Vella
