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Folks,
Dad and I had a good couple of hours at the Western
Treatment Plant on New Year's Eve, early in the morning - 63 species from just
after 7 am until about 9:50 am. Mostly as you would expect, with
highlights being great views of Golden-headed Cisticolas (from within a
couple of metres), Freckled Ducks including a couple of males with breeding
colour on the base of the bill and several very approachable roosts of
Red-necked Stints, Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and Curlew-Sandpipers. Also
several Royal Spoonbills in breeding plumage at Lake Borrie and a pair of Cape
Barren Geese at paradise Road (where the water level was a bit higher than usual
so a different mix of species - eg no Avocets). Several Great Crested
Grebes along the portion of Little River below the ford; the tide was right up
so no exposed mud at the river mouth or along the banks.
Among the birds on the rocks at Kirk Point were
about forty medium-sized Terns, markedly smaller than the Crested Terns and
Silver Gulls, but larger than the Whiskered terns that were also present in
numbers. These "mystery" terns (to me, anyway) were pale silvery on the
wings with a distinct darker oblong or shallow crescent running horizontally
along the "shoulder", or forward angle of the wing. The legs were dark
reddish and the bill was black and relatively fine in shape. There was a
black cap with white nape and neck, and white in front of the eye and on the
forehead, although there seemed to be a variable extension of the black cap
forward around the eye. they had a slightly peevish, rasping call given
when disputing a perch with a conspecific or another species - I saw a couple of
individuals successfully dislodge Crested Terns from what were obviously
favoured rocks. Wingtips seemed to be around the same length as
tail-feather tips, but again slightly variable from one bird to
another.
I have tentatively identified these birds as Common
Terns. My queries relate to the shoulder marking, which none of the books
that I've consulted shows as clearly as we saw it (for any of the "Commic"
Terns), and the numbers - I understand that Common Terns are not generally
common in Port Phillip Bay and wondered whether such a large group could be
plausible. If anything, the birds looked more like the pictures of
White-fronted Terns, but summer seems to be the wrong time to be seeing them in
this part of the world. Seabirds are far from my speciality, and I would
be most grateful for any guidance any birding-ausers more familiar with these
birds than me could offer.
Crested Pigeons and Musk and Rainbow Lorikeets
still present in Glen Waverley - nice to see one of the Pigeons holding its
ground on a roosting perch against a bad-tempered Noisy Miner.
Regards,
Jack
Krohn
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