|
Now that the Christmas fun is over, I thought it
timely to reflect on 2003, from a birding perspective - a great year in my short
birding life.
The year started with a bang as I worked for a
couple of weeks at O'Reilly's in SE Queensland in early January as a nature
guide. the trip started with Greg Anderson kindly showing the sights and
birds of Brisbane and surrounds. We birded pretty solidly for a day in the
humidity of another lovely Queensland day and I saw a swag of new birds, the
best of which were probably Osprey and Mangrove Kingfisher, both of which were
at Toorbul Point and the Bush Stone-Curlew at Queensland Uni, which was the last
bird we saw after night fell.
At O'Reilly's I had a great time, enjoying only one
storm from the platform above the pool, with Needletails zooming up the valley
ahead of the lightning and thunder. I saw heaps of new birds again,
including a Paradise Riflebird, Marbled Frogmouth and Sooty Owl.
Unfortunately it was (is?) very dry up there and so after nearly two weeks I
still hadn't got onto a Noisy Pitta. With only a couple of days to go, one
morning before work, I made a dash down the Python Rock walk, where a Pitta had
been seen nesting recently, speeding down the track I was brushing Albert's
Lyrebirds aside in my quest for Noisy Pitta - alas without luck. In fact
it wasn't until almost my last day that I finally saw a Pitta, and it was worth
the wait.
The trip to Queensland was fantastic and places
like Samsonvale Lake, Buckley's Hole and the Sherwood Arboretum are full of
great birds. However the trip was not without frustration. I checked
the Arboretum 4 times in my two and bit weeks in Queensland for Little
Bittern unsuccessfully, only to get on a plane to Victoria and have my neighbour
on the plane tell me about the famous Little Bitterns that everyone was seeing
in Bundoora! And that bloody Laughing Gull! Three times I drove up
to Bribie Island, and three times I dipped on the bird. The last time I
gave up the possibility of ticking a Oriental Cuckoo, because I was sure that I
would get the Gull this last time! I also ventured into the Lockyer Valley
on a hot (very hot from a Victorian's point of view) day, but without any
planning, a fellow birder in the drivers seat or a lot of energy, I don't
think we did this region much service and didn't really get anything
exciting.
In February I went to Mud Island, in Port Phillip
Bay, Victoria with a BOCA group and got a couple more new birds, as well as
seeing both Little and Fairy Terns together to get them sorted in my mind, while
in April I went to Mallacoota and then Bermagui (Vic and NSW) and got some more
birds for my Vic list (Glossy Black-Cocky, but dipped on Ground Parrot) and
a new tick in Eastern Reef Egret at Camel Rock near Bermagui. At the end
of April I attended residential schools for the Certificate in Ornithology and
picked up two more new birds in Black Falcon near Lavington, NSW and finally got
onto Regent Honeyeater at Chiltern NP, Vic. I also ticked Oriental
Pratincole at Werribee in a busy month.
My nest big trip was to Sturt NP the
archives has a full report, but suffice to say the highlight was the Grey
Falcon, slowly making its way towards and then over us (I later heard that the
falcon was nesting near by, and that we almost certainly walked underneath the
nest!). Bustards and Ground Cuckoo-shrike were other
highlights.
OK, this is getting too long. There is also a
report on the archives about my September trip to Julatten, Qld when I again
worked as a bird guide at KPBWL (its a really good gig this guiding stuff - you
walk around with (usually) nice people talking about birds and mammals and
plants and other cool stuff, then at the end you stick your hand out and they
put the folding stuff in it!). I also nearly finished the 2001 and 2002
Victorian Bird Reports (stay tuned), Birdline continues to be a success (it's
now had around 30 000 visits in three years), I set-up the new Birds Australia
- Victoria website, and completed both my undergraduate degree and the
Certificate of Ornithology at Charles Sturt Uni. I wonder my wife tells my
I am obsessed by birds?
So to the truly nerdy numbers and stuff.
Ticks - I got 394 birds for the year (I am very
sorry that for the first time in about 4 years I didn't go on a pelagic trip!),
which included 101 ticks, taking my life list from a paltry 353 to a slightly
improved 454.
Best bird - easy: Grey Falcon, oh and the
Square-tailed Kites on a nest... the Papuan Frogmouth... finally getting
Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo... Red-necked Crake and all the Bowerbirds in north
Qld...
Biggest dip - the Little Bittern and the Laughing
Gull, although I still don't have Pilotbird or Orange-bellied Parrot
(inexcusable for southern Victorian).
Anyone else had an interesting birding
year?
Stuart
Stuart Cooney
| 