G'day birders
Sorry if this is a bit of a long message, but if you go birding in this
area, the list is sure to be long! Some of you may be aware that I am now
domiciled at the Broome Bird Observatory on beautiful Roebuck Bay, WA. For
those of you who have either just commenced birding or have been locked in a
dungeon on the moon since 1988, Broome Bird Observatory is auspiced by Birds
Australia and was set up in 1988 as a centre for studying the immense number
of migratory waders which visit the area each year. It has grown into a
centre for eco-tourism as well and is now one of the more popular tourist
venues in the Broome area. As well as daily tours, we run courses for
birders during the more temperate seasons which consist of workshops and
tours for participants. We also provide accommodation in our bayside bush
campground and in a number of cabins, or units. If you're into some of the
great sights of nature in the world, then you'd like the BBO: gorgeous
scenery as a backdrop to tens of thousands of birds.
I've not placed any reports on the list since arriving, as I've quite
frankly been either too busy with work - birding tours, meetings and office,
or too busy birding. I hope to rectify myself by making regular postings, as
Roebuck Bay really is quite a phenomenal place and among the top couple of
sites in the world for viewing migratory waders. I'd love to share some of
the magnificence of the area with other Birding-Ausers but remember, if it
becomes more than you can stand, air fares are pretty cheap right now.
The bush birds are also amazing up here and we have more than 250 species
either as residents or visitors within 70kms of the Observatory. The climate
is very warm, being in the mid 30's every day, with a high humidity at this
time of year. We have a number of habitats nearby which support the large
and varied avifauna of the region. These are: Beaches (sandy and extensive
mudflats), Mangroves, Saltmarshes, Open Tropical Woodlands, Closed Tropical
Woodlands, Melaleuca marshes, Savannah Grasslands, Acacia/Hakea Scrub - or
Pindan and some beautiful lakes and claypans on what was once the floodplain
of the Fitzroy River. All of these are within easy reach of the Observatory,
so the birding really is first class. I will shortly be placing photographs
of each of these places on the web so that readers will be able to get a
good idea of how the lists I will put up relate to the various habitats.
This morning I set off to one of my favourite birding haunts up here which
is about 75kms east of the Observatory and travels under the totally
unexciting name of "The Gravel Pit". It seems that when the roads were being
built in these parts, they scraped out an area half the size of a football
pitch and used the gravel for surfacing along the side of the road. The pit,
which is located near the road, is really quite shallow and becomes a small
lake or pond after rain. It thus supplies a great deal of birdlife with
essential water as the dry progresses. The dry season is coming to a close
shortly up here, so water is really at a premium. We had a good downpour of
50mls a week or two back and this replenished the pond. Currently, the
eucalypts in the area are in flower, so the open tropical woodlands which
surround the gravel pit are having boom times. It was my best day here yet
overall, especially for raptors.
Here's my list for the Gravel Pit today:
Brown Quail 1
Grey Teal 3
Black-breasted Buzzard 1
Black Kite 2
Whistling Kite 1
Brown Falcon 1
Nankeen Kestrel 2
Brolga 60 (circling above)
Bush Stone Curlew 1 (first at this site for me)
Crested Pigeon 5+
Diamond Dove 20+
Peaceful Dove 20+
Little Corella 3
Red-backed Kingfisher 2
Sacred Kingfisher 1
Rainbow (Red Collared) Lorikeet 2
Black-eared Cuckoo 1
Pallid Cuckoo 1
Rainbow Bee-eater 4
Dollarbird 2
Black-tailed Treecreeper 8
Red-backed Fairy-wren 4
Red-browed Pardalote 1
Striated Pardalote (race uropygialis) 2
Weebill (race flavascens) 3
Little Friarbird 3
Yellow-tinted Honeyeater 2
Black-chinned Honeyeater 2
Brown Honeyeater 10+
Rufous-throated Honeyeater 50+
Jackie Winter 10+
Varied Sitella (race leucophrys) 2
Rufous Whistler 1
Restless Flycatcher 3
Magpie-lark 10+
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike 4
White-winged Triller 6
White-breasted Woodswallow 6
Black-faced Woodswallow 20+
Little Woodswallow 3
Pied Butcherbird 1
Torresian Crow 3
Richards Pipit 1
Zebra Finch 10+
Double-barred Finch 3
Long-tailed Finch 20+
Fairy Martin 3
Rufous Songlark 5
That's 48 species in about 2.5 hours work, which is about all the woodland
wandering one can do in the heat and humidity up here right now. The
Kestrels, Woodswallows, Trillers, Songlarks, Wagtails, Flycatchers and
Bee-eaters have all been breeding in the area recently and, with the
flowering of the eucalypts coinciding with a reasonable water supply,
hundreds of Rufous-throated Honeyeaters have converged on the area to nest.
Driving home, I was looking forward to a mango or two in the shade of my
verandah but, as I arrived home, I noticed that the tide was coming in so,
with duty calling, I picked up a scope and headed out onto the bayside to
catch the latest with the waders. We do big numbers very well up here and
mixed roosting flocks of 20,000 birds are a daily occurrence on the side of
the bay right now. Here's my quick trip along the side of the bay list:
Bar-tailed Godwit 5,000+
Black-tailed Godwit 500+
Great Knot 3000+
Red Knot 100+
Whimbrel 4
Eastern Curlew 30+
Terek Sandpiper 50+
Common Sandpiper 3
Curlew Sandpiper 50+
Greenshank 10+
Grey-tailed Tattler 500+
Ruddy Turnstone 20+
Pied Oystercatcher 25
Sooty Oystercater 18
Pacific Golden Plover 2
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper 11
Oriental Plover 2 (more commonly found on the plains to the east of the Bay)
Grey Plover 500+
Greater Sand Plover 1000+
Red-capped Plover 1000+
Red-necked Stint 1000+
Black-winged Stilt 27
Silver Gull 30+
Caspian Tern 3
Gull-billed Tern (race macrotarsa) 20+
Gull-billed Tern (race affinis) 20+
Lesser Crested Tern 17
Crested Tern 4
Greater Egret 2
Lesser Egret 3
Black-Necked Stork 2
Eastern Reef Heron (grey morph) 3
Pied Cormorant 3
Osprey 1
Brahminy Kite 2
Whistling Kite 5
Black Kite 3
White-bellied Sea-Eagle 1
I supsect I saw Whiskered Terns too but they were a little distant to be
certain. I also suspect that there were some Broad-billed Sandpipers in one
flock as well, but this was disturbed by a Brahminy Kite and dispersed
before I could make a definite determination. Some of these numbers are
gross underestimations of the numbers here. Currently a wader count is in
progress and, for instance 28,000 Bar-tailed Godwits were counted earlier in
the week in the same area I visited today. The numbers today look pretty
well the same as they did on the day of the count. However, I feel that once
you're looking at more than what appears to be 5000 or more individuals of a
species, the exact numbers seem to become immaterial if you're not engaged
in a specific study. It does make playing "spot the Dowitcher" fun though!
This leaves us with the bush birds which surround my home, here at the BBO.
We have a very nice range of birds here as well as an excellent assortment
of reptiles, amphibians and mammals. My faves from each group are the
Stimpson's Python (beautiful pattern), Frill-necked Lizard (cheeky grin),
Green Tree Frog (especially "Munchkin", "Angel" and "Kevin", who live in my
toilet cistern and roam around my living room every evening) and the many
very timid Agile Wallabies who grace our birdbaths and my garden every dawn
and dusk - beautiful joeys in the pouch.
Here's today's bird list for my backyard. Currently, the air is full of the
calls of tiny fledgeling Mistletoe Birds and White-throated Gerygones who
are constantly begging for a feed. The cuteness factor around here therefore
is about 10/10. We are three hours behind you, but I'll post early so that
you get the today's report today. Therefore, there'll no doubt be more on
the horizon for me than you receive here.
Whistling Kite 2
Brown Goshawk 4
Collared Sparrowhawk 1
Crested Pigeon 8
Bar-shouldered Dove 10+
Peaceful Dove 20+
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo 7
Red-winged Parrot 5
Fork-tailed Swift 10+
Blue-winged Kookaburra 2
Variagated Fairy-wren 4
Red-backed Fairy-wren 3
White-throated Gerygone 4
Dollarbird 2
Little Friarbird 7
Singing Honeyeater 5+
Brown Honeyeater 5+
Rufous-throated Honeyeater 3
Grey-crowned Babbler 11
Rufous Whistler 1
Grey Shrike-thrush 2
Restless Flycatcher 2
Magpie Lark 3
Willie Wagtail 3
Northern Fantail 1 (my first sighting for this species at the Observatory)
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike 4
Pied Butcherbird 2
Little Crow 3
Torresian Crow 4
Great Bowerbird 7
Long-tailed Finch 10+
Double-barred Finch 5
Mistletoe Bird 6
Barn Swallow 10+
Fairy Martin 10+
Yellow White-eye 20+
Well, just another day at the Broome Bird Observatory. It's a dirty job I
have here, but someone's gotta do it.
Happy Birding - Ricki
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