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Hi Phil
Yeah, it's hard not to use
superlatives up here. I was out on the wader count at Bush Point (southern tip
of Roebuck Bay) earlier in the week, where we counted thousands of Sanderlings
(several thousand to memory but happy to be corrected). The figure broke the
record for this species on the Bay by a considerable extent. Naturally
they don't go far beyond Bush Point, because the substrate is too muddy for
them. I'll get you a precise figure when Chris Hassell returns from 80 Mile
Beach. Really beautiful little birds.
Another record breaker for the point
was the Grey Plovers. Thousands of these too. Interesting that only the females
come to Australia. More so, if they turn out to mate for life!
Bush point is the site where the
world record for a migratory wader flock was once found roosting. There were
more than 100,000 birds in the roost, which must have been an amazing sight,
especially in an area which is at once so incredibly desolate but also
hauntingly beautiful. Roebuck Bay really turns on some of the great sights of nature, equal to any of the
other big name places on the planet.
As I will be making regular reports
on the various birding areas around Broome from now on, I have built a simple
web site with images of those areas. This should help Birding-Ausers to get a
little more juice out of the reports, as we are so distant from most subscribers
and most will not have visited here yet. The URL is www.ricki.bigpondhosting.com/default.html.
It should be up in place in tonight.
Cheers - Ricki
Broome WA
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