G'day,
This morning I went to Tinaburra Peninsula armed with more information about
snipe, thanks to Bob Forsayth. In a little arm of Lake Tinarro I found no
snipe but hundreds of Little Black Cormorants. My first estimation was of
650 but this was well under.
This narrow reach of water was teeming with birds. Wave after wave of
Cormorants flew over the leading edge of the flock to dive for fish.
Pelicans fought over injured fish and stole them from the cormorants.
Further back, birds were driving the fish towards the bank. Egrets lined the
shore. Terns bomb-dived. Two Whistling Kites swooped on the leftovers. It
was a thundering, chaotic place for a half hour. Wing beats and splashing
echoed off the trees on either side. Later the group moved out of the inlet
into a more open and deeper part of the lake. Here the Cormorants dispersed
into two groups and then a wide scattering of fishing parties before forming
two tight hunting packs. Later still they moved to the shore where I could
do a serious count. A minimum of 1017 Little Black Cormorants on the bank
and about 55 still on the water. 1 100 is reasonable as a round number.
Associated with this melee were:-
61 Pelicans
11 Great Cormorants, four of which were juveniles.
eight Great Egrets
six Caspian Terns
five Little Egrets
four Darters with another 6 on the margins
three Intermediate Egrets
two Whistling Kites
one Silver Gull
(perhaps this could be a song!)
On the side lines as innocent bystanders were:-
26 Little Black Cormorants higher up the reach
13 Little Pied Cormorants
.30 Pacific Black Duck
.35 Coot
16 Hardheads
.12 Grey Teal
22 Great-crested Grebes
.6 Australasian Little Grebes
1 Black-fronted Dotterel
6 + golden-headed Cisticolas
1 Tawny Grassbird
6 Tree Martins
1 Little Eagle
8 Black Kites
.25 Purple Swamphens
3 Black-winged Stilts
and one Agile Wallaby
On the other side of the peninsula I also noticed:-
300+ Plumed Whistling-Duck
8 Wood Duck
1 Common Sandpiper
2 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers
Further up stream with my friend Ben Constable we saw the following
additional species:-
2 Glossy Ibis
2 Land Rails
3 Snipe, two of which were definitely Latham's
1 Red-kneed Dotterel
4 Royal Spoonbill
On the way home I was interrupted by a flight of 15+ Double-eyed
Fig-Parrots. Throw in the three honeyeater and the eight other species I
can recall makes at least 36 birds in a 2.5 kilometre radius on a 60* arc
from home in the late morning!
Regards,
Alan Gillanders
Alan's Wildlife Tours
2 Mather Road
Yungaburra 4884
Australia
Phone (07) 4095 3784
Int + 61 7 4095 3784
www.alanswildlifetours.com.au
On the beautiful Atherton Tablelands
145* 33' 25"E 17* 16' 40"S
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