King Quail hunt - French island (Vict.)

Friends of French Island National Park (Vict.)  trip report - Sat. 14 May 2005

Ably assisted by Parks Victoria (PV) Ranger Mick Douglas, 11 keen Friends of French Island (FoFI) members spent last Saturday searching for the elusive King Quail (Coturnix chinensis) on French Island in Victoria's Western Port Bay.

King Quail are a rare species in Victoria and although intermittently recorded from a number of localities across the state (eg. Grampians, far East Gippsland) it is only reliably found on the island.  The species is on the list of threatened taxa under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (a short Victorian conservation assessment is available from me for those interested).  As far as I'm aware, no dedicated or coordinated survey for the species has been undertaken in Victoria since it was added to the FFG Act (6 August 1996), so FoFI is trying to get a better understanding of the population size and distribution of the species on the island and its habitat preferences.

The days goal was to search island localities where King Quail had been recently recorded by PV rangers (during slashing for fire breaks).  In this instance we checked the Link Rd./Mt Wellington area in the north of the island and used the 'walk-in-a-line' technique with searchers spaced an arms length or so apart walking in a row through 'likely habitat' (verge and within, recently burnt tea-tree heath to the south of Link Rd.).

Within 15 minutes or so of commencing our search we flushed at least 6 King Quail (strangely all males).  Most of the group had not seen the species before so this was a great start for the day.  We later flushed another male plus one Stubble Quail and possibly a Brown Quail, the latter birds in slightly different habitat (much shorter vegetation).  Clearly our search technique was working and we plan to do another search in similar French Island habitat later this year. 

It has been many years (1998) since any King Quail have been formally reported (PV rangers see the species fairly regularly during slashing programs) on the island (Atlas of Victorian Wildlife data) so the group was pretty pleased with its efforts.

Other notable sightings for the day were
- Juvenile White-bellied Sea-Eagle at Linleys Swamp on the northern end of the Coast Rd.
- 18 Blue-winged Parrots (no Orange-bellied!) in the dry salt marsh about 1km north of Tankerton (no OBPs seen recently on the island I understand).

A most satisfying day, with superb blue skies, almost no breeze and no problems with mosquitos!  Our only problem was trainee pilots flying low over the search area and blocking out all other sounds.

A more detailed report will appear in the Friends of French Island newsletter and I hope to get this information into one of the birding or naturalist magazines so people can refer to our findings and our observations will shortly be forwarded to the Atlas of Victorian Wildlife.

Thanks to 
- all those who responded to my earlier request for advice on quail censusing techniques
- Parks Victoria for helping with transport to and from the island (ferry) and the search localities
- the FoFI members and others, who volunteered their time on the weekend.

For anyone who has seen King Quail ANYWHERE in Victoria and has NOT reported their observations to the Birds Australia or Victorian atlassers, would they please advise me directly of your findings so I can keep the atlas data up to date and put the French Island records into some recent perspective.

cheers, Martin

Martin O'Brien
Friends of French Island member
Melbourne