G'day all,
Yesterday local bird watching enthusiasts Ian Fox,
Trish Hammond & I, (with my useless dog Keisha) put in almost 8 hours
checking out the 3.4 km perimeter of Wide Bay + a quick check of the rarely
visited South Bay. (Both are on the western shores of Mount
Isa's Lake Moondarra)
As we drove down to the waters edge we drove around a dead 2.3
metre Fresh Water Crocodile and shortly afterwards flushed a fully
grown one back into the lake. Two more were floating on the water, further out,
keeping a beady eye on us .
Compared to 8 days previously, the numbers of waders seemed a bit down. But
we soon picked up a couple of non-breeding plumaged
Long-toed Stints. The birds would fly off down the shore
for no apparent reason. We were chuffed to pick up probably the same birds
again & at one time we saw 3 together. We were fortunate to have plenty
of Red-kneed Dotterel, Red-capped plover & Sharp-tailed Sandpipers
to get a size comparison to these midgets.
We did NOT find any Red-necked Stints which
were at the same location 8 days previously. Likewise, some other birds seen then, such as Curlew-Sandpiper, Black-tailed
Godwit had also departed.
A dozen Oriental Plover were
standing motionless, no doubt pondering the meaning of life in their
cryptic pastel coloured plumage, about 50 metres from the
shore.
We continued to repetitively "drive, stop, pull out
the scopes & look" at the 1000s of waterfowl & waders.
As we were approaching a spot targeted for a lunch
break, Trish (who was jammed into the back seat of my twin-cab Mazda 4wd) cried
out loudly "Orange Chat" But bad
news & good news ! The bad news was they were not Orange Chats ! The
good news were they were Yellow Chats ! ! Who says "only
the people in the front seat get the best birds" ?
The first record at Mount Isa, was "one
sighting when the Leichhardt River Dam commenced filling, 24th March
1958" by the Horton's who subsequently "found" the Ballara
Grasswren in 1966. And I believe, the
last record of a sighting of this species was by ex Mount Isan, Gloria
Glass in 1978 and 1979.
Ian Fox writes >
The
area is on the shallow margins of the lake and as such has a variety of
micro-habitats apparently favoured by the Yellow Chat. The aquatic grass
Pseudoraphis spinescens (mudgrass) and the grass Cynodon
dactylon (green couch) occur in dense mats along the margins of the lake.
As it dries, this dense mat of grass leaves an uneven surface of low dips
and hollows behind which birds frequently disappeared. Amongst this grassy
mat are areas of bare dried mud, often with surface salt, that favours the
growth of succulent plants such as Portulacca and various small
Chenopods. These areas were frequented by the birds. One feature
of note is the abundance of driftwood in the area. This is largely from dead
shrubs of the weed Parkinsonia aculeata which is common around the
lake. In the area where the Yellow Chats were seen, the driftwood sits in very
shallow water and has been wind-driven into extensive tangles parallel to
the shoreline. These tangles are up to 20 metres wide and one and half
metres high. When disturbed, the birds rapidly flew across the shallow water
and sheltered in the driftwood.
There were at least a dozen birds
actively feeding and were spread out over about 30 X 100 metres. They stayed
within this area unless we accidentally flushed them trying to get better
photos. We were able to ID (& photograph) Males, Females and
Immatures.
We then moved further around the shores to a rarely
visited bay where early this year Helen Morgan & I had recorded Painted
Snipe. But no luck this time although a pair of Freckled Duck
was some consolation.
We then checked out South Bay adding a couple
of foliage birds to make a total of 77 species for a
pleasant day.
Regards from
Bob Forsyth
Mount Isa, NW
Qld.
