Following yesterday's Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo over Ricketts Point, with
the probable Fluttering Shearwaters which were seen further north by Ian
Parsons, a lifer today at Sandringham.
It was another day of flat calm - we must have had about 3 weeks now of high
pressure with little rain to water the plants or restore the reservoirs,
which are now at 49% compared with 53% this time last year.
About 1020 I saw a large dark bird with a massive bill amongst gannets,
penguins and gulls. and phoned Andrew McCutcheon who arrived with cameras
when it was about 100m off shore at the edge of Sandringham Harbour,
contrasting mightily with the Hoary-headed Grebes and Silver Gulls.
Through the bins it had a pinkish tip to the bill, making it a Northern
Giant-petrel !
Later Andrew saw it fly at about 1230 and attack a juvenile gannet.
Another good bird was a Boobook at the Brighton Dunes in the same tree used
as a roost in 1996 and from 1998 to 2001. It's been there for 3 weeks and I
showed it to other members of our Friends groups and bushland crew during a
trip to learn about a scarce Dune Thistle Actities megalocarpa which
survives in the area despite human disturbance.
I'm writing an article about that. It's called "If in doubt DON'T pull it
out" because a respected botanist told me that Friends groups are one of the
greatest threats to endangered plants!
Michael Norris
from the City of Bayside
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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