birding-aus

Waders on Reef Island, Westernport (Vic)

To: Tim Dolby <>,
Subject: Waders on Reef Island, Westernport (Vic)
From: brian fleming <>
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:47:51 +1100
Dear Tim -
I think you were a bit lucky with your visit to Reef Island, and I'm not talking about your birdlist. There have been several drownings of people who tried to return through a rising tide at Reef Island. Certainly i remember that one was reported quite recently - within last 5 or 10 years, say. One should always check tide tables before a visit.
 Anthea Fleming


Tim Dolby wrote:

Hi all,
I've just spent the day on Reef Island, a small nature reserve on the eastern 
side of Westernport Bay (in Victoria). The island, a well known high tide roost 
site for migratory waders, was teeming with interesting birds. What a great 
place!

On the southern side of the island there was a small flock of Grey-tailed Tattler roosting amongst mangroves, and on several rocky spits and sand beaches on the north-west corner of the island were mixed flocks of hundreds of waders. These included Greater and Lesser Sand Plover, Pacific Golden Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Greenshank, Eastern Curlew, Curlew Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Red-necked Stint.
In all I recorded 31 species on the island, including Fairy Tern (may have been 
nesting), Caspian Tern, Great Egret, White-face Heron, Royal Spoonbill, Sacred 
Ibis, Australian Pelican Gannet, Black Swan, Grey Teal, Pied Oystercatcher, 
Masked Lapwing, Red-capped Plover, Pied and Little Pied Cormorant, Great 
Cormorant, Silver Gull, Pacific Gull, Pipit, White-fronted Chat, Goldfinch and 
Singing Honeyeater. (Also of interest was a Dollarbird at nearby Yallock Creek).

A word of warning though, the island is cut off from the mainland during high 
tide! When I arrived the water level was quite low, so I just walked out onto 
the island. However, when I tried to return, I had wade back through chest 
height water that was rising fast!

Cheers,

Tim Dolby


============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
============================


===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU