Hi all,
The 2009 VicTwitch is over! See below Part 1 deals with a rundown of birding
events between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, while Part 2 is with a summary of
events for the entire year, such as the place visited and the birds seen during
VicTwitch 2009. For a full combine report with photos see my trip report site
at http://tim-dolby.blogspot.com/ Now I need to follow up on sponsorship for
the Australian Wildlife Health Centre.
PART ONE
The following report sums up the last days of VicTwitch 2009.
26 December 2009 - Boxing Day
Boxing Day, and there was a Whimbrel on the Barwon River mudflats. It was nice
to catch up with this bird, a species that I'd almost forgotten about. I'd
dipped on Whimbrel during the Twitchathon, so I assumed that it wouldn't be
around in 2009. There were a few other nice waders at Barwon Heads including
Eastern Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit, and Marsh Sandpiper.
Perhaps surprisingly another bird I'd not seen in Victoria was Common Sandpiper
- a bird that favours coastal rocky creeklines. Interestingly there are a few
excellent sites for this species in Melbourne itself; the first is the rocky
edges of the Yarra under Westgate Bridge (often seen by Andrew Hunard as he
kayaks on the Yarra ), the Eastern Treatment Plant (where Mike Carter gets onto
them with some regularity during summer on the BA-Vic surveys), and the
Kororoit Creek at the Altona Coastal Park. Steve Davidson said he'd recently
seen a one near the Racecourse Rd bridge on the Kororoit Creek. After walking
along the creekline, I got onto a single bird on rocks just south of the
bridge. This area is a really nice area for birding, also seen here was Little
Egret, Common Greenshank and a dozen Black-winged Stilt.
I was also impressed with a piece of sculpture at Altona Coastal Park; a
combination of a horse and a bird that looks somewhat like a wader, possibly a
Greenshank. The reason for the horse, the area used to be a race track (hence
Racecourse Rd) and the bird, the area is now a wetland reserve.
December 30 2009
Next stop an evening trip to Bunyip State Forest for a couple of night birds I
still needed. Bunyip is a deceptive site, despite seeming close to Melbourne, I
headed up after having dinner (Pizza) with family in Rathdowne Street in
Carlton, I only just managed to get there before dusk, the best time to see (or
rather hear) White-throated Nightjar. I parked near car the Hemlet Track Trail
Bike Uploading Area (near the intersection with Black Snake Creek Rd) and
within minutes just after dusk, several nightjars called in the distance. This
was an almost identical situation to when Greg Oakley and I twitched
White-throated Night during the 2006 VicTwitch. Bird number 343.
On the way back I tried for Sooty Owl in some of the larger Mountain Ash areas
of Bunyip, somewhere along Link Rd. This was a bird that I'd dipped on several
times already this year, such as at Badgers Weir near Healesville. Despite
hearing a very brief distant calls that may (or may not) have been Sooty Owl, I
was unable to satisfactory tick this species.
December 31 2009 New Year's Eve
It was December 31 2009, NYE (my middle name), and I was left with just one
more one day. How many species could add to my Victorian year list? I was
targeting 4 new bird species on the last day. With Paul Dodd, Fiona Parkin and
Jon Thornton along for the ride, the first bird we went for was the Long-toed
Stint that had been seen recently at Werribee. The last report was the
Conservation Ponds at 35E - 8. Long-toed Stint was really a bird that I should
have targeted earlier - it was first seen in November! I'd assumed that I would
simply I turn up, have a quick look, and see the bird. We did after all have
Fiona's new Leica scope. Not so, and it was the first dip for the day.
The next bird I was looking for was a pair of Spotted Harrier, a tip passed
onto me by Stuart Dashper. He'd seen the birds behind Avalon Airport near the
salt works on Dandos Rd. Again I should have chased this sighting much earlier
(it was seen during the BOCA Bird Count on December 9!) and unfortunately I
dipped. Some consolation was a couple of juvenile Black-winged Stilt looking
very much like a Marsh Sandpipers.
So far, two birds' targeted and two big dips!
The next target was a bird that some question should even be on the Victorian
list, Barbary Dove. It is an interesting bird for a couple of reasons. The
first is its taxonomy. Although normally assigned its own systematic name
Streptopelia risoria, it is thought to be a domestic form of either Eurasian
Collared Dove S. decaocto or more likely the African Collared Dove S.
roseogrisea. The other is its status. Although it's recently been added to the
official Australian list via Christidis and Boles (2008), some suggest that it
has not yet established itself in Victoria. For example did it meet the 10 year
rule i.e. being a self-sustaining population for 10 years. Mike Carter for
instance, to avoid any doubt, travelled to Adelaide to see Barbary Dove,
despite having already seen it in Victoria. For the VicTwitch I've decided to
include it on the Vic list, and ticked of pair of Barbary Dove at the end of
Gray Reserve Road. This borders the Kororoit Creek in Williamstown North. Bird
number 344!
The final destination was Dunach Nature Conservation Reserve, a box-ironbark
and stringybark woodland on the Clunes-Maryborough Road. One of the main
attractions of Dunach is the amount of Mistletoe (Amyema miquelii) found on the
parks eucalypts, providing a source of food and habitat for birds such as the
threatened Painted Honeyeater. We arrived around 3:00pm and it was about 35
degrees, so bird life was very quiet. The best place to see the bird is down
the track that leads east from the main information sign, about 200 metres down
the Clunes-Maryborough Rd. Turn down the track and after 100 metres you come to
one of the strangest signs you're likely to see in a state reserve - a warning
against dumping offal and carcasses. With a penalty of $2000 I'd better be
careful not to throw away that dead kangaroo that I've got in the back of the
car.
>From the offal sign travel about 50 metres and park. This is the southern
>border of Dunach and the trees in this area, particularly in the paddocks that
>adjourn the park are full of Mistletoe. Almost immediately we had two immature
>Painted Honeyeaters next to the car, however we didn't quite get onto them to
>confirm their identify. After walking south, and listening out for the
>distinctive 'georgie-georgie' call of the Painted Honeyeater, we came across a
>small dam. Due to the heat of the day the dam was alive with honeyeaters,
>coming in to drink. There were large numbers of Brown-headed, Yellow-tufted
>and New Holland Honeyeaters, the odd Black-chinned and Fuscous Honeyeater, and
>finally several calling Painted Honeyeater. Yes! Bird number 345. My final
>bird for the year! By the end of the afternoon we recorded 5 Painted
>Honeyeater and also of note, a Black-eared Cuckoo.
That night, as part of our New Year's Eve celebrations, we had a family BBQ at
Yarra Bend. This was near the site that an Eastern Koel was seen November 2000.
Needless to say I had one ear open for a calling Koel. No such luck!
(Part 2 cont)
Cheers,
Tim Dolby
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