Hi all,
The Hunter Big Year continues...
Enjoy...
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Following on from a very successful start to spring, I was keen to maintain the
momentum coming into October. With 327 under the belt, I made plans with Dan
Williams to make our second attempt at Rufous Scrub-bird on the Labour Day
public holiday. It’s a mighty long drive from Newcastle to Gloucester Tops and
I
wanted to be there early to try and catch some calling males, so I arranged
with
Dan to leave home at 4am. I had an ulterior motive for leaving this early as
well – to make an attempt at Grass Owl en-route en-Ash Island.
Alas, the curse of Ash Island continued that morning.
It was raining and dark and of course, there was no sign of any Grass Owls.
After we stopped to investigate some waders at a pond (probably Greenshanks;
nothing else seems to be on the island this year) my car refused to start
again.
Not even close. Dan had to jump out and push the beast along the gravel road to
jump-start it which it fortunately did. But when it failed to start a second
time after filling up, we decided it was too risky taking my car up to the tops
and so we headed back to jump into Dan’s Festiva. With so much rain (“rain”? in
2010!? surely not?!?!) we thought we wouldn’t chance the creek crossings
required to access the tops and instead make an attempt at a very nice bird
that
had been seen at the HBOC Long Weekend camp at Cattai Wetlands.
The night before, word had filtered down the grapevine that at least one,
possibly two, Forest Kingfishers had been seen at the wetlands which are just
west of Harrington. As this was a new bird for Dan in the Hunter and
traditionally a far more difficult Hunter bird than scrub-birds, the decision
wasn’t a difficult one to make. We arrived at the camp quite early to find a
few
HBOCkers milling about the sodden campsite. Predictably they were all very
amused to see us “Big Yearers” pull into the camp so soon after hearing about
the Forests. Knocking back an offer of cereal and juice, we instead were fed
the
good oil and then marched down to the site with Lorna Mee to accompany us.
Within 3 or so minutes had a wonderful female Forest Kf in the scope. This was
a
bird that I had not figured into my initial possible tally and having dipped on
this species, that my brother Steve had seen earlier in the year at Port
Stephens, made this a great addition to both of our lists.
Well-satisfied, we made our way to the now-seemingly-ex White-eared Monarch
site
in Crowdy Bay NP, only to emulate the total miss I’d made in February. A
consolation however was a Varied Triller – my first and still only Triller for
the year (I hold very grave concerns for finding White-winged which is very
frustrating knowing that they surely were around in summer). After a quick
detour for a distant view of tail feathers of a sitting Square-tailed Kite (new
for Dan's year) we set off home, only to join a 12km queue to cross Bulahdelah
–
3 hour delays – ah yes, the Long Weekend! Just to add insult to injury the
temperature gauge on Dan’s Festiva was soon pointing to the sky and when steam
started appearing from under the bonnet I knew we were in trouble. We then had
the privilege of watching a 12km traffic queue crawl past us…and not a chance
of
birding either as the area was well-fenced.
The following weekend was a pelagic and the one that I’d been looking forward
to
the most as I had timed it to occur in sync with the Short-tailed Shearwater
migration. Upon reading Roger McGovern’s Birdline posting about the Sydney
pelagic on the Saturday (1000’s of Short-taileds + 2 Little Shearwaters) we
were
all very excited about Sunday’s trip (10th). This was well-justified as we
encountered the streams of Short-taileds, a few Wilson’s Stormies and a
White-headed Petrel on our way out. Our arrival at the shelf saw an incredible
flurry of different species come to the boat, including a few Black-bellied
Stormies before we'd even cut the motors. Amongst this flurry were two Black
Petrels, which got the cameras clicking and the adrenalin flowing. Things did
quieten down until a Cookilaria made a rapid pass of the port-side and was not
able to be identified, though with the features able to be seen was most likely
a Cook’s / Pycroft’s type.
The following weekend I took a visiting American birder to see some of our
rainforest specialties in the Barrington Tops region. It was a fantastic day
out
and I was warmed by the fact that although so many birds have deserted the
Hunter, the rainforests were firing on all cylinders. I added one bird on the
day, being Paradise Riflebird (#331), one of the many species that find their
southern limit in the Barrington Range. Still needing Bassian Thrush we were
near Barrington House and I got excited to see a Thrush perch briefly on a log.
I had difficulty getting a decent view at it and as it dropped to the ground I
thought to myself “I hope it calls”. It did. It was a Russet-tailed.
A week later I was again showing overseas visitors around the Lower Hunter
Valley, again in pouring rain – very much the theme for 2010. At one point a
punter quizzed me about a small bird flitting through the trees. I suspected it
may have been a Spotted Pardalote and so I was faced with a dilemma. I thought
that I’d rather have this bird as #332 than #333, and besides we were having
trouble seeing anything on this day so I couldn’t have very well said “not
sure”
without even looking at it! At there it was, in all its punctated glory, an
adult Spotted Pardalote. This species had accompanied me on possibly more
outings this year than any other bird, incessantly sleep-babying away in the
background while I ignored it in with the senseless strategy of keeping him “up
my sleeve”. I put the bins onto the bird in question, before calmly informing
them “yeah nice, that’s a Spotted Pardalote”.
As it turned out, I think I was happy to take this bird as #332, as I did want
something a little “special” to be #333, which was my initial target tally. And
it indeed did turn out that way. During our pre-Twitchathon oiling session
around the lower Hunter, Steve and I got onto a distant raptor near Morpeth.
Steve got the scope onto it and with disturbing cool, said quite simply “Black
Kite”. Needless to say he wasn’t looking at the bird for much longer as I
checked the scope and sure enough, there was the bird that I’d worked the
hardest for over the course of the year thus far, floating around over the
crops. My target reached - three hundred and thirty three, and boy it felt
good.
Suddenly, a new target sprung to mind – would 340 be possible? Could I reach
Tim
Dolby’s VicTwitch record of 345? Needless to say I started musing at what could
have been possible if I’d done this thing in 2009. There are exactly 12 species
that are missing from my 2010 Hunter list that I saw in 2009 that I can
directly
attribute to the inland rain…but enough of pre-fin-post mortems, time for the
next bird!
And one more did come this month…and once again, on the very cusp of the Hunter
Region. The Hunter Home Brewers had decided to do their 2010 Twitchathon in the
Hunter Valley once again, following the great score in 2009 and shrugging their
shoulders that many birds would be further west than the Liverpool Plains
anyway. We stayed the Friday night just north of Ulan, along the banks of the
Goulburn River. In this part of the world, the Hunter Region exists only north
of the river bank (just like O’Brien Crossing where the Plum-heads hang
out…i.e.
hang out normally, but not on Twitchathons). So when I heard a Little Friarbird
call I was very excited and waited til it flew to the northern bank before
claiming #334 for the year. We even saw these bird(s) on the Twitchathon the
next day…but that’s another story that I’m sure Jacqueline Winter will share
soon.
Plans now are to bag the remaining 4 or 5 resident birds that I am yet to see
(which includes that wascally wufous scwub bird), try for something in the
“bonus” category on one of the 2 remaining pelagics and hope that one or two of
the “missing dozen” decide to show their face. Not sure what else I can do
really!
Ever onwards…
Mick
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