Hi everyone,
Below is a wrap-up of the NSW Twitchathon held on the weekend just gone. This
was provided by Alan Morris.
The Menacing Monarchs scored 237, whilst the Hunter Home Brewers and Dodgy
Drongo's both scored 219.
Jacqueline Winter will, as always, provide a trip report for the Brewers, who
again spent the entire 24 hours with a coastal catchment (Hunter of course!). I
can tell you that we were reasonably happy with 219 in a year where so many
birds are absent from coastal areas. Once again, we ran a great 21-hour race,
completely crumbling and dipping on virtually everything we tried for after
1pm.
That was pure bad luck and I still reckon a Hunter-run is truly fantastic.
If we want to compete with teams that start at the Macquarie Marshes (such as
the Monarchs) then we may have to investigate how we can get to a rainforest by
starting that far west within the confines of the 3-hour rule, and then try it
on for size! Bit of homework to do...
Mick
p.s. - a special mention goes to the Dry-throated Buzzards, who did their
entire
Twitchathon (around the Lower Hunter) on push-bike. They scored 150 species - a
great effort! (I've little doubt that last year on the same run they would have
pushed 180)
---
TWITCHATHON 2010 - Preliminary Results
Once again a very successful Twitchathon was held in NSW on the weekend of
30-31
October 2010 with 44 teams and 146 participants. The teams had to contend with
very variable weather, with heavy rain and strong winds in the south and
south-west of the State and windy but sunny conditions in the north and north
east! In the coastal areas there was a dirth of waterbirds with so many having
moved inland to the flooded river systems to breed, while many freshwater
migratory waders avoided the coast altogether. Many migrants have also stayed
inland so that Woodswallows, trillers and some Cuckoos, did not bothe to come
east this year!
As I don't have all the birdlists to check over I can only provide prelimary
results at this stage and these are set out below in the attached table. Not
all
the results are in, particularly from the childrens groups, but it does appear
that the winners again in the Main Race are the Menancing Monarchs with the
Hunter Home Brewers and the Dodgy Drongos viing for equal second. The team with
the highest ration of the birds per kms travelled appear to be the Spotless
Cranks. In the Chapagne race, the winners are once again the Crested
Shrike-twits, followed by the Wobbly-boot Western Warblers. The team with the
highest ratio of birds per kms travelled would appear to be the Warbler
Specklers. Not all the Childrens team results are in but the three 15 year old
boys that made up the Knight Parrots, appear to be well in front to claim first
prize! A special mention should be made of the 5 cyclists who make up the
Dry-throated Buzzards Team, who appear to be set to take out the prize for the
cyclists or walkers who see more than 100 birds in less than 100 kms. The
winners of the Dollarbird Prizes for the previous four years Brad Bolt and Liam
Trice,another two 15 year olds, forsook the Dollarbird competition and joined
Michael Cheers of the Cheerful Drongos Team, and entered the Main Race as the
Zitting Fledgling Drongos, and saw a very creditable 199 species, coming 5th in
the Main Race! Other new teams like the Wandering Drongos also did very well in
the Main Race.
The Lucky Twitchers, Rarest Bird and Biggest Dip prizes are yet to be assessed !
Overall we would appear to have raised about $20,000 which is a great result
and
will be shared between the Kangaroo Island Glossy Black Cockatoo Recovery
Project and the Murray Valley Bush Stone-Curlew Captive Release Project. Until
the money is received it is not possible to know who the individuals are who
can
take out the Prizes for raising the most funds. A big thanks to all those
people
who took part for the first time, and for those people who have taken part many
times, and thankyou too to the major sponsors of the prizes and to the
individual sponsors. A Final Report will be published in the March 2011 issue
of
Bird Notes
Alan Morris
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