Three for Three - The Hunter Big Year final wrap
Midnight on the 31st December in Crowdy Bay National Park and there endethed
the
‘Hunter Big Year’, which I’m going to dub posthumously “Huby”. As I toasted a
glass of Hunter Semillon with my non-birding compatriots I convinced myself
that
it was also a ‘good year’. Of course, it was a good year and any year you see
343 species within 200km, by the Torresian Crow, of your front door has to be
viewed as such! The more I think about this, the more impressed I become with
the feat – it is a great place to live really.
My last report had me on 336 species and about to embark on a 5-day sojourn
around the region with a pair of Canadian birders. This started very well when
we lucked onto another bird that I thought I was not going to see. Scanning
Grahamstown Dam to show them Musk Ducks I picked up 3 Whiskered Terns perched
on
a buoy a couple of hundred metres from the shore. This was a new bird for the
Canadian folk, but I reckon I was more excited to see them!
The next bird to fall was one of those ‘relief’ birds that I really should have
bagged much earlier on. Already I’d seen Russet-tailed Thrushes at Barrington
House but this is one of a number of sites in the Hunter where both thrushes
occur. I did hear both species calling in the dawn chorus on the morning we
were
there and as luck would not normally have had it, Bassian was the first we saw,
after carefully scrutinising the bird in question. I was to see many more
Bassians from then on.
I had a small glimmer of hope that we may have come across a ‘returning’
(lost?)
White-winged Triller whilst out west, but this wasn’t to be. In fact, we were
lucky to see any birds out there at all, having been flooded out of numerous
sites and almost stranded by raging rivers and creeks three times. Rain – the
overarching theme of 2010 without doubt.
On the 8th December, at the HBOC meeting I suggested to Dan that we try for
Boobook after the show, as I was getting very nervous about missing this bird.
I
was particularly ‘edgey’ about it as we’d heard it at close-quarters whilst
camping near Cassilis in January and made a conscious decision to “leave it for
later on”. Although the decision to avoid eye-balling a Spotted Pardalote for
as
long as possible was easily rectifiable, I started to think that choosing not
to
bag a nocturnal bird could have been a bit foolhardy. So we went to Dan’s
Boobook site in suburban Blackbutt Reserve and soon after cupping my hands and
doing my best ‘morepork’ imitations we had a bird calling, which we located
easily.
It was to be nearly another fortnight before I added another bird. This wasn’t
through a lack of trying as I’d been checking the Newcastle Baths daily and ran
a pelagic on Sunday 12th. The latter was easily the quietest pelagic I’d ever
been on, with not a single bird coming in to the boat whilst at the shelf. I’d
also followed a promising lead regarding Skylarks on Ash Island but which
frustratingly got me nothing but dozens of Pipits, leaving me with an entire
year of adding birds with not a single species to thank Ash Island for. I did
see one bird there first, a crippling European Goldfinch, but which I saw
several times later at other sites. So much for the vagrant capital of the
Hunter!
Hunter birders are eagerly waiting to see me off on travels again, as that
seems
to be the only time that terrestrial vagrants arrive in our region. And to make
‘vagrant matters’ worse I started receiving news around mid December from
Christmas / Cocos where I was supposed be leading the group that Richard Baxter
was guiding (as he was originally going to be travelling to and from Heard
Island at that time).
The bird added on the 21st though, was a corker and one of my favourite birds
for the year. In the midst of a (nervous) few days with the family in the Blue
Mountains, Steve showed me an image of a bird on the back of his wife’s iPhone.
It was of an immature White-browed Woodswallow, taken by her photographer
brother with an enquiry about what the bird was. I asked where the photo had
been taken.
“The wetlands centre”he said, “…apparently there are a few of them”.
I resisted the temptation to desert the family Christmas and decided to
investigate on Monday arvo – this was a bird I had not expected at all and the
prospect was very exciting indeed. I arrived with a very loose description of
where the birds had been seen at 3:50pm (the website says they’re open til
5pm),
only to be told they closed at 4pm and that I had 10 minutes. This was just
enough to get me to the roughly described location, but alas there were no
Woodswallows. I ran back to the gate and decided to look again in the morning
in
a location I considered more likely.
The next day I headed straight for the spot that if I was a White-browed
Woodswallow, I’d be hanging out and within seconds of arriving there I heard
the
unmistakeable “chyep” from a bird in flight. I looked up and watched an
immature
male fly to a perch on a dead wattle tree, which was soon joined by a second
bird. I spent as much time with these birds as I could, as they have always
been
amongst my favourite birds and to land a species that I’d all but written-off
it
was a gleeful moment. “One-back on the deserters” I thought to myself. Indeed
these were the only White-broweds reported east of the divide (east of
Cobar?!?)
in NSW in 2010.
The Woodswallow represented something of a landmark, as the 340th bird for the
year. I had to get to Gloucester Tops to try for the two species I needed up
there. I gauged the situation on the home front and decided that a Christmas
Eve
mission was the best option, as I didn’t want to 'push things' between
Christmas
and New Years. I must digress here. Unlike Sean Dooley was in 2002, I am not
single…and unlike Paul and Ruth, my partner is not a birder (I often wonder
what
that would be like!). I have no idea how Tim Dolby managed to do his VicTwitch
with a family.
I figured that as Gloucester Tops was my final “site”, I needed to get it out
of
the way before the post-Xmas break, leaving that time to keep checking the
baths
and my ear out for a vagrant to turn up. Emerald Dove was pretty much one of
only two resident birds I could still target after the “Tops Two” so I decided
to roll a visit to Copeland Tops into Chrissy Eve as well.
Leaving home at 4am in drizzling rain, I went straight to a Rufous Scrub-bird
that “I knew” and sure enough he was singing his heart out when I arrived,
audible to me before I’d even turned the car engine off. I took up position on
a
nearby log and waited patiently. Within a few minutes he popped up and showed
himself briefly from the end of a perpendicular log, bringing a grin from ear
to
ear to my face. Seeing an RSB was a massive relief and I wasted no time heading
off to look for Olive Whistlers, with the theory being I would give myself more
time to target the dove at Copeland.
Unfortunately, the whistler took a lot longer than I had anticipated, with a
complete failure at the site I’d counted on producing for me. This was a fairly
long walk in and out and cost me a lot of time and dry clothes. Typically, I
got
onto 3 birds along the roadside on the way back out. I wasn’t that miffed, as I
was just very happy to have bagged the bird! I’d made 3 attempts to get to
Gloucester Tops since Dan and I went up in late Jan. The first was thwarted by
a
dead car battery, the second by flooded creek-crossings, but now it was a case
of 3rd time lucky.
I just had time to try Copeland Tops for Emerald Dove but I had to nearly run
the 2km up the steep hill to where Al Richardson had seen one walking along the
track just a week earlier. It was to be yet another dip and made the Emerald
Dove the biggest “grip-bird” for the Huby. Although there are species that I’m
more disappointed in that I did not end up seeing (White-winged Triller
foremost), Emerald Dove was the only bird actually reported in the region more
than twice that I never saw.
Still, I now felt like I’d made a significant achievement, Emerald Dove or no
Emerald Dove – I’d seen 342 species within the confines of the Hunter Region in
a calendar year. Anything from now on would very much be a bonus. To increase
my
chances at the bonus, I made daily checks at the baths in the hope that a Grey
Ternlet or Black Noddy had flown in (both had been seen recently in or near
Sydney).
I also started to think about how to end the year with a possible addition.
There were limited options really, but I was able to impress my partner Magi
and
New Years celebrants, Gumage and Ang, with a trip to the north. This was my
only
option really, as it meant having one last crack at a Grass Owl, a stab at that
infernal Emerald Dove at Harrington and put me in the ballpark for something
‘special’ - a Fruit-Dove in the rainforest, a nice wader maybe? Thanks to my
fountain of good oil, Al Richardson, who was birding with his family at Old
Bar,
the decision paid off. Some of you will know Old Bar as the place where the
Kentish Plover turned up in 2002…I was in Bolivia at the time.
Al had already informed me that the traditional Grass Owl site had been gated
off and that the White-eared Monarch was still absent from Figtree where it was
last seen in 2008 – not a good start. On the morning of the 30th, he texted me
“Grey plover mudbishops” – not a vagrant but certainly uncommon and even more
certainly missing from my year list! Al was going back to the site the next day
and the timing was great – we could actually arrive there when he would be
there, so the oil would be crisp fresh.
Next day I picked Gumage up from work at midday and we headed north, making
good
progress through the holiday traffic, until someone mentioned “chips”, which
was
simultaneous with a text from Al reading “Grey plover same spot as yesterday”.
We stopped at Bulahdelah to quickly grab some hot chips, only to be made wait
40
minutes for them to arrive! At the 39th minute Gumage got impatient and decided
to go for a dip in the river. Then as Magi walked out of the take-away with the
tucker, Gumage emerged from the river with blood streaming from his right foot,
having sliced it open on a rock getting out of the water. So, with the
patiently-waited-for chips (which I refused to eat) finished, we had to wait to
nurse Gumage’s foot back to relative health before setting off again. I was
beside myself – the tide was rising and kite surfers were arriving at the spot
where the plover was. And the ‘oil baron’ was about to leave the site.
As it turned out Al and his family were just packing up when we arrived at the
site. He had time though to take me across the channels and islands and sand
bars to show me where the bird had last been seen. There were fishermen and
kite
surfers everywhere and there were Golden Plovers scattered all over as well.
“Lest-a-buck”he said, as he left me on my hunt, with 3 non-birders waiting for
me back at the car.
It did take about 20 long minutes, but I tracked the Grey Plover down on a
small
sand island to the west of where Al had left me. To confirm the ID I needed to
get reasonably close and I was standing in waist-deep water when I clinched it.
Being half-submerged made it difficult to jump around with excitement, but I
did
my best, emulating a water aerobic instructor and providing some entertainment
to the kite surfers. What a great bird to add with less than 9 hours left in
the
year.
En-route to our camp I did manage a 5 minute stroll into the Harrington
Rainforest in a vain attempt to see an unmentionable dove that had been heard
there a week earlier. But the last real throw of the dice was made just after
dark when I tried a new site in some heathland for a last ditch effort at Grass
Owl. Although I’d been ‘in the zone’ for Emerald Dove on several occasions, the
Grass Owl was the subject of seven targeted attempts at past and current known
sites, thus making it the bird I’d spent the most time on for nil return.
This last ditch effort simply added to the time spent for nil return.
So we trudged back to camp and discounting a King Quail stumbling into camp
before midnight or a Brolga falling out the sky, it was all over. I cracked the
Sem and enjoyed the goings-on in the campground without any concern about what
new bird I needed to look for.
343 species is a very respectable total and a good benchmark to set. But I’m a
listing birder, and invariably listing birders like to reflect and mull over
the
“coulda-beens”. I know that it could’ve been such a greater year had I timed it
better…i.e. not done it in 2010! As it turned out, the timing of the year alone
(it was the 3rd wettest year on record in Australia) directly cost me 6 or 7
species…but then again any other year may not have been as successful for other
birds. If only that rain started just 5 days later…sigh…
Still, when Dan and I sat in the Northern Star Hotel in Hamilton in November
2009 to plot out the Huby and what would be achievable we never imagined I
would
have reached 343. In fact we’d decided that 330 would be nigh-impossible, so
why
not make the target a nice, mathematically aesthetic number like ‘333’? I’m
also
really happy to have reached 300 species from the catchment of the Hunter River
too. This feat is far more significant from a biogeographical perspective.
Thanks to the many people who provided ‘good oil’ during the year – you know
who
you are. Thanks also to my partner-in-crime Dan Williams who wasn’t able to be
as committed as I was.
Here's to Huby.
Mick Roderick
---
p.s. - I have a Word document with a chronological list of birds seen (where
and
when) + some more stats than the 'vital' ones below. If anyone would like a
copy
just email me.
Some vital stats…
· Total number of bird species seen = 343
· Number of species seen, excluding pelagics = 324
· Number of species seen in or from the catchment of the Hunter River =
302
· Number of species seen only within 10 metres of the boundary of the
Hunter Region = 4 (Cockatiel, Inland Thornbill, Little Friarbird, Plum-headed
Finch)
· Number of species seen in 2009 but not in 2010 = 12
· Number of threatened species seen (NSW TSC Act 1995) = 52
· Average total number of species recorded in the Hunter Region in the
five years 2005-2009 = 347.2
· Time taken to get...
First 100 species = < 5 days.
First 200 species = 22 days
First 300 species = 108 days
Last 43 species = 257 days
Last 30 species = 174 days
Species seen at ‘half way’ mark (June 30th) = 312
· Longest gap without a new bird seen = 37 days; 5th August (Swift
Parrot) to 11th September (Rock Warbler)
· Best bird = New Zealand Storm-petrel.
· Worst dip (i.e. hurts the most) = White-winged Triller.
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