I was lucky enough to spend two days on Phillip Island this week, just
off Norfolk Island. The trip was essentially a work trip so I didn't
have my binoculars, I had to choose between the camera and binoculars.
This made the observations of land birds a bit limited, not there was
much of interest to see, but for the seabirds, I don't know that I've
ever been birdwatching somewhere where binoculars were less necessary.
The second day was all work, but the first day was spent visiting all
accessible parts of this magnificently scenic island.
Phillip Island is 6km south of Norfolk Island and is part of the
National Park. It was completely decimated by introduced grazing animals
(pigs, goats and rabbits) that were only finally eradicated in 1986. It
was never home to introduced predators such as rats and cats that so
impact on Norfolk Island. At the time of the last rabbit disappearing
the entire island was barren with barely a few trees left. In the
intervening time it has slowly regenerated itself, unfortunately much of
it with the introduced olive. A lot of work has been done by the
national parks team in removing the olive which has allowed regeneration
of the mostly flax, moo-oo and white oak. A long way to go, but slowly
getting there.
Firstly, Phillip Island is hard work. The access is steep and difficult
and a quite reasonable degree of fitness is required over any part of
the island. The boat access is difficult, variable and all visits to the
island require a guide. Don't let that put you off though - the island
is quite spectacular, beautiful cliffs all around and amazing colours in
the landscape. The initial scramble up the cliffs had us being mobbed by
Grey Noddies. At one point we had to step over an egg one had laid right
in the middle of the path. The Grey Noddies tend to always be close to
the water and off-shore stacks - I didn't see any on the higher parts of
the island at all.
The usual numbers of Sooty Terns and Black Noddies could be seen fishing
around the cliffs and, as it turned out, this is the only time we would
see breeding Sooty Terns on the island. There were two Common Noddies on
the way up, sitting on nests, the only ones we'd see. This is an
uncommon species in the Norfolk area. The island normally holds many
thousands of Sooty Terns but this season there are very few, though some
numbers have braved the cats and rats and are breeding at The Chord, in
the national park on the main island. The main culprit of this may be
the self-introduced Purple Swamphen which have been growing in numbers
across the island - was saw about 40 but they are much more secretive
than normal on the island.
There were few parts on the island where Red-tailed Tropicbirds couldn't
be seen. Right near there the rangers hut there were a few small White
Oaks (/Lagunaria patersonia/) with tropicbirds nesting underneath them,
enabling extremely close views. They would fly overehad most of the day
but in the middle of the day hundreds would take to the wing around the
cliff edges and enjoy the wind currents, doing all sorts of acrobatics.
In the right parts of the island outstanding views could be had. We
stumbled across Masked Boobies pretty much all over the island, the
breeding seemed to be in smaller numbers all around. Some birds were on
eggs, some on young chicks and some with large, downy chicks. They were
also breeding most rocky offshore stacks.
In the areas where the vegetation was a bit better established, small
groups of Black Noddies were nesting in the trees. This is especially
near the outstanding, large specimen of Phillip Island Hibiscus
(/Hibiscus insularis/), an endemic species to the island, almost extinct
but now propagated and widely planted on Norfolk. Oddly, there were
virtually no White Terns on the island. I saw a single bird on three
occasions, compared with their abundance on Norfolk. This may be due to
the few and more exposed nature of tall trees, especially the Norfolk
Island Pine.
As previously mentioned I didn't have binoculars so viewing of land
birds were limited. I saw Common Starling, Common Blackbird, House
Sparrow, Common Greenfinch, Silvereye and Emerald Dove. The only real
native was the endemic subspecies of Sacred Kingfisher. I didn't see any
endemics, though it is known that most of the Norfolk Island endemics
also occurred on Phillip before the destruction of the vegetation.
Most time was spent on top of the island and the most common and obvious
bird were Black-winged Petrels. Flying quite low down over the main part
of the island, the birds called constantly and regularly seemed annoyed
at our presence, flying around until we moved on. We regulatory stumbled
across birds in burrows and under bushes and upon arriving at the
rangers hut on the middle night, a pair were sitting on the floor of the
toilet, apparently they have nested there before. The remains of Owen's
Hut can still be found on the island, the home of Owen and Beryl Evans
who endured this remarkable environment for months while doing research
on the birds of the island. Inside a small tent, a pair of Black-winged
Petrels has set up a nest on an old foam mattress - certainly living the
life of luxury. In one of the huts we also found a single White-necked
Petrel and another pair in a burrow just outside. This species is scarce
on the island and rarely seen, but what observations there are seem to
come from the Owen's Hut area.
This spot is also home to many geckoes, the Lord Howe Island gecko
(though it also occurs here), now extinct on Norfolk due to the
introduction of predators. The island is also home to the Lord Howe
Island skink, the other native reptile to these islands, also extinct on
Norfolk, but I didn't see it. They are apparently scarcer and much more
difficult to locate. The island is also home to some very creepy giant
centipedes. We found one recently deceased one about 6 inches long and
more than half an inch across.
Upon descending back to the coast to wait for the boat to pick us up I
saw a single Ruddy Turnstone on the coast and a Tattler, probably
Wandering, I couldn't get a good enough look. We only just got out that
day, a big swell had come up and while we got off Phillip okay, there
was 6-8 foot surf rolling into Kingston so it made for an interesting
return. It's probable that had the pick up been an hour later we would
not have gotten back that day. All-in-all a truly amazing place but
needed a few days to recover after.
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