Weekends That Were - November 2014

For Movember....

I didn't shave.....its ugly, but now its gone.

29.11.14

Everywhere and Nothing

Rob had returned from two weeks of birding in SE Qld and Cairns with Andy, a visiting UK birder. We decided we’d look for some SEQ specialities to top off his list.

First up Spotted Quail Thrush – Bell bird grove, Mt Nebo…….but despite 30-40 minutes watching, listening, playback, we only heard one distant call. I caught a flicker of movement 150 meters away that might have been a bird on a log, two birds flew by that may have been the quarry, but they were very quick and it was definitely a non-tickable view. So…..on to

Manorina to try for Red-browed Treecreeper – another 30 minutes working hard but not a squeak, in fact there was bugger all apart from a couple of Grey Fantails.

Up top to Mt Glorious itself, West side track, down a fire break, playback, watching, listening, a distant Noisy Pitta, a fly by Satin Bowerbird, a perched up Topknot, but no treecreeper - not a glimmer of hope.

Back down the hills to Samford village and try again for the Quail Thrush around the Bygotts Rd area, where we’d heard they were in profusion – 20 minutes and not even a possible call heard, traffic behind us making it especially difficult.

OK – on to Closeburn and Glossy Black Cockatoo? Drive the road slowly searching the trees – both ways, but no black bodies quietly eating. Try again along the road to Postman’s Track? Nothing, Nada, Zilch.

OOOOk – so it’s Sheepstation Creek near Caboolture for Fuscous and Black-chinned Honeyeaters now and the morning is getting on……stop off at Petrie and try for Fuscous? Nothing, apart from a sleeping Koala.

Sheepstation Creek at 11.30 am is dry, hot ……..and deathly quiet. A couple of medium sized Lace Monitors stalk off through the bush, but apart from that…..another half an hour of nothing.

Andy’s flight was scheduled for 4pm, so he needed to be at the airport by 2.30 latest. He still had to pack and pick up his stuff from Mt Gravatt. So we decided at this stage the day was a total loss - never seen it so bad – and headed home.

27.11.14

Hail in Brisbane

Cycling home I got caught in a storm. The hail hammered the city and the valley where I sheltered under the awning at the Waterloo Hotel with a couple of cars. Some of the hail was golf ball sized....

See the link below for video....

http://youtu.be/vDVo2XqVBvA

22.11.14

Dowse Lagoon, Sandgate

I didn’t have a lot of time available to me on Saturday and, so, with Mr D and Mr P both away, I headed out to Sandgate before 5am. A Wood Sandpiper had been present for a couple of weeks and a Pectoral Sandpiper (or 2) had appeared last weekend. A White-winged Black tern had also been seen at the lagoon so I had the possibility of three good birds in hand.

I set up at the ‘viewing platform’ end, actually down in the bushes in front of the platform, and started scanning the nearest mud bank. There were Sharp-tailed Sands scattered everywhere across the exposed mud feeding among the dying water plants. They were difficult to spot and they lifted and flew around irregularly in small flocks as they reacted to unseen threats.

I finally picked out one of the possible two Pecs before the flock it was hanging with took flight and landed on the far side of the lake. I was trying, unsuccessfully, to take pictures of the Whiskered Terns as they passed up and down hunting above the channel in front of me when Andy J turned up and scared the living wits outta me. You shouldn’t sneak up on ol’ farts like me!

We had a look at a distant Pacific Golden Plover and then he spotted the Wood Sandpiper prancing around on the mud, also on the far side of the lake, about 300 meters away - not much of a view, unfortunately.

It had come to that time, 6.45, and I had to leave to pick up Jade from the airport on her return from a 10 day trip to Bali. As it happened I could have spent another hour at the lake, however, that was an unknown at that time…..

Reviewing Andy’s report later I noted that he saw both Pecs, and the White-winged Black Tern had also turned up, after I had left.

14.11.14 - 16.11.14

G20 Weekend

Thanks to the G20 meeting in Brisbane this week, Friday was declared a public holiday and so I picked up Rob and then Stu and we arrived at Minnippi at 5.45 on the Friday morning. The weekend was predicted to be very, very hot and it started off the way it continued – bright, clear and warm, even at 5.45am.

We crossed the bridge and checked the Tawny Frogmouths on their nest – a well-developed youngster checked us out as its parent pretended we didn’t exist.

The forest trails were fairly quiet – the bush was very dry and nothing was flowering. We did identify Brown Quail, Brush Cuckoo and a Crested Hawk by call, but not visually. The lake levels were very low with the main lake becoming choked with lily pads and the ‘middle’ area of water now completely gone.

A White-necked Heron was a nice addition to the day list, 

along with the usual Egrets, Ibis, Pacific Black Ducks, White-headed Stilts, Grey Teal, Hardheads and Australian Grebes etc. Wandering Whistle Ducks have become almost a regular of late and 14 this morning continued the pattern. A pair of Channel-billed Cuckoos flew past calling raucously pursued half-heartedly by a couple of Torresian Crows while Red-kneed and Black-fronted Dotterels scurried around on the exposed mud edges.

A trickle of White-throated Needletails from the north turned into a wheeling flock of approx. 40 birds gradually moving east high over the lake. Sacred Kingfishers were calling in the forest.

Sacred Kingfisher

We carried on over the hill and down to the airfield track – gaining nothing much to add to our list (a single Brown and a single Yellow-faced Honeyeater and a couple more Channel-bills) and returned to sit in the shade at the ‘raptor watch’ shelter and take a well earned rest from the increasing heat and humidity. A Goshawk put in an appearance circling high in the sky, which we called as a Brown. I took some photos of it – still experimenting with the camera – and later thought it might be a Grey.

(I hate second guessing – i.e. identifying birds from the photo after the fact, but this case was a surprise, not a plan. Normally I’d be content to let a bird go, rather than rely on photos. I know the camera has its part to play in some scenarios – most commonly on pelagics where species such as Prions are concerned, but in normal day to day birding I think we should make the effort to id the bird at the time or forget it.)

We headed back to the car and agreed on Belesis for the usual…+ 15% public holiday charge……

Saturday and the other two were not available for various reasons so I set out for Oxley alone and started from the carpark again at 5.45.

It was very quiet, as noted yesterday the bush was very dry, nothing flowering hence Honeyeater numbers are drastically reduced. The heat even at this early hour was heavy and tiring – it had been a very still night and no breezes disturbed the humidity.

The walk out the ponds produced small numbers of the usual birds with Sacred Kingfishers showing quite well and an Eastern Yellow Robin calling loudly half way out. A one meter Green Tree Snake slithered across the track and disappeared very effectively into a pile of broken sticks and leaves. The ponds had water in them still, although the ‘first’ lake was pretty low – completely dry on the left of the track. Black-fronted Dotterels, White-headed Stilts, Grey Teal, 15 Australian Pelicans, Australian Grebes etc.

I did end up with a list of 50 species – almost bang on an average day for me @ 54 species, but only for an (approx.) total of 193 birds – way below the area average of 274 birds per day. This was also my 100^th recorded visit to Oxley since my first visit on 16.10.2004.

Checking back on my records, yesterday was my 151^st recorded visit to Minnippi since November 2001 - interestingly the average no of species on a daily basis there was only 45, with the average no of birds being 272!

The most exciting observation of the morning was, in fact, the US President’s two Marine One Helicopters and 3 tilt rotor Ospreys ferrying Barrack Obama into the conference in the city. They were fairly distant and the heat haze was horrendous, but I took a couple of photos anyway….

I had arranged to drive to Stu’s Sunday morning @ 5.30 and then he would drive to Lindum, Fuller & Sandy Camp Wetlands – and so we did.

Lindum was about half full with plenty of exposed mud to entice vagrant waders – however, none appeared to have taken up the offer and only about 7 or 8 Sharp-tailed Sands played hide and seek in the mangrove roots until we had satisfied ourselves they were only Sharpies… A flock of 30-40 Little Corellas screamed in the background, but otherwise not much disturbed the peaceful Sunday morning. Just to highlight the change of season two White-throated Needletails hammered past overhead looking for a storm front and a distant Pacific Koel added itself to the list.

On to Fuller and it was almost completely dry – just a bare trickle of orangey dirty looking water in the channel – where a Buff-banded Rail put in a brief appearance.

Sandy Camp and the first pond was crammed to the hilt! With the water levels shrinking the birds had congregated together and some extras were thrown in – Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, not normally seen here fed alongside Royal Spoonbills, a couple of Glossy Ibis, Grey Teal, Comb-crested Jacanas, Black-fronted & Red-kneed Dotterels, Australian Reed Warblers, Dusky Moorhens, Wandering Whistle Ducks, Australian Grebes, Australian White Ibis, Eurasian Coots, Australian Pelicans and White-headed Stilts. 3 Latham’s Snipe sat unobtrusively on the mud – we saw one, then realised there were three.

The second and third ponds were completely dry and empty of bird life. A trio of Leaden Flycatchers gave themselves up in the canopy above the track and a pair of White-breasted Wood Swallows swooped around the dead water logged trees.

On to the back ponds and they still had water in them, although here too the level was dropping. The usual Cormorants, Darter, Pelicans, Teal and Egrets (3 x Little), and a nice perched up Eastern Osprey.

On to the ‘Black Bittern’ pond and finally something to make the morning stand out – a Little Bronze Cuckoo. Took a while to get it in. Stu picked it up by call, but it was slow to come to playback, finally showing quite well and actually sitting still long enough for me to take about 90+ photos, 30 of which I ended up keeping and the best two are here….

We also had brief glimpses of a pair of Spotless Crakes at the back of the Papyrus Patch – they called back to playback, but declined to show long enough for the camera.

Nothing much else showed on our walk back to the car. We decided on a coffee and burger at Mackers – mainly for the air-con relief and retired there for half an hour or so to discuss future plans and trips before heading home to hunker down indoors and avoid the worst of the 40 degree prediction. It turned out to only reach about 36, but was still ‘hot enough to fry an egg’ on the balcony.

Sandy Camp 'wet' lands - almost a misnomer at the moment!

Just to continue the ‘record/facts’ trend – this was my 60^th visit to the Sandy Camp site area since June 2004 – average no of species per day: 42, but average no of birds per day: 301.

Late in the afternoon Barrack Obama flew out of Amberley RAAF base west of Brisbane and I got distant views from my balcony of Marine 1 & 2, the Ospreys again and, finally, Air Force 1 heading out towards the Pacific.

8.11.14

Trotter

                                                                                                 

At Rob’s suggestion we headed for Trotter at 5.30. Walking in through the gate my eye was attracted to a strange looking branch apparently caught in a fork 10 or 12 meters up a tree – it was a Tawny Frogmouth on a nest! A new site tick - and a good start.

The forest was as quiet as usual – three single White-throated Needletails zoomed low over the canopy heading southeast. We had a White-throated Treecreeper fly across our path and land up on a nearby tree, noted at the time it now appears to be a new site bird for my list – although I thought I had seen one there before.

We took the long way round coming out onto the banks of the reservoir up-channel from the main lake.

A small group of 4 Red-necked Wallabies and a single Swamp Wallaby grazed the short grass sprouting on the exposed lake bed before frantically galloping away into the bush at our approach. Individual pools were all that was left of the lake at this point and a few White-faced Herons lifted off to fly with croaking protests at being disturbed. A veritable flock of 6 Comb-crested Jacanas also ‘moved on’ along the ponds until they landed safely on the opposite side of the widening channel and continued about their business.

Reaching the remains of the open lake, we found there was still enough water to support a small number of Australian Grebes, a large number of Australian Pelicans and Little Pied, Little Black and Great Cormorants. Two Gull-billed Terns put in an appearance but apart from that there wasn’t much to see.

The wader feast we had hoped for consisted of only a single Black-fronted Dotterel, a flushed Latham’s Snipe, a couple of Masked Lapwing and half a dozen White-headed Stilts – disappointing given, what appears to be, the perfect conditions for waders on the muddy margins.

On the far side of the lake Rob pointed out a large nest in a tree - obviously an Eagle’s nest of some type. Shortly afterwards he spotted an adult White-bellied Sea Eagle perched up and, just behind it, - much more difficult to pick up – a juvenile. A second juvenile joined the family a few minutes later – we assume they have not long vacated the nest and are still hanging in the immediate area. Around the same time we decided that a distant bird was a circling Peregrine Falcon, a short while later we came across two Peregrines perched up on a power pylon, one tearing into a Lorikeet while the other looked on from above. Interestingly the bird eating was the typical PF style – heavily barred brown on the lower undersides up to the pale chest and throat, while the non-eating bird was very pale, almost while, underneath – just faint barring visible on the flanks. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a pale ‘undersided’ PF before - Pizzey & Knight say it can be either so it’s obviously not ‘rare’.

It was the first day out for my new camera – Panasonic Lumix model FZ70 with the X60 zoom - so I was playing around with it, getting used to the settings and focus.

Back through the forest and a single Leaden Flycatcher, a few Grey Fantails and a family party of 4 White-throated Honeyeaters finished out the morning. It was quite hot and sultry and I for one, was feeling quite drained.

Heading for breakfast along the side of the reserve a largish raptor over the road turned into a Black Kite which was a nice final addition to our list and a third site tick for the day for me.

Belesis once again and pancakes all round…..