Moggill SF
Mr P picked me up just after 6 and we were on site by 6.30.
Pretty quiet morning with little to report. Only 21 species recorded but the creek was flowing gently after recent rain and we heard both Tusked Frogs (~5) and Great Barred Frog (2) calling which were both new for site for me and the latter only heard previously on Mt Glorious. We wondered how they would survive once the creek dried up, as it almost certainly will in summer unless we get more, regular rain.
Mr P didn’t have time for breakfast – being Father’s Day he was booked with Kirsten and James - so he dropped me home.
ARCHERY
This year I have taken up a new interest – archery, or, more specifically, target archery, as opposed to hunting.
When I was a young lad, back in the mists of time, I ran around for a few years with a bow and arrows. It was a basic bow, along the lines of a Robin Hood style ‘weapon’ and I prowled the local fields shooting at Wood Pigeons and the (very) occasional Rabbit. I never hit anything and lost a lot of arrows in the long grass in the process. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have another bow and learn more of the skill.
Late last year I finally got it together and pursued that interest. In December I did a ‘come and try day’ and in early February a second morning. Put together they constituted a complete archery course and I duly received my certificate allowing me to shoot under the auspices of Archery Australia. I joined the local club – Mt Petrie Bowmen – and have been engaged in the sport since then.
Let me say at this point – I am no expert. I simply wish to share with those of you who read my blog my understanding and learning from the last few months.
There are three bow styles in current use.
The first is the classic ‘longbow’ or traditional bow, as used by Robin Hood and the like. The famous English bowmen, who were instrumental in the distant centuries in England’s success in battles such as Agincourt, used this type of bow, but a longer and much more powerful instrument than is used today, I believe. It is a basic bow with no additional instrumentation, simply a ‘stick’ and a ‘string’. The arrows used are either wooden or aluminum and accuracy relies very much on the archer. This latter comment may sound like ‘uhhh duhh well of course!’ but other bows use sights and such, as I will explain - Trad bows do not. I haven’t shot this type of bow much, but have intentions of purchasing one next year as it’s simplicity and challenges appeal to me. They retail from $3-400 to whatever you want to pay.
The most advanced bow is the Compound Bow. This is the bow you see archers using with cams and ‘wheels’ at each end. It is generally a fairly short bow and reverse curved, so to speak. These bows are very powerful – used a lot by hunters, due to their small size and ‘punch power’. They can be as powerful as 90 lbs. The ‘pull’ however, is aided greatly by the cams and only the initial draw is the full poundage. Once the cams kick in, the remaining draw and hold are reduced significantly, making it easier to hold rock steady and improving aim. The arrows appear to be thicker and stronger and really punch into the target. Compound archers generally use a telescopic sight with a sighting point set into the string. They are made for the individual archer – I’m not sure how that works, but it appears that you have one made to your specific requirements. To me? They are too mechanical, too instrumental. Taking away nothing from compound archers, they simply are not my style. I don’t know how much these bows cost, but imagine they are very expensive, based on the individual design.
I shoot a Recurve Bow – the third type. The type of bow one might associate with the screaming hordes of Mongols who invaded Asia and eastern Europe on horse back way back when. The simple definition is the string actually lies along the bow tip as the tips of the limbs curve away from the archer. The bow comes in three parts – the middle, handgrip, is the riser and the limbs are separately attached. They can be updated as the archer’s strength increases. For example I currently shoot 24 lb limbs. Whether I ever upgrade will depend on my strength and requirements. Its possible, I believe, to go as high as 40 lbs and maybe more, I’m not sure. Different from the compound bow – the archer draws the full strength of the limbs – there is no compensation. Most Recurve archers shoot with a sight. This is a fairly simple attachment to the bow that can be adjusted up and down to suit the distance and enhance accuracy. Most Recurve archers also use stabilizers. These resemble ‘poles’ sticking out of the front of the bow and sometimes behind the bow at angles. These help, well, stabilize, the bow – obviously - again assisting the archer’s accuracy by holding the bow steadier. The arrows used with Recurve bows are carbon fiber and matched to the archer’s draw length. The riser is the important part – it is not upgraded but remains with the archer as the limbs change. It retails for $300 - $whatever you can afford! The limbs can be settled for about $200 - $300 a pair.
Then, of course, one needs a quiver ($45+), finger tab & finger sling ($30), arm guard ($30+), bow stand ($30, to rest the bow when you go to find your arrows…), bow bag to carry all your stuff ($100+) and, of course, arrows ($100 per dozen from the club – you can pay a lot more for these too, of course).
I bought my bow in July. I wanted a black bow and got that, plus black for all the rest of my gear. The problem I had was that I had to switch from my natural right-handed style to left-handed. This was due to my right eye damage resulting from the melanoma I incurred 9 years ago. I can see to a limited extent with that eye, but for aiming along an arrow, one needs to close one eye and right-handed I would have been using my right eye to aim – and it isn’t good enough so…. An extra challenge and one I took some time to adapt to! So, getting a 25 inch left-handed black riser could have been a challenge, but I rocked up to Abbey Archery in Sumner’s Park and they had one! It wasn’t the most expensive, but given the worldwide shortage of archery equipment at the moment – probably the same for any sport – I bought it – and all the rest of the gear. Well not ‘all’. I didn’t buy a sight or stabilizers because I had decided to shoot Recurve Barebow.
I had tried the sight thing – and stabilizers – but hadn’t really liked it. I preferred the simplicity of a ‘bow and arrow’. Not a lot of people shoot Barebow. There is no sight, there are no long stabilizers – although weights are attached to the bow to aid stability. The skill lies in ‘string walking’ and experience. Basically the regular Recurve archer holds the string with one finger on each side of the arrow and the sight adjusts the shooting angle. Barebow archers move their fingers up and down the string below the arrow dependent on the distance, while aiming the arrow at the same point on the target regardless of distance. The lower the fingers are on the string below the arrow nock, the shorter the distance. It’s a difficult concept to explain, but becomes immediately obvious once one is shooting. The trick is consistency – as it is with any bow, but its more difficult with Barebow, because one isn’t allowed put anything on the string to designate the distance. To assist me understand the concepts and improve my shooting, I am currently being coached by one of the best Barebow archers in Australia with a load of awards to his name. Harvey also excels in Trad or longbow shooting. There are, currently, four of us in the Barebow coaching group – the membership of the club is in excess of 300, so its obvious not many archers choose Barebow! Traditional or Longbow archers too, are in small numbers, although everyone likes to shoot a long bow now and again. One of the advantages of member ship of the club is the fact that I can go, anytime, during the week (in daylight hours) and practice on the outdoor range. The main activities are on Tuesday and Thursday night indoor shooting and Saturday mornings when both indoor and outdoor shoots are available and when we are coached. The club has a couple of hundred right-handed and about 20 left-handed Recurve bows for members to hire for a small cost. There are also a small number of Trad and compound bows to try.
The challenges have been great. To get it all right is much more complicated than I thought. Don’t grab the bow with my right hand when I release, keep my left elbow high and in parallel with my right arm, follow through with my left hand after the release, use the same anchor point (knuckle under chin) every time, draw the string at the same point every time, aim at the same point every time…. Man, I thought it’d just be shooting an arrow… But, I’m really enjoying the whole experience. I practice two or three days a week and go to coaching every Saturday Harvey is available. I shoot about 150 arrows a day when practicing. I also decided I wanted black and white flights so learned how to re-fletch the arrows I bought from the club, which were blue and green. I know how to insert or remove the arrow points and have changed the nocks from blue to black (of course!).
Distance to target can vary. The standard indoor Olympic distance is 18 meters or 60 feet/20 yards. Outdoors starts at 20 meters and the range is approx 100 meters long. I shoot now at 30 meters but have experimented up to 50. 18 meters may not sound like a long distance, but try putting an arrow in the gold at that distance and see how challenging it can be! Most Recurve tops out at 70 meters and I have been advised that at my age 50 meters would be the maximum – at least where competition stands. Obviously being one who doesn’t accept any rules I want to be the best Veteran (my age group) at 60 or even 70 meters, but that’s going to take a lot of practice and experience. I’d settle for putting arrows consistently in the gold at 50 meters at this stage. Currently I can just about hit the target at that distance – and not every time!
The targets vary in size too. From 122 cms down to 20 cms. Obviously the gold area decreases as the target size drops.
Competition is a regular event and the club is often involved hosting events. There aren’t many archery clubs in the Brisbane area (3 I think?) and so the events are often shared across different venues. I’m not sure if I will compete or not. The challenges for me are currently personal.
Recently I went on a Field Shoot that involved individual targets set up in a forested area. Each target is a different distance from the previous and one is shooting slightly uphill or downhill at different sized targets – very challenging! Its something I’d like to do more of.
The club president, Keith, and other members have been incredibly friendly and supportive. I’m not a joiner, I’m a loner and rarely get involved with groups or clubs of any sort. But Mt Petrie Bowmen have made me feel so welcome and respected I have been overwhelmed! There is no judgment, no criticism, no one-up-man ship, simply friendship, help and support and so I have become involved – much to my surprise actually! Even the coaching I receive is free!
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| Shooting at 30m target |
I hope you’ve found this of some interest. Has my birding interest waned? No, definitely not, just taken a back seat for a while. And the future? Antarctica beckons! I leave for Buenos Aires on October 10th – stay tuned! In the meantime I’ll keep working to get that dam release just right…
11.9.22
Oxley
Mr P picked me up just after 6 and we were on site by 6.20. It turned into a very birdy morning with a good list of 61 species. The place had obviously recovered much quicker than I had expected since my last visit with Mr D a few weeks ago. Still a lot of damaged and dead undergrowth and grass and still no sign of the usual Brown Quail along the track; a few other common species remained unseen, but the majority of the usual birds were around, albeit in smaller numbers than previously.
Highlights included: 2 Varied Trillers, a really nice Great Egret posing well, a Pheasant Coucal seen well and the first Pacific Koel of the season (for us) calling nearby. The only butterfly seen was Monarch but in decent numbers suggesting a recent hatch. Another birder also pointed out a Carpet Python sunbathing in a tree (which was, in fact, my first record for this species at this site!) and just before the toilet block a Common Brush-tailed Possum showed well on the ground - an unusual occurrence.
The best observation of the morning, however, was a race robusta White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike in a tree by the entrance gate on our way out. Embarrassingly it was my first record of this race of WBCS. I’m guessing I have always just dismissed them as Black-faced and not looked more closely at the details. In my defense I don’t ‘get into’ subspecies much so….. However, it was exciting and nice to see very well.
We finished the morning with breakfast at Arte & Gusto and a quick look at a putative Square-tailed Kite nest site on Mt Gravatt Outlook. It appeared to be an ‘attempt’ from previous years and certainly there were no birds in evidence at the time of our visit.
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| Great Egret |
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| White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike race robusta |
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| Common Brush-tailed Possum |
Alison & Stewart (Ontario, Canada) were returning from PNG and had asked me to show them some birds during their one day lay over (Saturday 17.9) before they flew home. Mr P had volunteered to accompany us for the day.
On the Thursday they contacted me to advise they were stuck in Kiunga on the Fly river near the border with West Papua and were unlikely to make it back in time to bird. Eventually, however, they managed to get back to Port Moresby on Friday and fly early on Saturday morning back to Brisbane. They landed at 9.35 and Mr P and I picked them up at 10.30 from the International terminal.
We headed off straight away to Bellbird Grove, Mt Nebo in search of Spotted Quail Thrush. Unfortunately there had been a burn back during the previous few days and the (almost) complete area was blackened and still smoking in places. Bellbird Grove itself was closed to the public. We walked the track and tried, but no success. It was disappointing, given my success three weeks previously with Sam.
On up to Mt Glorious and the rainforest walk. Targets included Australian Logrunner, White-headed Pigeon, Black-faced Monarch and Russet-tailed Thrush. I had felt fairly confident re the AL, Monarch and maybe the Pigeon, the others we would have to be lucky for.
In any event, despite all attempts none of the target species were seen. In fact the rainforest was incredibly quiet. Nothing calling, very few birds seen at all and the track was relatively busy with non-birders. A couple of Brown Gerygones, Pale Yellow and Eastern Yellow Robinsand a few other minor birds heard, but even the Catbirds weren’t calling and no sign of even Brown Cuckoo-doves. Unusual? Maybe the time of day - more likely the time of year – it just hadn’t kicked off there yet, I guessed.
Down to Samford for lunch, again at The Flying Nun, then a longish drive out to Tom T’s property past Dayboro. Tom had described several Lewin’s Rails on his property and I held out hopes of at least one lifer for the visitors.
We did get a lucky break, finding Black-faced Monarch and we did hear at least two Lewin’s Rails, but they refused to show themselves. We also heard and had a fleeting glimpse of Spotless Crake which A & S were pleased about, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time!
By now it was getting late and they decided that going back up Mt Glorious to try for Sooty Owl would be too much so we settled for stopping off at a vacant Square-tailed Kite’s nest in hopes a bird would be around – again, no dice, so we headed back to their motel in Clayfield and dropped them there at 18.30.
26.9.22
Minnippi with Linc
Kara dropped Linc off for a couple of days and we went to Minnippi for a walk. Nothing exceptional, but it was good to be out and about with my grandson again. After an hour or so we headed over to the archery club and I shot a couple of ends to show Linc the process and the bow in action.
27.9.22
Oxley with Linc
After a day around home, as Linc wasn’t interested in going anywhere, we went to Oxley for a walk before taking him home. Again, nothing spectacular or noteworthy, but it was quite birdy and we had a good couple of hours.
