Weekends That Were - April 2025

1.4.25

Minnippi

Nope its not an April Fool’s Day joke – I did go out birding alone again.

Another damp soggy, muggy, overcast morning. We have had extensive rain over the last few weeks and were expecting more within 24 hours. The ground was saturated and quite boggy underfoot with patches of ‘flood water’ to walk through, but my Gortex lined Zamberlains handled it perfectly and kept my feet dry. (Looking for some sponsorship here…). Even the M1 track was wet – a rare occurrence.

It was pretty quiet and, in fact, I only totaled 36 species, well below my average list for Autumn of 45 species. Virtually no Honeyeaters, only a few Lewin’s clicking away, but towards the far end of the M1 track, while fending off the hordes of flesh-eating mosquitoes, an Eastern Yellow Robin was calling away somewhere in the undergrowth – that call that drives everyone mad cause they sit dead still when they do it.

The lake was quiet with no egrets or cormorants on the water and only a few Pacific Black Ducks, Australian Wood Ducks and 1 Australian Grebe. I did have a Buff-banded Rail near the carpark and a pair of White-breasted Woodswallows on the wires. 

An interesting record, however, was a single Oriental Dollarbird on the overhead wires. This was the first one I had ever seen in April – out of 90 Autumnal recorded visits since 2002. All of my previous records were prior to mid-March and I wondered if this guy got held up by the very wet weather further north?

The only other things of any sort of interest were a flock of 9 Rainbow Bee Eaters passing overhead and a glide-past of a, presumed female due to size, Brown Goshawk.

7.4.25

Oxley

The track was fucking dead. That may have been due to my late start – I was on site at 7.15. 

It was a bright, clear, sunny morning but still little activity. I did end up seeing all three Fairy-wren species but all female or heavily moulting males, apart from one Red-backed male.

The ponds were dead as – 3 Dusky Moorhens, an Australian Darter and 1 Australian Pelican. There were about 20 Eastern Cattle Egrets hanging around the cattle and I did have a Plumed/Intermediate Egret and a White-faced Heron near the Red Shed, but all in all 34 species was a very low morning’s count.

Weekends That Were - March 2025

 Happy Cyclonic Birthday

How many people do you know get a cyclone for their 70th birthday?

I did. Never mind the socks, hankies, boxes of chocolates or bottles of wine, a cyclone is super special!

We had watched it develop off the north Queensland coast for a week moving slowly south until, on Wednesday (5th) it arrived more or less directly off Brisbane. It was expected to cross the coast early on Friday morning (7th) so, on Thursday evening, my daughter Kara packed up her two boys, Lincoln (11) and Patrick (6) and I brought them all up to my place along with Shadow, the all black Labrador and the doggy love of my life. We settled in for the wait.

Friday dawned and Cyclone Alfred hung off the coast moving only very slowly westwards towards us. It had been a Category 3, but it's intensity diminished to Cat 2 as we waited. It rained most of Friday and the wind picked up as the day progressed. 

With all the notice we had had most people had taken action - removing any loose articles out of the garden and off their verandahs and balconies. The government had finally decided to close all the schools in the predicted cyclone area on Thursday and Friday so Kara would not be at work either. Supermarkets started to close around midday on Thursday and public transport stopped on Wednesday night. 

Alfred was now predicted 'sometime' on Saturday morning - my birthday. It was moving very, very slowly towards the coast. We ventured out for a walk down to the park at the end of the road to give the boys and dog some exercise, we tried to plan it for a break in the rain, but still got a bit wet.

Midnight on Friday and the wind was pretty wild, howling around the building, the torrential rain horizontal and the trees thrashing and bending. It was pretty scary and I just prayed to whomever that the roof stayed attached!

Kara and the boys slept in my bed and the spare room, while I slept on the couch and Shadow on her mat with Linc in the spare room. I sat up till after midnight but finally fell asleep in my clothes. At 5am on Saturday morning I was awakened by Shadow moving around and realised she was keen to go outside. I had visions of a pitch black dog being picked up and flying away in the wind and wondered how I would ever find her again if that happened. Alfred was predicted to cross the coast around that time but needs must, so down we want to the garden and Shadow did what she had to do before we hurried safely back inside and settled down again. The cyclone had arrived just about then, reaching, but not quite crossing, the coast north of Brisbane (about 50kms away from us) around 6am. It then degenerated into a tropical low and moved north parallel to the coast before crossing later in the morning around Bribie Island.

However it wasn't over yet. It poured rain all day Saturday. I mean poured. An extremely heavy, continuous, torrential downpour. The wind picked up as well - I think the wind that night was pretty close to as bad as it had been the previous night - and the number of customers without electricity rose dramatically. We were lucky. We continued to have electricity and (more importantly where the two boys were concerned) internet. Over 400,000 other people didn't. 

The next problem was flooding. There was no danger of that where we were located - 3 floors up and nowhere near any major river systems - but travel in SEQ was going to be a problem. Luckily we didn't need to go anywhere anyway. Ant, my son-in-law, was at work in his role as a sergeant in the Qld police force and reported to us regularly regarding conditions at their home in the Yatala area. There had been no power from Friday night at their place so it was best they were with me. My second daughter, Jade, and her son, Nash (7), lost power around 21.00 on Saturday night. We all hung in.

Sunday it rained heavily all day again, and, although the wind gradually eased off through the day, we still couldn't really go anywhere without getting soaked. Thank goodness we still had electricity and internet....

In the evening I drove down to Jade & Nash taking a gas camping stove and cylinder, a rechargeable camping light and 2 charge packs as, at that stage, it was unlikely we would need any of that emergency gear where we were. The drive down was hairy in that the rain was horrendous, the roads were flooded and impassable in places, but I got down and back without major incident.

Monday and the wind had eased and there were bright spots between the rain showers. Ant was at home and had the generator going. Once again the schools were closed, but roads were flooded, a few houses damaged and hundreds of powerlines down tangled in trees. Kara decided to head home so we packed up and I drove them back via a circuitous route to avoid some local flooding and a stop at Mackers for coffee and milkshakes.

A short time after we arrived and unpacked the car, the power came back on at their place - but much to the boys frustration, not the internet! A tree in their back yard had come down and crushed a section of fence, but other than that they had not sustained any damage.

I left them to it and found my way around some local flooding to Jade's place where I picked up Nash and brought him home with me. He was happy as he now had internet again! I guess it was similar to us when we didn't have TV for a day or two, tech these days is so important to the kids. Mind you, none of my grandsons are overweight or even looking like they're inactive so I see little harm in them spending time on their iPads - especially when they can't go outside and play anyway.

So - a cyclone for my 70th! A pretty rare present!

Bird-wise - I didn't;t get out anywhere, but some amazing birds were seen, especially along the coast. The headliner has to be a Leach's Stormpetrel - that must be one of the first ever seen in Australia. Grey Ternlets, Noddies and a couple of species of Petrels were also reported. I did see a Frigatebird sp from my balcony on Monday morning. It was drifting east back towards the coast. I assume it had been blown inland over the weekend. Unsure of species - potentially a Great, but most likely a Lesser, but a pretty good balcony tick!

15.3.25

Oxley (& Toohey)

Mr D picked me up at 6, on site ten minutes later. We were keen to see how the site had survived Alfred. It did appear that the river had flooded, but there was minimal impact on the environment, no trees down, the track basically the same as always, just obvious signs of high water flow along the way under the trees. The metal fence at the second culvert had been flattened, but other than that nothing remarkable.

The bird life was another matter. It was very quiet. Whether some species had moved out prior to or post the cyclone we couldn’t be sure, but there were few small birds present and numbers in general were pretty minimal.

We did have a Striated Heron perched up on one of the islands in the main pond, a probably Whistling Kite perched up at distance on a fence post and an Australian Hobby slid past at height to perch up distantly on a power pylon. 

Breakfast, as usual when birding this site, at Arte and Gusto.

After breakfast Mr D took me to Toohey and showed off a Southern Boobook perched up in, presumably, a nesting hollow. He had found it several weeks previously and it, or they, had hung around the same tree for that time.

16.3.25

Birding Pal Stuff

I picked up Krishna from Singapore at 6am in South Bank. We headed straight out to Sandy Camp. Just inside the entrance a decent sized, many trunked Paperbark had come down across the path in the cyclone and we had to climb over it to gain access; otherwise there was no apparent damage.

 We spent almost three hours there. The waterbirds were OK, but the passerines a bit thin on the ground. According to Krishna’s count we achieved 46 species that was, in my opinion, a bit on the low side. Best sightings were a run-across-the-track Spotless Crake and an immature Black-faced Monarch. Fairy-wren-wise we only had three Superb Fairy-wrens, 2 female and one moulting male. We had no finches or flycatchers and few small honeyeaters. 

Krishna was a good birder, keen eyes and keen on taking photos and we headed down to the Mangrove Boardwalk around 9.00.

I noted a bit of storm damage to the mangrove edge – a couple of trees over – but the boardwalk itself was untouched. We found Toressian Kingfisher fairly easily with playback, but it took a while to get Mangrove Gerygone and then Leaden Flycatcher and Rufous Fantail to add to the day list of lifers for Krishna.

It was warming up and on the humid side so we stopped off at Mackers for coffee and a chat before heading on to Minnippi and a meeting with Mr P. He had been checking the trees and riverbank and had turned up nothing of interest so we walked, basically, around the lake picking up a few more lifers for Krishna – including Variegated Fairy-wren and Red-browed Finch - but nothing of great consequence. From my perspective a ~1.5 meter Red-bellied Black slithering quickly away into the longer grass was the highlight.

As we crossed the bridge back towards the car Krishna spotted an Australian Hobby on the powerlines some distance away. We said Goodbye to Mr P and Krishna and I walked down the bike path to get better views and photos of the Hobby. 

Australian Hobby (heavily photoshopped)

Finished that and we headed back to the car and drove out. Just outside the reserve area Krishna called a possible raptor and we stopped.

The bird had perched up in a tree 50 meters from the road over an open carparking area. As we exited the car it swooped low overhead and perched up briefly on a nearby TV aerial before turning and swooping low over us again it swept up and landed facing us on an exposed branch where a couple of Toressian Crows moved in and warily harassed it. It was a Peregrine Falcon and sat for 15 minutes or so, alternately spitting at the Crows and watching us below as we moved in to get outstanding views, photos and videos. Due to the streaking on its chest as opposed to barring we surmised it was a juvenile bird – but strange behavior acting almost Sparrowhawk-like. Brilliant!

Peregrine Falcon (juv)

Video

https://youtu.be/V5GQsnKpTBQ

 

We headed on and went for lunch around 13.30 at Mt Gravatt Lookout. 

After lunch we drove to Oxley and set off along the track. Just outside the gate we had a family party of Red-backed Fairy-wrens with a couple of still coloured up males which was a big relief!

The rest of the walk was pretty quiet and we didn’t add many species to his list. Once again, no finches and only a small family of Superb Fairy-wrens with one OK looking male.

By the time we got back to the carpark it was after 17.00 so we drove up to Slaughter Falls, walked the track and settled down to wait for dusk and a hoped for White-throated Nightjar performance. 

Unfortunately this didn’t happen, no bird showed and no response to a rather desperate try of encouragement. No response either to Powerful Owl or Owlet Nightjar playback, only a couple of Southern Boobooks calling deep in the forest.

I dropped Krishna ‘home’ at 19.00. It had been a big day and I had to refuse his offer of a drink or dinner, as I was just too exhausted to do anymore! I'm getting too old for this shit.

16.3.25

Oxley 

I decided it’d be a good idea to start birding locally again. I really haven’t been doing much for the past year or so. Whatever – I was on site at 6.15. A very damp, muggy, dull morning. It had rained the previous day and overnight and the track was quiet – bird-wise and human-wise.

Not a lot to see – a single Red-browed Finch, two Brown Honeyeaters, that sort of thing. I did have a fleeting glimpse of what I believed was a juvenile Brush Cuckoo. It was in a bush in a field near the ponds and was apparently being harassed by a Brown Honeyeater and a Willy Wagtail. It flew the second I saw it and disappeared into the distance with that typical, rolling cuckoo flight. I scanned the flooded field from near the car park and had a short view of a Whistling Kite circling low over the water before it too vanished behind the trees. That was about it but it was kinda nice to be out and about again.                 

Weekends That Were - February 2025

 Birding Pal Stuff

5.2.25

Allan S from Orange County, California, USA had contacted me the previous Thursday in anticipation of a day’s birding on Wednesday. Being free, I, of course, agreed and arranged to pick him up from Brisbane’s International airport at 7.30am.

I had set the alarm for 5.30, planning on leaving home at 6.30 and waiting, with breakfast, at Mackers near the airport until he arrived. So, lying in bed at 5.50 and just about to get up and coffee-up when I received a txt advising he had already landed and was waiting to disembark! 

I was up, dressed and left home with a travel mug of instant coffee by 6. 

I took the toll Gateway bridge and, with some creative driving, got to the passenger pick-up area by 6.30 – just in time to get another txt advising he was in the airport changing his clothes for the day out. Allan is a flight attendant for American Airlines and obviously needed to change out of his working clothes. Thanks to the restrictive 10 minute maximum wait in the ridiculously small passenger pick-up area at the airport I had to leave again and went to Mackers which was only 5 minutes away. I had time for a smoke there before his advice that he was now at the pick-up and I returned and collected him successfully.

We headed off over the Gateway again to Sandy Camp while I established his availability for the day, his birding preferences, prior Australian experience and generally getting to know each other.

We spent almost 2 hours at Sandy Camp picking up the usual basic species plus a perched up Brush Cuckoo – after some effort using encouragement that it seemed interested in, but was maybe a little tired. (Mind you I assume it was what they are now calling Sahul Brush Cuckoo. I failed to get a feather for DNA analysis so in theory it could be some other vagrant species of Brush Cuckoo? But I'll assume it is the regular Brush Cuckoo species we have always seen in Australia. Bearing in mind birding depends on exact identification of species, so some doubt must be thrown on records of species especially migrants, that have been 'split' on the basis of some nerd's DNA analysis and which are indistinguishable in the field. Go to it all you armchair twitchers.) Striped Honeyeater, Chestnut-breasted Mannikins, all 3 Fairy-wren species, White-throated Honeyeater and Leaden Flycatcher. The highlight for me, however, was a surprising (?) Little Shrike Thrush seen well. It was a new species for the site for me and was, I thought, an unusual occurrence.

The day turned out to be relatively successful, helped greatly I think by the heavy cloud cover, avoiding bright, hot sunshine, although it was very humid.

From there we went down to the Wynnum Boardwalk and found 5 or 6 Toressian Kingfishers, a couple of Mangrove Gerygones and a few waders out on the low tide exposed mud.

Toressian Kingfisher

Grabbing a coffee for me at Mackers on the way through we went to Minnippi where we walked around the lake getting nice views and photos of Golden-headed Cisticola (one of Allan’s targets) and Tawny Grassbird. 

We tried at White’s Hill for Bush Stone Curlew but were unsuccessful at their usual location. We didn’t bother walking in for a potential Powerful Owl at roost as Allan had already seen one well on a previous visit and the percentage chances of it being there were pretty low.

Up Mt Gravatt Lookout – nobody home at the Square-tailed Kite’s nest site – and we had a leisurely lunch on the verandah of the café overlooking the city.

A slowish drive out to Oxley, due to school closing times, and rain as we arrived on site. We sat it out in the covered area for an hour or so then walked the track as usual. It was quiet – as one would expect at 15.30 on a humid sultry summer’s day – but we did get Double-barred and Red-browed Finches along with the usual species still semi-active in the heat.

We agreed that that was enough for the day and, due to the usual traffic issues it was 18.30 by the time I dropped him off at the Marriot hotel on Queen’s st.

It was the biggest birding day I think I have had since Costa Rica and I was pretty knackered by the time I got home, but I think Allan was happy with the outcomes and we got on well having a lot in common generation-wise and in interests and political ideals.

8.2.25

Lytton Wader Roost

Mr D picked me up at 5.45 and Mr P jumped onboard at 6. On site at about 6.15, right on high tide. The wader roost was close to the Port of Brisbane who had exercised their authority and built a fence to restrict access. Beneficial in that it had stopped hoons driving their 4WDs and assorted vehicles into the area, but means a phone call to their security to ensure the gate was unlocked. A simple pedestrian-only type arrangement would make life easier for everyone, but that is not the POB way…. Mr P had contacted security the night before and they had advised ‘the gate should be unlocked’ – which seemed to negate the whole purpose of the fence, however, it made access available to us.

Along the way, as we walked in we picked up Sacred Kingfishers, Mangrove Honeyeaters, Mangrove Gerygones, one Brown Quail and Double-barred Finches among commoner species.

The roost was crowded, although quite a large area, the bird numbers were good. ~100-150 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, ~80-100 Curlew Sandpipers, ~100 Red-necked Stints, ~100-150 Great Knot, ~1,000-1,500 Bar-tailed Godwits, ~60+ Eastern Curlews, ~60+ Eurasian Whimbrels, ~100 White-headed Stilts and smaller numbers of Australian Pelican, Common Greenshanks, Red-capped Plovers, Silver Gulls, Chestnut Teal and assorted Cormorants. (All numbers conservative and approximate). We couldn’t find any sign of the previously reported Asian Dowitcher.

 

Once Mr P had satisfied his ‘wader-fix’ we had breakfast in Stones’ Corner after trying two cafes in Wynnum that had been listed as open, but were in fact closed.

                                                                                        

                                                                      15.2.25

                                                     Esk & Wivenhoe Twitch

Mr P picked up both myself and Mr D at 5.45. Stopping for a takeaway coffee on the way we arrived on site just behind the village of Esk at 7.15.

A Black-eared Cuckoo had been reported now for a couple of weeks in this location. It had been seen as recently as the previous day so hopes were, contained, but high, for a successful outcome.

It was quite birdy as we stood around outside the local sewage works (no relevance) with one female and two other male twitchers. We had a Brush Cuckoo soon after arrival as well as a continued passage of Australian Figbirds and King Parrots into the trees behind us. 

At about 8.15 the original ‘finder’ of the bird arrived and almost immediately afterwards Mr D spotted it in a nearby tree. We watched and photographed it for about 15 minutes before it flew off to a more distant perch and we eventually lost sight of it. Another smaller cuckoo showed up and occasioned prolonged discussion as to its identity. It appeared to be an immature bird – either Little Bronze or Shining Bronze and we finally agreed on the latter.

 

Black-eared Cuckoo

We had breakfast at Nash’s café on the main drag, then headed off back towards Brisbane and our second ‘twitch’ of the day.

The GPS took us well off the main road near Wivenhoe Pocket Dam until eventually we came to a turf farm with what initially looked like a temporarily flooded patch of land, but which had some patches of reeds and water plants suggesting it was more permanent, but fairly shallow. 

There were three other birders on site who, basically, pointed out the two Painted Snipe huddled close together in the slightly longer vegetation on the far side of the waterhole. Apparently there had been between 4 and 6 birds present at different times over the preceding few weeks. The others may still have been present but hidden and despite intensive searching we could only find 2 heads visible.  There really wasn’t much to see and they were way too far away to bother with the camera, so we waited and scanned and searched for about 30 minutes before pulling the plug and heading home.

A double success twitch! One for the records!

Weekends That Were - January 2025

 4.1.25

Minnippi

I picked up Mr P and we were on site at 6am. A pleasant, relatively cool morning with minimum humidity. Thanks to quite heavy rain showers the previous day the long, uncut grass was very wet and several temporary flooded hollows had ‘appeared’ – some apparently having been in existence for some time given the growth of water plants. We walked the usual track, getting wet to our waists entering the M1 track. It was particularly ‘dead’ – as was the lake itself. We noted the surface covered in what appeared to be small bubbles, almost reminiscent of stagnation? The lake itself was very full, but there was minimal bird activity or presence on or around the water.

We had a Tawny Frogmouth on its nest  - apparently using the same nest for this its second brood this season. Something we had not noted before as usually the nests are flimsy and more or less fall apart after a successful breed, however, this one has either re-built or adapted the same nest/site. 

We flushed a Striated Heron from the edge of the lake, which is not a common occurrence and heard at least 1, possibly 2, Pale-vented Bush Hens calling near The Avenue and quite some way from permanent water. It suggests that the wet conditions have encouraged the birds to move more widely away from the creek banks. 

We heard and ‘called in’ a Brush Cuckoo, now, apparently called a Sahul Brush Cuckoo. WTF??? As Mr P said – just how many Brush Cuckoos are there in the world that we need to define the one that is resident in Australia? Seems to be an over-enthusiastic, unnecessary effort to refine a species and complicate things even further. Does someone get paid to do this? I note that the Cicadabird and Sunbird in Australia have also been afflicted with this nonsense. What the fuck does ‘Sahul’ stand for/mean anyway?

We saw 1 Brown Goshawk from the Lookout and later, as we approached the car, a very large female crossed above us. It was an exceptionally big bird and had us guessing for a few seconds.

Breakfast in Stones Corner followed.

                                                                                 21.1.25

                                                               USA Presidential Inauguration

Oh God, America what have you IDIOTS unleashed...........