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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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