birds – bobmcgee

Flying the Flag …

Some more life histories …

Australian Pied Oystercatcher 5B was in its first year when it was banded in 2013 so is now coming up to its 12th birthday. It has moved 286km from where it was banded and it is in a relationship!

Australian Pied Oystercatcher DV was in its second year when it was banded in 2011 so is now in its 16th year of life. It was foraging by itself 343km from where it was banded.

Sanderling LAX was banded just metres from where I found it 3 years later but far from being lazy it has probably flown further than either of the Oystercatchers because it hatched in the high Arctic and may have been to and from the breeding ground in the interim. That’s more than 11,000 km each way. They run a marathon every day as well. Their foraging style is to chase the waves out, snatch some invertebrates from the sand and run back in front of the next wave.

I found and photographed this trio within a few days of each other on the beaches around Port Fairy. They show the value of using flags that are readable in the field without catching the birds. I just fire away with the long lens as they continue about their business. Clearly the flags are not an impediment. Occasionally you can even read the numbers on the metal band for large birds.

I report the sightings with or without photos to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme. If you give them your email address they will get back to you and to the bander with the whens and the wheres. Here’s the link ABBBS. If you come across a dead bird with a band you can let them know the number on the band at the same link. It doesn’t matter if you can’t identify the bird – the band will. If you’re not in Australia there will almost certainly be another authority that you can track down on the internet.

The flags do kind of ruin the photos, they are not going to end up on the wall, but when it comes to arguing the case for conservation pretty pictures are trumped by hard data (except maybe for koalas, pandas and polar bears.)

Minus 18°B …

This is my (temporary) new way of expressing temperature. In Mallacoota, Vic it’s 5am and 8°C. In Broome, WA, it’s 26°C, Of course it’s only 2am there and the humidity is 77%. So for a Broomite in exile it feels like -18°B. Which is better – snuggled under the doona frightened to come out or lying on top in a lather of sweat?

For those of you who live not far north of the Gulf formerly known as Mexico that’s 46°F, 79°F and feels like -33°B. For those in Canada I apologise for being such a woos. Heading into a winter like yours and living next to the Rufous Doofus it takes a lot of courage to be a Canadian.

Yesterday’s weather (before the very impressive thunder storm) photographed by Gayle McGee …

Meanwhile the long lens has been getting a workout. The Pelicans here are well educated creatures that gather where fishermen gut their catch. They too are feeding chicks.

Down by the sea …

Broome’s little peninsula points south. Roebuck Bay is to the east, the Indian Ocean to the west. Shores are rocky or sandy or covered by mangroves. Habitats galore …

Red-winged Parrots …

The late May deluge has so far amounted to 123mm (almost 5inches in the old money) or 4.5 times Broome’s average monthly rainfall in just two days. A trip out to the Broome Bird Observatory at the moment would be a great adventure (and probably illegal). Bike riding has taken a brief holiday. It has given me a chance to review and edit some recent photos.

Broome is not the place to come looking for Australia’s colourful parrots. We do have Red-collared Lorikeets and occasionally Varied Lorikeets but when it comes to the larger parrots (I’m excluding Cockatoos from this discussion) Red-winged Parrots are the best we can hope for. They come and go. Just recently they have been abundant. And they are gorgeous especially the males.

They eat flowers, seeds and berries. They are mainly found in woodland and have a broad distribution. which extends northward into Papua New Guinea. Broome is close to their western limit.

Darwin …

Having succumbed to the temptation of Pine Creek what’s another 200km? And when it comes to additions to the year’s tally of birds Darwin has a few absolute gimmes.

Darwin is the capital and most populous city of the Northern Territory but still a modest sized town of about 140,000 people. Charles Darwin visited Australia on the Beagle in 1836. In a subsequent voyage (1839) the Beagle visited what would become Darwin. Captain John Wickham named Port Darwin after Charles Darwin long before he became famous. On the origin of species was published in 1859. The name of the city followed in 1911.

I believe Mark Twain made a visit to Darwin and I have read that Charles Darwin was fond of Twain’s writings for bed time reading.

The Overland Telegraph and Pine Creek had a lot to do with Darwin getting off the ground. The telegraph had to reach the coast somewhere. In 1872 gold was discovered in Pine Creek and that somewhere suddenly welcomed a major influx of people.

I have visited Darwin quite a few times and have a well worn track around the birding spots. This is the first time I’ve brought a dog with me and sadly half my regular places do not allow dogs. Add to that the persistence of the wet season and a few changes had to be made to the routine. The first afternoon saw a storm deliver 35mm of rain in about 20 minutes followed by another 25mm over night. Nonetheless the list was made to grow and a few nice photos have followed over the last few days.

Now we must head for home. Cyclone Errol may or may not complicate the journey to Broome. Predictions vary so greatly they are to all intents and purposes useless. We shall find out.

Pine Creek …

From Tennant Creek we headed north. We spent a night at Mataranka to soak in the hot springs. Hot springs were closed due to flooding. No soak. Shopping in Katherine then a diversion … to Darwin. We stopped two nights en route at Pine Creek.

Pine Creek owes its existence to gold. It’s now a very pleasant stopping point for the traveler heading to Darwin. For the birdo it has the special sauce, Hooded Parrot. These are savanna woodland dwellers restricted to a small part of the Northern Territory. They have declined in much of their range but are secure in protected areas and are not hard to find around Pine Creek. They nest in termite mounds. The boys are far better looking than the girls.

For the aficionado (should that be afflictionado?) Pine Creek also has a very fine sewage treatment plant. Pine Creek is a place where the twitcher can listen to the Yellow Oriole by day (a mellow al ca hol) and the Barking Owl by night (wook wook) and run around wildly with the camera. Paradise.

Friends …

Flies can be a problem in Australia, always have been in fact. During the Sydney Test of 1932, the infamous bodyline series (I’m talking cricket for readers in particularly foreign countries) the supercilious Pommy captain was trying to drive away the flies when an Aussie fan nicknamed Yabber called out from the hill “Leave our flies alone, Jardine. They’re the only friends you’ve got …”

In the last few days we’ve driven from Coober Pedy to Tennant Creek crossing the South Australia, Northern Territory border and then the Tropic of Capricorn (not guarded by a goat this time).

And friends we’ve had in abundance. Open the car door and in they flood. In complete contradiction to the principles of osmosis they quickly reach a density of one fly per cubic centimetre inside whilst outside there are probably no more than one per litre. Clearly there is some attractive force in play. I suspect it’s the accumulated residue of a thousand dog farts, or perhaps it’s simply because I haven’t showered lately.

The remedy is to roar off with all windows open. This quickly gets rid of the dumb ones. The smart ones hide in corners until the windows are closed before coming out to invade your nose, your mouth or, their favorite, the corners of your eyes. Under your sunglasses where they can safely ignore your hand swishing past. You chase them around until they land on the window, quickly open it, and with luck out they go. Or they disappear into the back of the car. Initially a few at a time then one by one you win the battle. By about 200km you think you’ve done it. Just in time to change drivers for which you must open the doors.

We’ve camped at a couple of spots along the way and tonight we are tucked away in the spinifex just outside Tennant Creek. This morning we found a trio of Letter-winged Kites, a tick for Gayle and this afternoon we encountered some Spinifex pigeons. And I’ve had some success with the camera.

We came through Alice Springs. We had no need to stop. Rain has closed a lot of the minor roads around Alice and the country side from then on was extraordinarily green. There were small flocks of Budgerigars passing all day. With so much water about they will soon be big flocks.

We are still following the line of the Overland Telegraph. News from the rest of the world reached Australia by under sea cable to Darwin and then by telegraph to Adelaide. It was completed in 1872 and served its purpose until the 1970’s. We paused at the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station today, one of only four that are still intact.

Tomorrow the road trip will pass the 20,000km mark and we will rejoin our outward track. The year’s bird list stands at 288.

A New Year …

I do wish you a happy and trouble free 2025.

Bird watchers around the globe have been out chasing a big day to get their year list off to a good start. Me too. I was introduced to a competition of sorts by birders on Townsville Common. It’s simple. Your list has to be bigger than the number of days elapsed in the year. Easy at first, it gets tougher as you get deeper in the year. When you fall behind you’re out. I call it the Calendar Game and play just against myself. I have lost every year since the Big Panic changed my travel habits.

So on the first of the new year I got ahead of January and February. I have a road trip coming up so the list should move along well for a while.

While having a look at Broome’s Entrance Point a couple pulled up near me and asked, had I seen it? Not only had I not seen it, I didn’t know what it was. They’d found it on the oval in town and alerted the bird watching community. I was the last birdo in town to reach the oval … not long after it had gone. The alert had come through on my watch, which was at home charging.

It was a gull. It had been very happy to hang out with other gulls especially around anybody who looked like they had food. Next stop all the other places that I knew gulls congregated starting with Town Beach …

Americans will be wondering why the fuss? A Laughing Gull, so what?

It’s the first record for WA and new for my Australia list. Thank you Clare and Grant.

Singapore, A Garden City …

For such a densely populated place Singapore is remarkably green. Water and sunshine obviously help, but there has been a deliberate policy that nature should not miss out completely in the scramble for land. And it hasn’t. There are birds, mammals and reptiles in parks and gardens that are big enough parcels to sustain them. Yes, the glass is not full but don’t think of it as half empty.

In six days I visited ten parks and gardens. They were all worth visiting. My main interests are birds and wildlife so let me rate them with that in mind. (Gardens by the Bay is unmissable for different reasons). I’ll list them below the photos for any one planning a visit themselves. There are two groups – my favorites and the merely marvelous.

Favorites

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
Singapore Botanic Gardens
Jurong Lake Gardens
Dairy Farm Nature Park

Silver Medalists

Fort Canning Park
Gardens by the Bay
Hindhede Nature Park
Pasir Ris Park
Mount Faber Park
Punggol Waterway Park

Gardens by the Bay …

Watching videos like this one is what put Singapore back on my bucket list …

The gardens were opened to the public in 2012, they cover 105 hectares (260 acres) and as well as being very beautiful gardens they include two very large green houses and some interesting treelike things. The gardens are free. The green houses are not. But hey, you got here what’s another $53?

Do the flower dome first while it’s still a climax. After the misty mountain it’ll be a long time before a green house impresses you again. The Flower Dome is the largest green house in the world. The Cloud Forest enclosure is taller but has slightly less of a footprint. Keeping these structures cool and running is a unique feat of engineering.

There are a lot of flowers, plenty of trees and some kitsch. I’m a big fan of botanical gardens, not a fan of Disneyland. The overall effect is sufficiently restrained, my sensitivities emerged with only scrapes and bruises. I enjoyed the Flower Dome … a lot.

And in botanical gardens I am much more a fan of foliage than the seasonally gaudy (although orchids are very hard to dislike). And water features, give me a water feature. I was very much looking forward to the next house.

When you enter the Cloud Forest it hits you in your soul. Pause. Gaze in wonder. Move on a short distance, turn and look back. Watch the new arrivals. What’s happening to their faces is what happened to yours as you came through the door. This way you can share the moment and enjoy it twice.

Satay by the Bay is a hawker centre adjacent to the Kingfisher Wetland and close to the MRT. Good food, a Tiger Beer and watching the sunbirds or kingfishers rounds off the experience … very nicely.