A few snaps

 I went for a bike ride round the area on 29 April.  Coming back along the Shady Gully boardwalk I noticed a couple of Australian Pied Oystercatchers in the water.  One of them appeared to have indeed caught an oyster.

You will note that it is difficult to read a flag code in some circumstances.

Fortunately the bird emerged and posed nicely.  

I have recorded this bird a few times in the area.  It was first banded at Corner Inlet on 14 August 2010 since when it has wandered the coast between Corner Inlet and Eden.

Enough with posing.  There is an oyster to break into!

It isn't unusual to see a couple of kangaroos engaged in the noble art of self-defence. It is less common to see 6 of them engaged in an affray.

It all seemed to calm down quite quickly so possibly this was only pre-season training

Spectacular clouds over the Howe

 As we set off on our walk this morning the clouds across the Inlet would have had members of the Cloud Appreciation Society hyperventilating.

The first image is a basic shot, from Angophora Drive of a cumulus, probably well out to sea.  On consulting the Bairnsdale radar there seems to be no precipitation any where near here.

The next two images show both the clouds and reflections of trees in the Inlet.

The objective of this snap was to show the various levels of cloud and the side-lighting by the sun.

Moving down to the boardwalk at Broome Street the clouds were very well reflected in the Inlet.

The evening sky got some colour.

Natural history expeditions on 27 April

 I ended up visiting 3 areas on the 27th.  The first was more or less accidental as I thought I would cast an eye at a roost of Pelicans, Royal Spoonbills etc on Seagull Island (mainly to count the Spoonbills).

My count of the Spoonbills was 17 with 23 Pelicans.  However while counting a Striated Heron landed on the mud in front!  I am afraid the photos are straight from the anals of Crap Bird Photography, but do suffice to identify the bird - well, the first 2 do!

I then scanned back along the mud and found a second Squidgy at the end of Seagull Island closest to the Wharf.  Dan Pendavingh had recently reported seeing 2 of this species on this Island.

After that I met up with Gerry Rushton and discussed his sighting in 2021 of a Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove on the Pumping Station Track.  Gerry was full of praise for the site commenting that on a recent visit he had recorded 41 species there (but not the dove).

I also went there and recorded 26 species.  That included a negatively phototropic Azure Kingfisher.  Not only did it not include the dove but I also dipped on Bassian Thrush which Gerry had seen on his recent visit.  Here is a habitat shot (I am bewildered that eBird doesn't allow such shots as part of their records - but then I am frequently bewildered by eBird policies).

Frances and I then went for a walk n what is left of Quarry Beach.  The sand has not yet returned and the position of kelp on top of these rocks - which usually barely visible above the sand - suggests there has been further vigorous wave action.

Miscellaneous stuff washed up.

It is always a thrill to see a White-bellied Sea-Eagle.  Photoshop has had a hand in getting this image from the silhouette my camera delivered!

There were some colourful shells beginning to appear towards the western end of the beach.

An interesting pattern in the sand.

Dawn Service 25 April 2022

 I have attended the ANZAC Dawn Service before and think it a very worthwhile event.  It isn't huge, like the Capital City events, but gets a good roll-up in a spectacular setting.  It is of course very respectful, which is what it's all about.  The main organiser is Mart Tregellas the President of the Mallacoota sub-Branch of the RSL to whom much praise is due, as it is to his helpers and the other speakers at the event.

The mountain bike delivered me to Captain Stephenson's Point at 0550 with a little light in the sky when looking out to Gabo Island.

It was quite cool (apparent temperature at the airstrip was 7.1C) but folk weren't getting too close to the firepit.

Well into proceedings.

A Leading Seaman from HMAS Choules spoke on behalf of the ship and the Navy.  The vessel herself was in Sydney, but the Captain and 22 of her crew attended this event in her ceremonial home port.

Other seamen.

The musicians played - very well - during the wreath laying - if that is the right word for casting a memorial wreath into the Inlet.

The sky was well light by this time.

I left once the laying was over, pausing to take these images of the back of the crowd.  My estimate was 3-400 folk attended.  Also several well-behaved dogs.

Fruit, dove

 Following a report, with picture, of a Rose-crowned Fruit-dove on the track beside the pumping station  I took myself off there for a look round.  Here is my route:

I saw a "dove" .....

... and lotsa fruit (Wombat berry, Eustrephus latifolius).

However never did the twine combine.  But overall I thought it a nice little area to which I must pay more attention,

I did see 22 species in total (including some fowl on the marsh where the track hits Develings Inlet) of which the highlight was an Azure Kingfisher.

A trip to the (air)strip

 The Mallacoota airstrip and nearby Gun Club track are an intriguing pair of sites.  Sometimes they can be full of birds of interesting diversity, but I have taken other birders there and not seen a single bird.  I haven't been able to nut out why this is so (but am sure it's nothing to do with Cadbury's Dairy Milk).

April 24 was about average for number of species, but probably somewhat above average overall, due to the number of Robins seen.

Flame Robin: 2 males and 1 female.

Scarlet Robin: 7 total, 3 males 4 females.

Jacky Winter (also a Robin): 9 total and I am not sure if it is possible to determine their sex in the field.

Dusky Woodswallow: 9 in total (ibid).

Grey Shrikethrush: I took this photo as the rufous face suggests it is a young bird. 

A couple of misplaced posts!

https://franmart.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-beach-at-bastion-point.html 

https://franmart.blogspot.com/2022/03/my-hunt-for-glossy-black-cockatoos.html

A few recent bird photographs

I thought these worth circulating.

We have been seeing an Azure Kingfisher fairly regularly from the Broome St Lagoon boardwalk.  On 9 April it posed nicely on one of the small jetties.

On a few occasions recently I have seen 2 Wedge-tailed Eagles flying over Mullet Creek.  Wouldn't it be great if they set up nest there?

Scarlet Robins appear to have moved out of the high country to the coast.  My memory is that they used to be reasonably common around Mallacoota but that has not been the case for the last couple of years.  Perhaps they have been able to build up numbers after the fires?

 

Counting Pelicans

This year for the first time Mallacoota Inlet was included in the BirdLife Australia (BLA) Great Pelican Count.  In the past it has been restricted to the Gippsland Lakes.

My contribution was to count the Australian Pelicans on the Goodwin Sands in the middle of Bottom Lake.  The site is shown in this screengrab from Google Earth.  The NW and SE straight-line boundaries were estimated by compass bearings taken from the observation site. The SW is pretty arbitrary but as I saw no Pelicans between it and the shore it was fit for purpose. As shown in the polygon box the area in which counted Pelicans was approximately 400Ha.  The centre of the polygon is -37.5285 149.7725 and should be at sea level (allowing for tides).

This is a view of more or less the total site.  I shuffled back and forth a little to maximise the scope of my coverage (mainly to ensure there wasn't a feeding frenzy happening "just out of sight" but this shows the area the birds were lounging in.

Here's my set up.  This is at -37.5434 149.7486.  Elevation there (according to Google Earth) is 42m and it is, again according to Google Earth, about 2.8 km from the centre of the observation site.

I mainly used the telescope at 20X magnification to scan back and forth across the area, doing so every 5 minutes.  In between times I zoomed the scope (to 50x magnification) in on some areas to try to identify other species and scanned back and forth (and higher in the sky) with binoculars to see if there was ant movement going on.  There wasn't really: one bird flew out of the area and a few of them - probably 6 - swam around a bit.  

Towards the end this group of 4 decided the fishermen were poor targets (either not catching fish or not sharing them with the birds) and swam away, but stayed in the study area.

This is the main island, where I expected to get most Pelicans.  A group of 8 birds were there.  Initially they were just lounging but then stood up and wandered about a bit.

A group of about 12 Pelicans were hunkered down in te middle of this spit.  They didn't move at all as far as I could see.

The part of the sands closest to the Howe Flat area.  No Pelicans at all, as far as I could see on the island, but a couple of those that went for a swim wandered by.

My total count was 27 Pelicans.  The commonest bird that I could clearly see was Black Swan:161 birds (in the recent past I have had counts of close to 500, but possibly the greater water depth following the downpour has put the eelgrass out of reach.