July 2022 Bird Report

I'm afraid this report will be pretty brief as I have a revolting cold and will be returning to my bed asap!

Note also: After my initial post I  found out there was a Pelagic from Eden into Victorian waters on 30 July.  That led me to check eBird again and I added 8 species to the July list and 3 to the all-time Mallacoota District List.  They are highlighted in yellow on the Google Sheet.
There may be a second trip on 31 July so more goodies my be delivered

A pretty good report for July, which is usually the quietest month for birds.  We totalled 127 species for the month which is a high 72.6% of species ever seen in the month (the highest managed for any month).  This was 7 species more than July 2022, and there may be other species lurking in eBird for this year which I have not yet found (because eBird - unlike Birdata - does not allow extraction of data from custom areas).

 

Picking Bird of the Month was quite easy.  A Brown Cuckoo-Dove was seen at Gipsy Point and attracted a lot of attention by birders.  A big “Thank you” to the residents of Gipsy Point who were very helpful in assisting folk to find the bird in their yards!  (If only this observer had been able to spot the beast.)  It’s the second year in a row it has been seen here at this time of year.

Close behind was a report of a Lewin's Rail in a swampy area near the Broome St boardwalk.  This is not far from Fisheries Jetty where I saw the species in 2021.  There have now been 5 sightings of the species in the District and an expert has suggested that they may be much more common than thought but their habit of lurking in dense marshy vegetation means they are rarely seen.

A full list of species seen in the month is here.

The next chart shows the distribution of species across broad categories.

Cap'n Ahab was here?

 A dead white whale (only 10m long so not really that great, by whale standards) was reported on the Mallacoota Facebook page, as located about 1km past the mouth to the East.  It has been getting a fair bit of media coverage including the ABC (which seems to be the way the community finds out about these things.

I took myself to Bastion Point this morning and took some snaps.  The whale isn't obvious in the first one.

With the naked eye a blip on the beach is the whale, although without knowing there was a dead whale there, it could have been a rock or a washed-up tree or ....  Looking at Google Earth my guess is that it was about 2km from the steps at Bastion.

The zoom lever is your friend!  As was my telescope!

Some passing neighbours had a squizz through the scope and told me about the condition of the nearby Tip Beach.  So I went for a look myself.

The neighbours estimated the height of the bank at 11 feet, and as they climbed it they are well positioned to know!  I would not disagree with thier estimate.

Once more unto the poo-pits..

 I have tried to make a practice of going to the Waste Water Treatment Plant (aka the poo pits) at least once a month.  This reflects it being the only large and reliable body of fresh water in the Mallacoota District.  

Access require some consideration due to the forestry works on the 'old' way in, but the back gate is available as back up.  No work was happening today (40mm of rain in the last 24 hours and a weekend suggested that would be the case).

The outing caused me to remember the words of a motorbike-riding Swedish friend.  He commented along the lines of "Rain always lasts long enough for you to get soaked and then put on your wet weather gear.  Then it stops."  Today it waited until I got to point 1 to start raining.  I was a bit sheltered by the bush (although the trees leaked) until I got back to the totally open area where it pissed down until I got back to the car.

There were several good Mallacoota birds around today.  5 (at least) Scarlet Robins which can be uncommon but are everywhere this year.  20 Hardhead (this is the only spot in Mallacoota but they are easy to find in Canberra).  2 Australasian Shovelers (ditto).  My choice was Australian Shelduck: while they are always here (and occasionally at Genoa) they are uncommon in Canberra.  I counted 16 of them today (but no ducklings yet).

They also get a good score under the spiffy rule.

Cormorants etc (mainly)

 Recently I have been finding very few Great Cormorants and surprising numbers of Little Pied Cormorants.  

On the other hand I haven't been having much trouble finding a Nankeen Night Heron or two at Bucklands.  (I suspect the one opposite the Bakery in town has moved on as the Shire has massacred the Pittosporum in which it used to roost.  Vandals!

So today I thought I would go and nail the Night Heron for BirdADay (BAD).  On getting to Bucklands I soon found the Heron in one of its favourite spots.

It then decided to hide in the foliage.  It is rather hard to hide if you forget your lurid yellow legs.

After spotting the NNH I heard the distinctive call of a Darter and saw an adult male of that species heading off across the water.  After checking a few other spots for this and also that - neither of which were around I found a great Cormorant and a female Darter sitting in the big dead tree.  

Yet another Darter.  I suspect this is an immature male just coming in to adult plumage,

Driving back home the jetty near Mullet Creek was replete with Cormorants.  I recorded 32 Little Pied, 18 Little Black and 2 Great Cormorants.

The Far Side

 With apologies to Larson!

On 5 July we met up with the Footmobiles for a visit to the Marshmead campus near Howe Flat.  The route was 66 km from home with the final 20 km or so on a fair quality dirt road.  We noted that the Maxwell's Rainforest Walk is still in a distressingly abandoned condition (with no evidence of it ever being rehabilitated).  We stopped to morning tea at the Mallacoota Lookout, marked as X in the map.

We did indeed look out over Mallacoota.  Note the small open area just on this side of the Inlet.

A closer view of the Inlet.  The extent of sand of the Goodwins is quite obvious.

A close up view of the open area, showing the cabins of Marshmead.

After signing in to Marshmead as visitors we walked through the settlement to the jetty noting a spiffy male Satin Bowerbird.  There were a lot (I guesstimated 10) of green birds around.

.... where lunch was taken.  An Azure Kingfisher was seen (not by me).

Returning to the cars we then headed off to the rainforest walk.

A view of the forest alongside the open approach area.

The track went under a canopy of tree ferns.  I think there were two species present: a few Dicksonia antarctica but mainly Cyathea australis.  I didn't notice any Cyathea leichardtiana a few specimens of which were present in Maxwell's rainforest when we last visited (before the Black Summer fire.

A few interesting fungi.

Brief June weather Report for Mallacoota

 At present I am devoting most of my keyboard time to analysis of the first release of 2021 Census data for Mallacoota and District  So this will be a very brief summary of what has happened, weatherwise.  Overall a cool and dry month.

Rain

For my weather station (WS) overall 61.2 mm of rain fell, amounting to 88% of the median fall for June.  The BoM Mallacoota site recorded 64.2 mm while Gabo Island was relatively arid at 54.8 mm. Of the 42 Junes for which I have records (BoM Mallacoota prior to 2019) only 15 had lower June rainfall.  

We have now had 2 months in a row of below median rainfall.  Hanrahan will be clearing his throat.

Temperatures

The anomaly (difference between current average temperature and long term mean) was -0.5C.  This was the net effect of a cold start to the month followed by a warm patch from 16 -27 June.

The mean daily minimum temperature at the BoM was 7.08C compared to a long term average minimum for June of 7.38C.  The lowest temperature recorded there  was 2.7C on the 29th.  For my WS the daily average minimum was a tad lower, at 6.96C with a monthly low of 2.3C on the 29th.

The mean daily maximum temperature at the BoM was 14.73C compared to a long term average maximum for June of 15.51C.  The highest temperature recorded there  was 19.8C on the 5th.  For my WS the daily average maximum was a tad higher, at 14.89C with a monthly high of 20.3C on the 5th.

Humidity

My WS has recorded average humidities for the month at 0900 hrs of 80.3% and at 1500 hrs of 72.9%.  For both times these values are below June 2019 and the morning value is also below the average for the 3 earlier years for which I have records (BoM doesn't have free access to historic humidity data).  The afternoon value is well above the 3 year average (La Nina didn't kick in until later in 2020).