September 2022 Mallacoota Bird report

 A pretty good month with semi-reasonable weather and migrant birds beginning to return.  In total 132 taxa were recorded during the month.  This is, as expected a decent increase on August 2022 but a slight decrease when compared to September 2021.

I have put a full list of taxa seen and some of their attributes in a Google Sheet.  Note that additional sheets therein contain summaries by category and migration status (see below for a summary of these items).

I don't have a single standout species for the month but will give a boost to the subfamily Sternidae (Terns).  They get this honour as a result of:

• 
  a very large flock of crested terns on a sandbank off Captain Stevenson's Point: at 1099 birds this was the 3rd largest counted in the District.  It is of some interest that nearly all the very large flocks (> 500 birds) in the area have been recorded since 2019.  I'm unsure whether that means there are in fact more Crested Terns in the area or whether we are becoming less conservative in estimation (the 1099 was counted off photographs rather than guesstimated in the field).  Following confusion over an image of Little Corellas I will make it clear that the colours in the following images are dots I applied during counting: they aren't roosting Rainbow Lorikeets.

• on the edge of that large flock were 3 White-fronted Terns, yet to make the move back to their breeding grounds in New Zealand.

• a noisy and spectacular bit of display flying by 3 Caspian Terns.  They have been recorded nesting opposite Captain Stevenson's Point and on the Goodwin Sands.

Categories of Birds

In terms of the broad categories of birds seabirds and "other smaller birds' were under-represented this month and "other non-songbirds", honeyeaters and flycatchers were over-represented.

Migration Status

This month I have done some analysis of the reporting rate of taxa by month to come up with a classification of the migration status of each taxon.  This is still, to some extent, a work in progress with my methods so far and a link to a list of taxa with their migration status in a Google Document.  A particular area of future work is to refine the months used to define the seasons more appropriately than a simple split into 2 periods on 6 months each.

The following chart illustrates the composition of September sightings for 2022 and all Septembers.  I note in particular that this suggests under-representation of Summer migrants: I suspect that is probably a simplification since the "all September" value will be overstated by single early arrivals.  

For future reports I will look at simplifying this chart by combining categories.

Sunday/Monday Surveys

 This covers things seen on Sunday 25 September and Monday 26th.  

I begin with the flock of Little Corellas that are hanging around Mallacoota at present. Here they are flying from Karbeethong where they seem to find something to eat towards the town centre.

I counted 149 of them in this shot.  To ensure I count them all once only I put a red dot on each bird as counted.  When I posted the dotted image this caused confusion to a couple of folk who thought they were Galahs!

Touring the Airport I found Dusky Woodswallows had returned.

These Welcome Swallows posed nicely.

I called in at Betka to check the state of the mouth of the River.  It is still closed but the last rainfall has got it close to breaking out.

A Hooded Plover was inspecting the edge of the water.

Then off for a walk under the powerlines at the end of Karbeethong Road (known as the Premier Track at some points).  The track up the middle of the powerline reserve was a bit wet and chewed up.

The track on the Southern side looked like the Somme in 1918.  The deepest rut was about 80cm deep and I assume caused by someone who got an accelerator as a present on their last birthday, with a brain due next Christmas.

There was a lot of blossom around.

I think this is Dillwynnia sericea and provides the dominant colour here..

Thelionema umbelatum: a lily.

One of the few orchids around.  Caladenia carnea I think, due to the shape of the labellum and the date.  I didn't get excited about these as they are quite common.

The purple flowers here are Comesperma ericinum which is also quite common, but in unusual profusion in this area this year.

This is Wedding Bush Ricinocarpos pinifolius which we think of as flowering in late Spring/Summer, but was well in bloom on this walk.

One nearly open sun orchid!  Thelymitra ixioides.  I have come across a few others but they have still been very much in bud.  The vigorously growing bush has swamped most the area in which they are often profuse,

Two of the wattles in the area: Acacia verticilata (Prickly Moses, in flower, which likes wet areas so should be happy here) and A. suavolens with seed capsules,

That was Sunday.  Monday got me going by seeing a large bird with a large bill on a dead gum tree.  A closer look revealed it as a Kookaburra rather than the hoped fort Channel-billed Cuckoo.  It was joined by a friend and they were then mobbed by the resident Bell Miners (I missed the mob attack).

Later in the morning I went for a stroll along the first 500m of the Captains Creek Fire Trail to asses the situation for Flying Duck Orchids.  None of them there!  However a mass of Tetratheca (I think T. ciliata) was good to see both as a bed ..

... and in close up with Correa reflexa.

A solitary example of Diuris orientis (Wallflower Orchid)

Pimelia linifolia

This is some sort of Boronia but I have no idea which!

A single Glossodia major.

Again a single Lyperanthus suavolens (Brown beaks).

An unusually pink form of Caladenia catenata (I think).

In the afternoon we went for a walk along what is left of Bastion Beach.  Not a great number of birds around but a pair of White-fronted Chats were nice.

This Egret got me going a bit as such a cluster of plumes suggested Intermediate Egret.

I decided to get closer and trudged through the samphire (not thinking about Tiger Snakes) and the length and shape of the neck swung me back towards the default of Great Egret.  The black tip to the beak was interesting - it is going into or out of breeding condition.

As the gape goes past the eye it is definitely a Great Egret.

A guy with a kite was having great fun doing some wake jumping!  A little later he did a complete somersault, but I missed that.

Tern, tern, tern. To every thing there is a season....

With apologies to the Byrds (performers) and Pete Seeger (composer).   The purpose under heaven in this case was to check for a Bird of the Day, with a specific hope for a White-fronted Tern (before they return to New Zealand for procreative activities.

I have looked for them many times recently with no luck.  Indeed there have been few terns of any species around Mallacoota recently.  That changed today with a very large flock on a sandbank.

A member of BLEG who worked as a microbiologist spent a lot of working time counting bacteria in petri dishes.  He has transferred that skill to counting flocks of birds through a telescope and has expressed the view that most people's ad hoc estimates are usually a significant undercount.  My guestimate of this flock was 500 birds.  What do readers estimate?  (NB the birds in the water are mainly Godwits and Knots, not terns.)

I will note that Rob Clay reported (a few back) a similar phenomenon at Marlo/Cape Conran.  I have no idea why they have returned to Mallacoota today: perhaps going to the pub to watch the Grand Final?  I did note that quite a few of them seemed to be flying in from the direction of the Goodwin Sands.

Of course I hadn't expected this so had had left camera at home.  The image above is straight off my iPhone.  I also didn't have the phone adapter for my telescope but I was able - with a little fiddling about and a lot of muttered obscenities - to get a digiscoped image of 2 of the 5 White-fronted Terns I saw.

I returned with camera and too a couple of shots of the flock of terns and after loading them to my computer counted the terns by putting a dot on each bird.  I changed colour every 100 birds to make it easier to keep track of where I was up to.  I used the formation of terns in the water as a reference point to avoid duplication.

My total count was 1099 birds which I suggest is within +/- 20 of the actual number.

When I first arrived (sans camera) the waders were in 2 groups with 48 Bar-tailed Godwits in one group and 27 Red Knot in another.  By the time I returned the two species had mingled.  Here is part of the mixture.  (I did check for Black-tailed Godwits but no luck.)  I will be submitting this to Crap Bird Photography in due course.

Natural History, home and away.

Noting a mini milestone, this is my 500th post to this blog. 

This covers a few interesting bird images and a report on a small trip we made on 21 September.

The first photo shows a Caspian Tern and 2 Hooded Plovers in the water of the Betka River, with the level rising quite rapidly due to the mouth being closed.

It is important to record breeding activity.  I didn't see the display or courtship elements of this event and from the disinterest of the female, I suspect they were not that evident.

One of the points of interest in our Mallacoota croquet games has been the presence of a Masked Lapwing nest on the higher grass surrounding the lawns.  When Frances and I played there on Monday 19th the adults were fairly bolshie, although if we stayed away from the area close to the nest an adult sat and brooded.  On Tuesday the birds were both off the nest and when I looked it there was only 1 egg (of 4).  I assumed a fox had had a meal.  With 11 players we were playing on both lawns and I only went near the nest when an errant shot on lawn 1 (where I was playing) went right across lawn 2 and teetered on the edge of the gutter.  Looking into the gutter revealed 3 chicks!   Neither they, nor the adults, seemed unduly fussed about our presence.

On the Wednesday we went for an explore along West Cann Road which loops off the Monaro Highway North of the village of Cann River.  

We were also planning to fill up the Pajero's fuel tank at the United servo in Cann as it would be cheaper that the $2.229c/litre being gouged by the place in Mallacoota.  Indeed: it was $1.999c/l - a saving of 30 cents a litre or ~$21 for the tankful.  As I was not replete with diesel when leaving home I checked the range on the car's info system: this was 120 km when in our driveway but by the time we had got to Genoa Rd (4km away) had dropped to 100km - the large hill had cut our consumption.  When we next checked the range - just after the Drummer Walk turnoff, some 50 km from home, it was back to 120km!  This shows what a lot of driving on dirt and several km in 4WD will do.

Here is a map of a fair bit of West Cann Road.  We have stopped several times in the past at point 1, mainly to tick Rufous Songlarks which appear there in Summer.  We hadn't been past it, but have been told of a rainforest pocket at point 2 where the road crosses the River (and thus goes on the West side)!  Knowing that the road comes back out on the highway a few km North we made a loop of it stating a third bird list at the dam marked as 3.

There was no Songlark at point 1 but a male Nankeen Kestrel was having a snack of something.

The River had plenty of water in it ....

... and has obviously had a lot more.  The log is about 3m above current water level.  My guess ir that would put most of the area back to point 1 under water.

No greatly exciting birds were seen here and we proceeded on going past some dairy farms.  Getting to a moderate sized dam there were some weird looking ducks.  When I spotted an adult male Australian Shelduck I realised that the weird ones were immature Shelduck.  Frances also spotted 2 black fluffballs in the company of an adult Australian Swamphen.  We extended that checklist for 5km along the road getting (inter alia) several Australasian Pipits and 2 White-faced Herons. 

For the area as a whole (ie all 15 previously listed eBird locations, all Personal locations) 104 species are listed and the Swamphen is an addition.  (I am only able to do this as I have downloaded all eBird data for East Gippsland.  I shall be asking people to try to rationalise their locations and declare some Hotspots, to make the data more readily accessible.)  I have made a trip report covering the three sites showing 29 species.

We headed for home and swung in to West Wingan "Rd".  I have put quotes around the word Road since the number and depth of potholes suggests that 'Track' might be a better classification.  We decided that we didn't want to rattle on for another 30km to the campground but stopped at Soda Creek Track for an explore.

This pea was interesting as it didn't look like anything we recognised.  iNaturalist reckons it is Goodia lotifolia which fits with Plants Victoria as "Golden Top".

A wattle with very long spikes.  iNaturalist can't suggest anything.  Observers have given A. genistifolia which matches books etc when looked at closely.  Much more vigorous than what I have previously attached this name to and I suspect my previous IDs have been wrong: but what were they?

Shorter spikes but again iNaturalist can't go past genus.  Observers on iNaturalist have proposed A. verticillata (Prickly Moses) with which I agree.  Joy's book has it under 'Watercourses" not on a ridge - but it was in a damp patch, possibly next to a spring.

A pretty spectacular Tetratheca, but I can't get further than that at this stage.

A Pomaderris.  I'll let iNaturalist sort this out.  An observer - who knows Pomaderris has commented "Going on the density of rusty hairs on stems and leaf underside I think this has to be P. ferruginea, which iNat for some reason has decided is called P. wendlandiana."  The reason is possibly that iNat is run by folk from California (although the main villain seems to be Kew)!  I have looked at various links about the name change and as usual with this genus it is all completely confusing with various references contradicting each other.

Kennedia rubicunda was looking attractive in the background.

And more so  when close up.

This puzzled us in the field but Joy's book (confirmed by iNaturalist) says Dodonea triquetra.

Caladenia catenata.

As we were passing we sung into the Genoa Creek track and saw one remaining Caladenia caerrulea and our first Glossodia major for the season

This one always fools me.  It is Sowerbaea juncea: a Lily.

Finally, on the morning of the 22nd the Masked Lapwings next door greeted 3 new members from the second brood this year.  I am unsure if the 4th egg will hatch or not.