Friarbirds in Mallacoota

 This morning I heard a Noisy Friarbird calling from some flowering gums in Lions Park, in the very centre of Mallacoota.  I thought that was the first I had heard here, but I had recorded one from Karbeethong - in 2017!  Whatever: the species isn't common here, with 32 eBird records (compared to 2553 records for Little Wattlebirds and 3319 records for Red Wattlebirds). Here are a few interesting charts.

The first shows the localities from which they have been reported. I can't make any generalisations from that!

The second shows the number of observations by year with a smoothing line. Obviously there are many years with no observations. My memory (regrettably not like a steel trap these days) is that 2018 was a year with a massive bat camp due to a heavy bloom of eucalypts. I suspect there isn't coincidence at work here.

The final chart shows the number of observations by month. I have used a year ended June to show the central tendency around Summer. Not surprising for a nectivorous bird.

Wings at the Airport

 I often go to the airfield for a drive round on a Sunday morning.  For birds this can be feast or famine.  Today initially looked like a famine, with nothing on the fence and a horny son of toil mowing beside the runway.

There was not a bird to be seen on the Gun Club heath nor the fence until I got to point 2.  (Note for anyone else checking this track: there are some unpleasant potholes and the drain crossing needs careful positioning.  I'd suggest high clearance 4x4.)  When I turned the corner at point 1 things improved with several Jacky Winters and Australasian Pipits flying along the fence and out into the recently slashed heath.

My objective was point 2, where a Tawny Grassbird was briefly seen a month ago.  I had no hopes of that, but Southern Emuwren and Beautiful Firetail a possibility.   Just before I got there I saw a dark phase Brown Falcon.  I wondered (briefly) about Black Falcon but the tarsi were bare and the undertail was way too pale.

A Willy Wagtail let me practice zooming my camera.

Always nice to see a Scarlet Robin,

They seem to have appeared early this year.  A similar view has been expressed generally, being attributed mainly to the dampness of 2022.  (Not only providing good food resources, but made it difficult to set fire to the bush in breeding season.)

The chart is one of the better illustrations of the need to adjust raw counts for observer effort! The prominent peak in March is almost certainly a reflection of boots on the ground.

A Pipit also posed well: I tried taking photos of Jacky Winters in the heath but that didn't work out.

A rather distant Nankeen Kestrel sat briefly.  It's difficult to get clean photos through a dirty windscreen.

There are a couple of Survey aircraft at the airport.  What can be found out indicates they are going basic geological surveys off the coast.  I suspect many locals are suspicious of intentions regarding oil exploration.  Here is the plane taking off  (note the large avgas tanker in the background) ....

... and climbing.

Putting the registration (C-GSGP) into Google generates an interesting page!

The wharf does well

 Earlier in the week I was got a call that an Osprey had been seen at the Mallacoota Wharf.  I went down there straightaway and saw a raptor fly by.  I got a photo!

Cropping the image gives a silhouette!

I did the same to another photo!

I posted those to Australian Bird Identification where experts rapidly picked it was a Whistling Kite.  A friend who had seen those photos said that I should fiddle with the exposure to see if I could get more detail.  So Photoshop Express was consulted.

Clearly a Whistling Kite.  Damn.

The following day another local advised that he had seen an Osprey there twice recently.  So I went back to the wharf on Friday to see whether the bird was around.  Cutting to the chase, there was no sign of an Osprey but the other birds were interesting. An aggregation of large white birds was my initial focus.

They were Royal Spoonbill (20) and Australian White Ibis (58).  A full bird list is here.

A fisherman called in to the island and all the birds took off ...

.. and landed on the far side of the Island.

When purchasing my new camera one of the stated benefits of mirrorless photography was said to be getting better photographs when tracking a subject.  I think this image of a passing Gull supports that proposition.

Little Pied Cormorants

The Whistling Kite had finished one meal and was probably looking for another.  Not a great snap but it was a fair distance away.

 

A walk of failures

 After our walk along the clifftops from Betka to Pebbly Beach we chatted with our friend Caroline about the possibility of getting to the next beach East of Quarry Beach at sea level.  She has done this at low tide and said it needs low tide and some luck.  The low tide forecast for 19 April was about as low as it gets for quite a while (although, at 0.16m, still a fair  bit above the 0.06m recorded in January-February).  So we decided to give it a go.

Here is a snip from Google Earth.  Airport Cove is the target.

The green line is my guess at the tide line on the day: the satellite snap must have been a very low tide.

The first issue that arose was that I had not realised that I had taken the SD card out of my small camera in the process of getting my new camera.  Fortunately I had my phone with me so a few photos were possible.

The first image is looking back to the West (ie towards the far end of Quarry Beach).

This is looking East - Airport Cove is on the far side of the headland.  It was obvious that wading around was not going to be possible.

At Quarry Beach with an inclination towards geology a photo of these strata is always taken.

A rocky outcrop on the beach seemed to have weathered very differently to those nearby.

They seem to have split along the lines of sedimentation.  It sort of reminds me of the appearance of onion exfoliation shown by granite boulders but I expect it is a very different process.

Pancake rock and friend, looking very different than when looked at from the clifftop.

I decided to have a shot at going over the headland as going around was not possible. I got about 2/3 of the way and it seemed to be getting a bit iffy for climbing up and with the rock being wet and  reasonable waves coming in ....

... I decided that whatsit was the better part of thingamyjig and retreated.  An unusually sensible decision for me.  The waves and clouds looked nice.

Having got looks of time on our hands (not that we were actually on a formal schedule) I went round to the SW corner of the airport to see if I could stir up some Beautiful Firetails.  Another failure, but at least I didn't try driving through the bog at the corner and get stuck (a likely outcome the way my luck was running).

Sunrise 19 April

 The colour continues, although Frances reckons I missed a part where the sky was coloured better at the start.  Perhaps tomorrow.  The photos come from up the hill and are in the order taken.

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Sunset 18 April

 For the first time in quite a while the sunset on 18 April featured just the right amount of cloud.

Sunrise18 April

 I went out to check for a bat return-flight and found the sun rise quite intense. Two fruit bats are just visible centre left.

Crescent moon just visible in the top of the image.  Definitely a case of "shoulda been here yesterday" as the moon would have been a lot lower.  Perhaps next month

Betka to Pebbly along the top

 Not having down a longer walk for a few days, and the weather being nice, we decided to walk from Betka Beach along the clifftops to Pebbly Beach.  The first item of interest was that the Betka River is now open to the sea.  Also of interest was the number of folk enjoying the warm day by immersing themselves in the water.

I put in 2 eBird lists for the walk.  The first covers the stretch from Betka to Quarry Beach.  Recording that against the Point Difficult seems lie a reasonable compromise between the onanistic rules of eBird and the prospect of adding yet another location.  

The density of the regrowth is now astonishing.  It makes me think that the Shire should construct a maze or two, perhaps featuring Voldemort (or Herr Kipfler) in the centre.

A view back to Betka.

Looking West, towards Geology Point.

Zooming in on Mummy Rock.

Really zooming in as a wave gives it a bath.

Looking West over Quarry Beach.

Frances called this Pancake Rock.  In trying to get this image my camera gave me attitude about "Press set to cancel" and seemed to need to pause to take a photo,  This gave me the shits, as I couldn't work out how to overcome it (without the manual and effectively no internet connection out on the track).  The solution is covered at the end of this post.

Here is Pancake Rock and its friend.

The second half of the walk was from Quarry Beach to Pebbly Beach.  The total walk was about 9.4km.

Here is the view looking across Secret Beach back to Geology Point.

On the way back I spoke to another Canon user but all he could suggest was lot through the menus for some title featuring words like 'self timer' as that seemed to be the problem.  Couldn't find it but when I got home consulted the manual (When all else fails  ....).  There were 35 hits on a search for "self timer" but none of them told you how to turn the ing thing off. However it suggest that a crucial thing to look for was a phrase about "Drive mode". Once that has been located hit "Single shooting" and all is good: but about as intuitive as the average James Joyce sentence.

However, with that knowledge and an inquisitive mind, I wondered what would happen if I pressed the button indicated with a red arrow on the bac of the camera.

Sure enough, up popped the action set for "Drive mode" and picking the LH icon in that got Single shooting.  I presume that what happened was I pushed that button getting the camera out of its carry bag.  The hidden benefit of this is that it is also the button that gets one into burst mode, which should be good where exposure is iffy,