Things in the air

I will start with some things that get into the air but were photographed in other poses.  Late in the afternoon of 18 April Frances drew my attention to a flock of Red-browed Finches feeding in our garden.  At that time I counted 12 of them.  Later, I counted 25 sat on our Southern fence.  A few were photographed.

Note that the one of the left has no red brow and is thus immature.

They seemed very keen on exploring an area near where Frances had been digging up Kikuyu grass prior ro planting daffodil bulbs in an extended garden bed.

I'm not sure if this one is about to eat the bit of stem or just shifting it.

There were no clouds in the sky and my thoughts of taking photographs to compare various settings on my camera didn't really work out,  I think this is a Romantic Sunset setting 

The key point of interest is the condensation trail visible on the left.  A quick reference to Flight Radar shows this to be a QANTAS flight from Hobart to Sydney, at 36,000 feet.  Zooming in to the app showed it to be just West of Bendoc.  (The image is from slightly later due to lags in getting the screen shot.) 

Looking the area up on Google Earth has allowed me to estimate that the aircraft was about 110 km West of our house when I took the image.
  

A couple of sunsets

I have been playing with the Scene settings on my camera.  This includes options for Vivid Sunset and Romantic Sunset.  Since coming back to Mallacootra we have had a couple of interesting conclusions to the day.

The first was the 14th of April which attracted me with the crescent moon.   First is the Vivid version ..

.. then the Romantic.

On the 16th the pile of pancakes (lenticular clouds, referred to by the Cloud Appreciation Society as 'lennies') appealed to me.  Again Vivid first then Romantic.

 

 

Back where the waders are!

The first birds to be shown are not waders!  Nor are they the hoped-for Swift Parrots, but 3 of the horde of Lorikeets in a flowering gum at the end of Maurice Avenue.

That was in the morning.  In the afternoon after our flu shots we went to Bastion Point.  

Frances was first at beach level and spotted the usual group (a family??) of 3 Sooty Oystercatchers on the rocks to the West of the steps (point 1 above).

Not much else - other than the width of the channel, and heavy outflow in the Mouth - was noted until we got to point 2.  There we spotted about 20 Red-capped Plovers (Bird of the Day) ...

... 2 Double-banded Plovers ...

.. and 6 Red-necked Stints.  We couldn't spot any Godwits anywhere.

As we headed back (looking for, and failing to find any, Chats or Emuwrens) FRances noted that one of the Herons in Develings Inlet (point 3) was deficient in white on the face.  A Reef Egret taking a break from the rocks.

Scenes from the mouth of Coulls Inlet

On our walk this morning I looked across at Seagull Island - as it appears to be known to some locals - and to my surprise counted 36 Cattle Egrets.  The consequent phone photo is sort of an aide -memoire rather that an assist to identifying the birds.

That is not the worst photograph I have ever taken.  That honour goes to an Ashy-throated Flycatcher seen in Central Park NYC.  It would have been the first record of the species in the Park but it wouldn't stay still and the resultant image was a grey blur, barely recognisable to Order let alone Species.

I went back later and took another photo (with my little camera) and picked out at least 1 Great  Egret among the horde.

I thought I go back with my telescope and see what else was there.  Not a great deal was the answer.  I did think this passing Foxy - on a paddle board - was very amusing. 

A couple of fishermen were there and one got very excited as he hooked a fish that gave him a great fight.  Displaying some fair skill he managed to land this nice Snapper of more than legal size.

I went on to Captain Stevenson's Point, being amazed at the number of people that were everywhere.  I think there were more people in the waters of the Inlet than I saw at Christmas.  Fortunately they, and their dogs hadn't scared off all the birds and a Double-banded Plover was a code 3 Bird of the Day. 

March 2021 Weather Report

 The overall phrase for the month is WET with slightly cooler than average temperatures.  

Rainfall

The total fall for the month on my weather station (WS) was 199.8 mm.  The BoM site was relatively arid at 166.8  mm 😁.  A comparison of the two sites is made more complex than necessary by BoM presenting the falls on a day concluding at 0900 hrs on the following day 😠.  The difficulties posed by this are illustrated in a chart of daily rainfall.

On 13 March my WS recorded 20.4 mm in the hour to 1900.  The BoM monthly summary for Mallacoota (at the Airport) shows zero rain on that day.  Showing my paranoia about technology my first thought was that something was wrong with my WS (or my computer, or both).  Then I thought to look at BoM records for Gabo Island, which showed 24.4 mm recorded against 14 March, and daylight dawned.  The 8.0 mm recorded at the airport on the 14th didn't "jump out".   My post on Mallacoota Weather and Wildlife Facebook group on the 13th notes "Well that was fun! At home, 19.4mm in about 20 minutes. Maximum rain rate was 188mm per hour and maximum wind gust 48kph. And a few flangs as it dies down! "

Again the comparison of the major event on 23 March is complicated by BoM showing it against 24 March! No wonder climate change denialists attack BoM: not only do they make a rod for their own backs, but thrash themselves with it.

My usual comparison of this year with last year and median fall shows clearly the magnitude of the fall.

Looking at a time series of March falls this month was the 4th highest (deepest?) fall for March.

The rain rates in the major event were not remarkable, with peak rates late in the evening at just over 70 mm/hr. The peak rates for the events of 13 and 27 March at 188 mm/hr and 274 mm/hr respectively were more dramatic (although total accumulations on those days was much less). The rate on 27 March was the highest I have recorded in my 2+ years of observations here.

The final aspect of rain is my pro-rata extrapolation of rainfall to date.  As shown in the following chart this got a huge boost on the 23rd of March and has stayed at or above 1600mm for the year since that date.

Temperatures

My overall measure of temperature the monthly anomaly has ended the month at -0.34C.  The prgress of the measure through the month shows the convergence to the value.

In calculating the daily contributions to the anomaly, using BoM data I end up with a series of daily maxima and minima with can be compared with a series of daily averages for those metrics.  Having got series, one HAS to chart them.

I also have series of the daily extremes from my WS.  Very similar to the above.

Minimum Temperatures

The average minimum for the month was 14.6C, exactly the same as last year and a smidgin above average.  The was a series of above daily average minimum (if that makes sense) from 18 to 26 March, contributing to an overall result of half the minima being above average for the date.

Maximum Temperatures

The average daily maximum at my WS was 22.9C a little above the long term BoM average, but below the value for 2020.  This is influenced by a station difference with the BoM site having a March average of 21.8C which is slightly below the long term average for that site.

Humidity

Generally normal humidities apart from the period 20 -23 March, as the major storm brewed up.  I was surprised to see the values for 13 and 14 March so low, but they both correlate well with BoM values. I suspect this shows how a storm cell can generate in a few hours and dump a heap of rain.

In a slightly historical context, using only WS data - which now contains 3 years of readings for the first three months of the year - the 0900 value is above both last year and the average.

For 1500 hrs this year is almost exactly average and somewhat above the value for 2020.

Wind

A surprisingly calm month, in view of the number of storms recorded.

The direction of the wind was more focused than usual on the NE and W-WSW components of the compass.  While a good lot from NNW, relatively little from NW, N or NNE.

Sun snaps

 A couple of images looking West on the evening of 1 April.

And a couple from the morning of 2 April (looking East).

By their bills shall they be known

 We went for a walk on Bastion Beach in the afternoon of 1 April.  It was very good for walking among waders.  My main hope was to get close to Godwits and pick out 1 (or more, being greedy) Black-tailed Godwits among the usual Bar-tailed.  We'll get to them later in the post .... or not.

On the subject of not ... or Knot ... during the Big Weekend in early March a number of folk recorded Great Knot in their wader lists.  My life list only has one record of this species, a very stringy effort from our time at Congo in the 1980s.  So I had been pleased to see one a couple of days ago.  EBird was not so happy and didn't endorse my record.  A key feature is the length of the bill relative to the head.  So I was very pleased to relocate the bird.

As I said the length of the bill is a key mark

Bugger.  

A more helpful shot!  Confirmed as Great Knot on Australian Bird Identification.

Perhaps as a result of including that image in my eBird report from 1 April both of my records are now confirmed by eBird!

While looking at a relatively distant (~100m away) sandbar I noticed 2 small white dots in front of the usual large flock of Crested Terns.  I have peered hard at the images and consulted books, and concluded both are Little Terns, in non-breeding plumage.

Somewhat later in the walk we found two more small terns.  Again they are IMHO Little Terns.

My best photo.

A few Red-necked Stints were also scurrying around.

Also a couple of Double-banded Plovers, without much of their breeding plumage.

Now, WRT Black-tailed Godwits a crucial field mark is the straight bills.  Some species are not co-operative.

This one's bill looked pretty straight.  The plumage looked reasonably plain grey.  Then I looked, at the photo, under the wingtips (at the very back of the bird).  Bugger (again).

Definitely a Bar-tailed Godwit.

As we were leaving 3 Black Swans flew over.  Not a great snap but an OK one to record the moment.