Whimbrels-R-Us

 On 29 November Rob Clay reported (and photographed) a Whimbrel from Captain Stevenson's Point at Mallacoota.  I was in Canberra then so couldn't get out there until this morning (1 December).  

On first getting to the Point the light didn't look that good for bird photography (nor, come to that, continued ocular health).

However on swinging my telescope around a few degrees to the NE I found not one, but two birds which I thought were Whimbrels and have subsequently been agreed to be that species.  The first two images are digiscoped while the third is cropped (pretty severely) from my camera.

In coming to the conclusion of the identification I bear in mind a comment - in about 1985 - by the late Stephen Marchant when asked if Whimbrels were like Curlews.  His response was along the lines of "Dear boy, they're completely different."  To him that was probably the case, but for mortals the obvious difference is the length of the bill: Rob Clay addressed this by saying that for the Eastern Curlew the bill is about the length of the bird's back while the Whimbrel is much shorter.  To reinforce this I have extracted some details on bill lengths from HANZAB (omitting some extreme cases these seems a fair summary).

Note that there is almost no overlap between the 4 groups.  To explore the relativities to length of back I have looked at the ratio of length of bill (taking an average for each species) to overall length (at the start of the HANZAB species accounts.  

Clearly the bill of a Whimbrel is not only shorter in absolute terms but also relative to the body size.  (A relative difference is still evident, but not quite so pronounced,  if comparing a female Whimbrel with a male Curlew.)
 
I have interrogated my set of eBird records to see how unusual this is.  ( I have over the years we have been coming here spent quite a few unsuccessful hours peering at various largeish brownish waders hoping for a Whimbrel.  They have just about been awarded "Painted" status: Ian Fraser has commented that any bird with 'Painted' in its vernacular name is a pigment of the observers imagination.  However eBird has 33 records of this species.  Looking at occurrence over the years in the Mallacoota District gives the next chart.

For the years since 2014 - when eBird became the recording process of choice - there is usually 1 or 2 records per year.  2018 is unusual with no records.  2014 is also unusual with 7 records and as they are in different months spread through the year I conclude that a young bird over-wintered here that year.

On the subject of seasonality the species is clearly a Summer Migrant.

The lack of records from the suggested overwintering bird in June to August simply reflects the seasonal pattern of tourists: they're wimps who don't come here in Winter.

I also looked at eBird records for East Gippsland.  This amounted to 49 birds.  Given that the coastline of my version of Mallacoota District (Wingan to the Border) is roughly 20% of the total straight-line length of the sea length in East Gippsland in total that is a very interesting outcome.  If one adds the many kilometres of shoreline in the Gippsland Lakes it is even more intriguing.

A little out of area

This covers an outing of the Bairnsdale Field Naturalists Society which we attended on 20 November.  We stopped three times, with the second being added as it looked interesting when most of the group drove past on the way from Bairnsdale to Drummer.  It was nice to have the first stop relatively close to home!

A look into the Thurra River.

A fern - or possibly 2 ferns.  

Various epiphytes.

I was told this is a Tanglefoot orchid (Plectorrhiza tridentata).  I had thought this would be a large plant but was in fact tiny.  (As an aside it is possibly surprising how often that is the case: another one comes next.)

This is the Butterfly Orchid (Sarcochilus australis).  I had mentally confused this with the much larger S. falcatus - Orange Blossom Orchid - which is only known from one site in Victoria (not near where we were).  However I eventually picked out the small flowers hanging down in rainforest.

Zooming in helps a bit!

White Elderberry (Sambucus gaudichaudiana) was common at Drummer.

The scene at Reedy Creek, the add on stop.

This one is a worry.  It is very common here, growing in swathes along the roadside.  We thought it looked like Leucochrysum sp. and iNaturalist AI agrees, but Flora of Victoria only offers 3 species, none of them anywhere close to this site!  Let us see what the humans have to say.  A human has responded, suggesting Chrysocephalum baxteri, which agrees with a comment about 'Chrysocephalum' made in the field.  (In our experience ' chryso' usually means something yellow - Chryso is Greek for golden - so we had rejected that.  We were wrong!)

A very small Gompholobium and I strongly suspect it is G. glabratum.  The text in Flora of Voctoria describes the range as "only from the upper Genoa River and the upper Cann River Valley" but there is a dot on the map almost exactly where we found this.

Lots of a showy Hakea growing on the edge of a swamp.  It doesn't look like the usual species around here (H. decurrens) but does match quite well to H. teretifolia, although I didn't find any of the dagger-shaped fruit.  Let's see what the humans on iNaturalist have to say.

A pretty little white flower (with bonus raindrop) is identified on iNaturalist as Libertia pulchella  (Pretty Grass-flag).  As its vernacular name suggests it is a member of the Iris family.

This is definitely a Prostanthera (aka Mint-bush) and I think P. lasianthos (a member of the group gave the species name but I didn't write it down).

Cyathea australis.  One specimen looked a bit odd, but it was decided eventually not to be C. leichardtiana.

A collection of fungi!

An expert on iNaturalist has identified this as Schizophyllum commune a fine specimen too.

A blown down nest with eggs, and the eggs being invaded by fungi.

The consensus on iNaturalist appears to be Narrow-brand Grass Dart (Ocybadistes flavovittata).

These burrows were all over the Drummer area.  It appeared to be where the animal had been digging for truffles.  From referring to "Tracks Scats and other traces" it seems unlikely to be Bandicoot (the hole doesn't end in a point) so is thus most likely to be a Potoroo.

Some images of infrastructure.  The first is Drummer.

The others are Mackenzie Rainforest.  There was debris in the vegetation suggesting that in floods earlier in the year the water would have been several feet above the walkways.  A large (>1m diameter) tree had fallen across one of the walkways but that had been removed and the walkway rebuilt. 

The history of White-headed Pigeons in East Gippsland(ish)

 A recent post to Mallacoota Birds covering a photo of a White-headed Pigeon included the comment "... very interesting to see how far south they are venturing.". The author of that post has subsequently consulted her records and commented "I first sighted White-headed Pigeon behind my Betka Road home 30th September, 1998."

I have attempted to look at the broader recorded history of White-headed Pigeons in South Eastern Australia, using material available through Birdata up to 2014 and subsequently through eBird.  The easiest way to show this is through map images (I have yet to work out how to do this analysis on ebird in a quantitative manner using ACCESS.  When/if I do so I will append the results here.)

A few text comments may also assist.  

• The earliest record in eBird for the Mallacoota District is 23 April 1992, followed by one on 10 February 1995.  Note that this was well before eBird was launched in the US in 2002 and even more before the system was widely used in Australia (about 2014): thus these records probably indicate eBird users uploading their historic records.  For East Gippsland West of Mallacoota the first eBird record at Orbost is 19 November 2004, with Metung getting on the list on 6 March 2006.  Bairnsdale first gets mentioned on 15 November 2008.
•  I don't have ready access to individual records in Birdata so have relied on the maps available through that system zooming in to the fine detail to establish the date of some early sightings.  Going well beyond East Gippsland I find 2 records for Lorne, and one to the West of that town in 2007.  The following map covers Birdata records from 1/1/2000 to 31/12/2009.

The next map shows sites from which the pigeon of interest was reported in Birdata for 2010.  It is  obviously only reported sporadically past  Mallacoota, suggesting these are isolated birds "exploring the boundaries of possibility".

At the broad level of detail the maps for 2011 and 2012 are the same, showing reports from further West.

The trend continues for 2013 ...

.. and 2014.

At this point in history the data entry system used for Birdata reached its use-by date and most birders moved to eBird,  This next map shows eBird records (see note above) prior to 2015.

2020 and earlier, with a few pioneers making it across Bass Strait.

And finally, all eBird records.  Orange pins indicate pins in the 4 weeks ending 16 November 2022

In summary they have moved well South and far West.

I have finally worked out how to express the spread of the species using eBird data. I have calculated the earliest year of records classified to Latitude and Longitude to 0.1 degrees for both.  That is shown in the following graphic.

What it shows is the initial entry point at Mallacoota and then arrival in several locations to the West in the mid noughties.  As a generalisation, the spots from which it was reported earlier in the West are either towns (where birders might live, such as Bairnsdale or Orbost) or places popular for birding (Colquon Forest).

Bream Competition

 I justify putting this post here as it does include photos of weather and of a fish, as well as lots of images of boats!  The event is a round of the Bream Classics competition.  

Boats started to arrive off Karbeethong Jetty after 6am: not quite as evocative as the events in the past as they are earlier in the year and thus still dark as they gather.  This year it was just murky because of the weather!

I counted about 55 boats: there were 63 listed entrants.  Here are the first few heading off from 0645.  They go off 2 at a time at 30 second intervals: it used to be a Le Mans style start but that got too dangerous!

The arrangements for the finish have also changed with crews checking in at Karbeethong at 2 pm and then going to the weigh in at the wharf.  My guess was half had launched at the wharf  so boated back there and stoodged around waiting for a spot on the ramp.  

Those who had launched at Karbeethong towed the boats back and then had to queue up - the line stretching back to Allen Drive!

Here is the weigh in taking place.  The bloke on the left is the official who chats as he weighs the fish and checks they are all of legal size.  The guy on the right is a competitor who is invited to talk about their day and their tactics.  The official commented that there isn't much information provided - they used all baits and fished all over the Inlet covering all habitats - on day 1.  The anglers actually admit what they did on the second day!

Here is a bream going back into the water.  They were put back in between the Gipsy Princess and the wharf so that the Pelicans couldn't get them!  There are two species of bream: Black Bream which are denser so that a given length weighs more, and Yellow-finned Bream.

This is the Coastguard boat which patrolled the Inlet presumably as a safety measure.

There is a Facebook page with a summary of results and some photographs and the full results are here.  Many of the crews reported getting a lot of Flathead as well.