Little Terns and Powerful Owl

After picking up Karl, a birder from the UK, we headed down to Long Reef to see if some of the waders that were spotted there last weekend would still be around.

Once on the Golf Course we spot a small flock of Galahs, the Black-tailed Native-hen, some Little Corellas and a Baillon's Crake. We didn't get much time to look for the Latham's Snipe as we were keen to head out onto the reef to see the waders.

Galah

Little Corella

Up towards the top of the golf course Karl spots a male Asian Koel presenting very out in the open. Underneath the Koel were a small flock of Superb Fariy-wrens. The male was staying hidden and didn't allow for any good photos.

Asian Koel

Out on the reef we were greeted with an abundance of Red-necked Stints. As well as 6 Grey-tailed Tattlers, approx 14 Pacific Golden Plovers, 6 Sooty Oystercatchers, Ruddy Turnstones, Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and the Double-banded Plover. But no sign of the Whimbrel, Curlew Sandpipers, the Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers or the Sanderling.

Red-necked Stint

About a dozen Crested Terns were roosting on the reef, as well as 2 Little Terns! The Little Terns are an endangered bird, and this was a first for me at the reef.

We were treated to excellent views of both birds. One in breeding plummage, and the other one in non-breeding plummage.

Little Terns

From there we headed to Warriewood Wetland specifically to look for the Powerful Owl and Brown Goshawks. The Goshawks weren't at the nest but we did spot on of them flying over the wetlands a bit later on.
A male Golden Whistler was seen, with 2 others heard as well. A couple of Olive-backed Orioles were heard calling, as was a Fan-tailed Cuckoo.

Heading to the usual roosting spot we finally found the Powerful Owl after about 15 mins of looking.

Powerful Owl

The Owl was presenting very well for once. Usually all I see is the it's back or underneath. Karl was stoked with getting his must-see bird in Aus.

A fruitless couple of hours followed with us trying to find Wedge-tailed Sea-Eagles. Karl did however spot a White-bellied Sea-Eagle with prey, as a way of some small consolation.

Regards,

Mark

13 Wader Species at Long Reef

Last weekend at Long Reef Marine Reserve was one of the best days for birding I've had at home for quite a while. It was certainly the best day I had ever experienced at the reef.

Turning up at the reef at first light on Saturday I had expected to just find some of the usual waders. Instead I was very surprise, not to mention excited to see a solitary Whimbrel out on the northern section of the reef.

I followed this bird around for some time. It was quite shy and wouldn't let me approach within 30m of it. Whimbrels are a migratory bird, and it is likely that this bird is stopping over at the reef to feed before continuing onto it's destination further south.

Whimbrel

Another visit to the reef in the afternoon found the Whimbrel in pretty much the same location. I was concerned that the bird might have flown away, given that there can sometimes be a number of people walking across the reef at low tide on a warm Saturday afternoon. I had thought that this would scare the bird off, but it wasn't fussed at all.

Ricki Couglan, who runs Long Reef Waders, an observation and conservation group that monitors and counts the various waders that visit the reef, visited the reef in the afternoon. And unfortunately dipped on the Whimbrel but more than made up for it by seeing a Greater Sand Plover. Her first record of that species on the reef.

The following afternoon I joined Ricki and others to see if the Greater Sand Plover and Whimbrel were still around. We not only saw those 2 birds, but we ended up with a staggering 12 species of wader for the day! An average wader species count for reef on any given day would be around 5-7 different species, so 12 was about as fantastic as it gets!

The afternoon temperature peaked at about 38*C. It was a stinker! So I waded out whilst the tide was still quite high, enjoying the cool refreshing water as I walked over to the tip of the reef.

Setting myself up in a nice spot where I could observe the various species of waders, I was able to quickly spot the Whimbrel roosting on the top of the rocks. Around the Whimbrel were Pacific Golden Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones and plenty of Red-necked Stints.

Whimbel, Pacific Golden Plover, Ruddy Turnstones, and Red-necked Stint.

Long Reef Waders counted 200 Red-necked Stints at the site during their last survey only a few weeks ago. An amazing number, and as my previous posts have shown, getting an ID on these birds can be tricky. Especially when they present in such differing plummages.

Another bird at the reef that was showing very unusual plummage, was a very pale Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.

Pale Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

As the tide started to receede, the waders started to get more active and more out onto the exposed Reef. It was about this time that a group of White-throated Needletails started to fly over the reef. But they approached it from the the south from over the sea. That was a first for me.

At this time Ricki and friends had arrived and spotted a Greater Sand Plover on a rock.

As they approached the rock platform more waders started to move out from the rocks and feed directly in front of where we were standing. It gave us a great view of so many different wader species.

Amongst the usual Stints and Pacific Golden Plovers, were a few Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, 3 Curlew Sandpipers, a Lesser Sand Plover, a Greater Sand Plover and for me, my must have wader bird, a single Sanderling.

Lesser Sand Plover

Curlew Sandpiper

The Curlew Sandpipers, Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers were all unexpected! Providing quite a lot of excitement from all of us! Sanderlings have been spotted there before, but I'ld always dipped out or misidentified a Red-necked Stint as a Sanderling.

But the most exciting part wasn't noticed until a couple of days later when I posted a photo of what I thought was a Greater Sand Plover. It was pointed out by Ricki to be a Double-banded Plover!

The Double-banded Plover over-winters here from New Zealand during the colder months, and then heads home again around Aug/Sept. So why was this bird still here?

Double-banded Plover

The Sanderling is what I was most excited about, having never seen one in real life before. And when checking photos online, the photo's appear to be near identical to Red-necked Stints. Even more confusing are the guides that describe them differently, but show them very similar.

At the recent BASNA Waders course it was remarked that if you are looking at a Red-necked Stint for 20 mins wondering if it's a Stint or a Sanderling, then it's a Stint. A comment I couldn't understand as the photo's I had seen were so similar.

So when upon spotting a Stint-like bird that was very white, had a longer bill, is slightly larger than a Red-necked Stint and had a definite dark shoulder, I was very excited when Ricki confirmed the bird as a Sanderling.

The bird presented the same shape as a Stint, but slightly larger. It was very white underneath, and through the breast and head. The dark shoulder was plain to see. Seeing it next to a RNS, it's easy to see that Ricki's comment made a lot of sense. But I guess it's one of those times when you can't see it until you see it.

Sanderling

All up we saw a total of 12 species on the day, with the 13th being ID'ed through photographs, as later posted onto BirdingAus by Ricki;

In addition to around 200 Red- necked Stints, 25 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, 27
Ruddy Turnstone, 1 Red Knot, 3 Grey-tailed Tattlers, 12 Pacific Golden Plover
and 6 Sooty Oystercatchers, we had 3 Curlew Sandpiper, 1 Whimbrel, 1 Sanderling,
1 Greater Sand Plover and 2 LESSER SAND PLOVERS!

And the 13th species was the Double-banded Plover.



Regards,
Mark.

Learning more about the Red-necked Stints

It was an incoming tide at the reef on Monday afternoon. This meant that most of the birds were spread out feeding all over the reef, making finding them harder than normal.

Usually I see them roosting, or just after the tide has turned and they head out to start feeding.
So finding them isn't that hard.

This time though, most of the birds were on the flat expossed reef on the eastern side, with a few Stints, Ruddy Turnstones and Oystercatchers further up towards the end of the reef.

There were plenty of Red-necked Stints, Ruddy Turnstones, and Pacific Golden Plovers around. As well as 6 Sooty Oystercatcher and 3 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. What I had intended to do was to practice counting the numbers of the different species, but how do you succesfully count how many birds there are when the birds can run behind the rocks? I managed a rough estimate, but the numbers I got were way down on what I got when I saw them roosting a week ago. I'll have another go when the tide is more favourable in the afternoon and the birds aren't so dispersed across a large portion of the reef.

Over my past visits, I had been noticing a discernable difference in the plummage of the Red-necked Stints that visit Long Reef, and it's this difference that I really wanted to understand. Up until now the most I knew about them was that they arrive in a brown'ish colour above, and white below, their winter plummage is a nice grey colour, and that they will sometimtes get a bit of red in their plummage before they head off to their breeding grounds in the Artic Tundra.

These following 2 birds are both Red-necked Stints, but you can see the difference in the colour and the size/shape of the feathers around the shoulder area.






In response to a thread I started at Birding Oz regarding this particular question, Jeff Davies was able to post the following advice;

The top bird is moulting into its first winter plumage. The wing and scapulars are retained juvenile, note the small black centre dots on the scapulars. These scapulers will gradually be replaced with adult type often leaving just a couple of the juvenile ones appearing as small black dots.The bottom bird is a freshly moulted in winter adult.

.....The brown feathers are old and newly returned adults can show the brownest because the feathers are older than any juvenile at the same time of the year.

There is so much to learn about these and the other birds that frequent this place. The more I learn, the more I realise I have so much more to learn.
But that's what is so good about birding. You never have a bad day, and there is always something new to see or observe.

These Red-necked Stints are amazing. They get left by their parents when they are only 3 weeks old, and have to fend for themselves before flying down here.

I was only reading on a few hours ago of how this bird numbered around 10,000 in the Swan river in Perth during the early '80's. And recently their numbers had decreased by 99% in the past few years due to habitat disturbance! It would be a sad thing to loose these and other birds from there and other places as well.

How big is a Red-necked Stint compared with a Sooty Oystercatcher?

Waders @ Sydney Olympic and Mason Parks

This afternoon was about going over that I learnt the previous weekend at the BASNA courses.

So heading back to where the field excursions were conducted, I set about to see if I could identify a male, female and a juvenile Black-tailed Godwit.

I arrived just on high tide, so all the Godwits were as close to the hide as they would ever get.

As on the weekend, there were a number of juveniles directly out the front of the hide. The juveniles can be differentiated from the adults by their speckly plummage. The adults in comparison tend to have a more duller appearance. Female are differentiated from the males by their longer bills. So despite the angle of the sun throwing shadows onto the side of the birds facing me, I was able to spot both adult and juvenile, as well as male and female.

In total I counted 25-30 Bar-tailed Godwits. An exact figure was hard to come by due to them moving about.

Along with the Godwits were 6 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, and 30 Red-necked Avocets. The Black-winged Stilts, Pelicans, Gulls, and Teals I didn't bother counting.

Mason Park also had quite a good selection of waders. Counting the birds here was a lot more difficult. Unlike SOP which is out in the open, Mason Park has lots of little bits of shrubbery and land all over the place where the birds are easily concealed. Not to mention that at this time of the day I was looking almost directly into the setting sun.

But heading to the southern end and then working my way around to the playing fields, I was able to do an approximate count.

5 Curlew Sandpipers, 41 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, 3 Black-fronted Dotterells, 1 Red-kneed Dotterell, 25 Black-winged Stilts (incl 5 imm and 10 juv) and 14 birds that were too far away from me that I couldn't ID as either Curlew's or Sharpies.

The Sharp-tailed Sandpipers I found easier to ID. The chestnut crown and darker plummage were obvious, making ID'ing easy. The Curlew Sandpipers were a duller plummage on top with a whiter underneath, but their bills were longer and more downcurved when compated with the Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. It was easy to ID the seperate species when they were together, but I had to look more carefully and longer at a single bird to make sure I didn't misidentify it. A couple of times I thought I had a Curlew Sandpiper, but when it moved into better light I could see it was a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.

Bar-tailed Godwits The juvenile is on the left, and the adult female on the right.

Bar-tailed Godwit (female)

Bar-tailed Godwit and Black-winged Stilt

Counting Waders @ Long Reef Marine Reserve

This past weekend I had a great time attending 2 courses run by Birds Australia at their Homebush office. The courses were a great source of information about the particluar wader species, their migratory movements, the threat they face due to habitat loss and much more.

During the courses, we learnt about the importance of counting waders and how this information is useful in understanding the movements and habits of the migratory waders that visit Australia. These birds come from as far away as China, Siberia and even Alaska to winter here before heading home to breed. The amounts of birds visiting here has dimished. Some of their winter breeding grounds here are under threat, as are some important locations that they use to refuel on their long journey home. Loss of these habitats directly impacts on the survival of some of these birds. So it was a bitter/sweet time. Great to learn about these wonderful birds, but sad to hear about how and why their numbers are decreasing, and why they may continue to decline in the future.

So part of the course was about correctly ID'ing the birds and regularly monitoring them. I find that ID'ing waders to be quite hard sometimes. Especially when you see them at various stages of eclipse plummage, breeding plummage, wing moult and age. Not to mention the slight differences between similar species.

So it was off to Long Reef this afternoon to put my new found knowledge into practice. Arriving about 90 mins after the turn of the tide, I was able to wade across to the roosting area and observe all the birds in a single location.

The birds were spread out into little groups, plus they weren't moving around too much so I was able to take my time with identifying them and to count how many of each species there were.

Assorted Waders

First I started with Pacific Golden Plovers. Only cause they are easy to seperate from the other birds. The only bird similar to it is the Grey Plover, but I didn't see any with a black armpit that would ID one of them as a Grey Plover.

9 PGP's were seen, and I suspect that 2 or 3 out of sight at the time of counting, but which was seen later on.

Pacific Golden Plover

Ruddy Turnstones were next. I counted 17 of them. I hadn't actually seen that many of this species before, so I counted them 4 times just to be sure.

Ruddy Turnstones and Red-necked Stint

Originally I only saw 3 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers in a loose group to the left of the main group. but checking my photo's when I got home I saw an additional 2 birds. Taking them to 5.

A single Sooty Oystercatcher fly from one side to the other.

6 Crested Terns were roosting, but this number went up and down as the birds came and went off shore to feed.

And finally I counted the Red-necked Stints. I didn't do these guys last because I don't like them. On the contrary, they are my favourite of all the waders on the reef. I did them last so I could take my time and make sure I did them well.

After counting them 3 times, I arrived at the total of 65. Each time I counted I got within 3 or 5 of this total, so this is the average of the 3 counts. I think that there may have been more, because a small group took off to head towards the rocks on the South side, but then I noticed a small group of 40 had come around behind me and were feeding on the rocks as the tide continued to recede. I didn't add this number to the original 65 as I'm not sure if they are part of the main bunch or were elsewhere when I started that I couldn't see and had turned up after the small group had taken off.

Red-necked Stint

There was also a small group of 4 or 5 birds that may have been Red Knots. However I was too far away to get a good enough look at them to be certain. They were standing next to the Ruddy Turnstones and appeared to be of a similar size but slightly smaller than them, which is the right length. I also noted that their beaks would not have passed their heads if inverted, so it was quite likely they were Red Knots.

After all the birds took off to feed, I noticed a whale off the reef and headed out to get a better look at it. It was only about 100m off the edge, and offereed great views of it splashing it's tail and pectoral(?) fins.

A few waders had stayed behind as the others took off. So I was able to approach them quite slowly and get a couple of nice photos before they too joined the others.

Heading back up the hill to the Golf course, I had a wander around the man made pond in the middle and happened upon the Black-tailed Native Hen that was recently reported there.

Black-tailed Native Hen

Unfortunately the tide will be high late in the afternoon for the rest of the week, so I can't make a return visit until the following week. Hopefully then I'll be able to check if it was a Red Knot that I saw.

Irrrawong Wetlands - Brown Goshawks and Powerful Owl

Heading back to Warriewood on Friday afternoon, I was only interested in finding the Powerful Owl, and to see if the Brown Goshawks were still around.

Heading to the waterfall first, I spent a good 20mins unsuccessfully searching all around the places where I had seen it before. Some Dollarbirds were heard and seen in the tops of the trees. A couple of Lewin's Honeyeaters were amongst the tops of the trees.

Heading away from the waterfall I had given up hope of seeing the Owl, when a pair of Eastern Yellow Robins stopped in front of me. One of the pair decided to have a seat in the warm afternoon sun, whilst the other flew off.

Eastern Yellow Robin

The Powerful Owl was finally located a little past this point. He was hiding in a spot that was only visible when viewing it looking away from the waterfall. The light in this spot was too poor to take any decent photo's so I'll have to wait until it roosts elsewhere for a better photo.

Leaving the Owl, I arrived at the spot where I had previously spotted the Brown Goshawks nest. Neither of the birds were around, so I decided to wait for a while and see if they would turn up.

After my last visit here I had posted in a couple of places to have these birds correctly identified, as I didn't have enough experience or information to say what these birds were. Initially I had thought that they were Brown Goshawks based solely on the observation of the tail feather of one of the birds whilst on the nest. More valuable information came via BirdingAus and BirdingOZ, which all pointed to them being a pair of Collared Sparrowhawks.

In the pictures that I supplied, the birds lacked the fierce 'beetle brow' that BG's have, and instead had a more open gaze associated with a CS. Female BG's are very notably larger than the males, whereas these 2 didn't appear to be very different in size. And lastly, the behaviour of Goshawks around their nest is very aggressive, whereas the CS's aren't.

All these initial observations were made based on my first observation and initial photos. However, a more experienced birder from BirdingOz went and checked them out and ID'ed them as Brown Goshawks. He was able to note the size difference between the 2 sexes, as well as the rounded tail and beetle brow of the smaller male.

As it turned out, it was the correct ID, but for the wrong reasons. And a good lesson for myself to accurately gather more information about a particular species before requesting other people to look into it to help establish a correct ID.

Brown Goshawk (f)

Brown Goshawk (m)

With this in mind, my next visit will be to familiarise myself with those particular features that identify these Brown Goshawks from the Collared Sparrowhawks. Then all I need to do is find some Collared Sparrowhawks and make some comparisons.

Wood Sandpiper - Birding at Pitt Town Lagoon with David Stowe

About 2 weeks ago I met up with David Stowe and we headed off to Pitt Town Lagoon on the outskirts of Western Sydney to see if we could find the Wood Sandpiper that had been sighted there recently.
Getting to the Lagoon we first headed out to the platform. The view from the platform showed a pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles on the far side of the Lagoon, Pelicans, Cormorants and Darters on the islands in the middle of the lagoon, teals and other ducks off to the left.
Around the base of platform we saw Golden headed Cisticola, Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, Golden Whistler, White-plumed Honeyeater and Australian Reed-warbler.

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin

Heading off around to the western side, we went looking for good habitat spots to find some Crakes. Which we found, but which didn't contain any Crakes, or Rails. It seems that sitting patiently in the cold long grass has little effect on the sympathies of these birds, as they just weren't interested in getting their pictures taken that day.

Now for those not in the know, Dave's a real generous bloke. He allowed me to use his 400mm lense for the day, which is a beaute bit of glass. I reckon I got my best ever shots of the species we encountered that day. The detail was so much better than I've experienced with my current lense. It's a good thing we've already got a new one planned in next years budget! ;)

So getting back to the birds; we headed back the way we came, past the mound and the Cisticolas and Mannikins we saw earlier, past the area where we had flushed a Lathams Snipe (lifer #2 for the day), and round to the group of trees running along the property fences where we encountered a couple of Double-barred Finches.

Continuing along, we passed the property that normally contains 3 dogs that love to come down and scare the buggery out of me when I'm usually there, but thankfully today there was no sign of them. No sign of any Crakes or Rails in amongst the reeds either.

Getting closer to the fence line, Dave spots a wader. It's the Wood Sandpiper. But it was too far away for any decent shots. So taking a seat in the grass, we wait to see if it will come closer.
In the meantime, the pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles across the other side of the Lagoon were joined by a Swamp Harrier, and all 3 of them were an awesome sight to watch as they glided in the strong blustery wind.
The Swamp Harrier eventually made it's way around toward us, and we got some magnificent shots of it as it passed very close by, the white above the rump clearly visible and thanks to Dave's 400mm, I was able to capture detail in this bird I hadn't seen before.

Swamp Harrier

Meanwhile, the Wood Sandpiper had headed into a small area containing some type of foot high plant that made finding it impossible. We had to settle for looks at the Grey Teals, Pink-eared Ducks, a single Black-frontered Dotterell and 2 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers before heading elsewhere for more birds.

Driving along Dave spots a White-necked Heron in a small pond by the side of the road. We spend about half an hour watching and photographing this great looking bird from the car hide. This is a great looking bird with it's long slender mud caked yellow legs, that sit below a body of grey and blue that has the occasional patch of maroon thrown in, and a long white neck that has slight dark spots that ran down the front.

White-necked Heron

Arriving at our destination, we spot the white-morph of a Grey Goshawk circling nearby a used Goshawks nest. Sometimes when I see a new bird, or something that I haven't seen for a while, I get a bit excited. So when I spotted this white bird circling and flying very 'raptorish', I knew exactly what I had seen, but rather than telling Dave the species I had seen, the best I could come with at the time was to point to the sky and yell, 'It's white but not a Cockatoo!' D'oh

An interesting behavioural trait that Dave pointed out about this morph, is that it uses it's colour to get close to Cockatoos in an attempt to take one. Little did I know at that time, but 2 days later whilst on a trip with Denis Wilson to the Royal National Park south of Sydney, we would witness this exact behaviour (see an upcoming entry in the next week of this trip).

The dark clouds started to roll in and we decided to call it a day. So we headed back to Pitt Town to pick up a bracket that Dave had left in the grass. Upon arriving the storm looked like it might stop, so we waited for about 20mins and then headed back down. Thankfully for us the Wood Sandpiper had returned to it's original spot, so we crept very slowly and very carefully over towards it, and ended up getting some fantastic shots.
An interesting bird to see, and apart from the odd glance over our way, it was quite content with us being less than 10 metres away from it. Occasionally it would bob it's rear end up and down as it went about foraging for food in the mud.
We stayed for as long as our aching legs could bear the cold mud and grass soaking us, but eventually we had to leave. It took 4 days for me to get over the contact irritation I got from kneeling, sitting and lying on the muddy grass, but it was worth it to see and photograph this good looking bird.

Wood Sandpiper

Red-browed Finch