A Fast Start to 2013

In some ways, I find the 1st of January to be a tiring day. While it is a good day, with each species a new year tick, and a fast-growing list (not to mention all the other non-bird things such as a hope for a fresh start on all those resolutions that never happen, like getting fit, eating more, and studying more), it also undoes, in that one instant of firework bursts, all the good work of the previous year. It highlights all those annoyingly tricky birds that must be hunted down again over the coming 365 days. So waking up (hah, joking, pulling myself together after a night with uni friends) on New Years Day, it was difficult to put my shoes on and head out that door to Eastlakes.

File photo (Nov 2012) from Eastlakes, as I didn't
have my camera with my on NYD

Yet off I went and I'm glad I did, because, despite my sleep-deprived state, I had a terrific morning, seeing 74 species, including Brown Quail, Buff-banded Rail and all three crakes, Swamp Harrier, Green and Goldfinch, and Little Grassbird. It was approaching 30 degrees when I called it quits, before midday, and headed home with by far my best January 1 count, to sleep.

***

With such a flying start to the year, I didn't head out over the coming days, but on the 5th, a Yellow Wagtail was reported from Sydney Olympic Park, at Newington Armoury. This bird is becoming a little bit of a bogey for me, having dipped on more than one occasion in Newcastle, on the famed Wagtail Way. With Max in Europe, I asked Josh if he was interested. Despite needing to finish packing for an overseas trip of his own to Asia - he was set to leave the next day - the lure of a lifer in Sydney was too good to resist, and we met up mid afternoon at the bird hide by the Waterbird Refuge. On the way to meet him, I came across a calling Mangrove Gerygone. Having dipped just a couple of weeks earlier at Towra Point, with Josh and Max, I was determined to see it, and after a few patient minutes, it called again, and I had good views, and another Sydney tick under the belt. We drove off to Newington, and were soon scanning the field where the wagtail had been.

Unsurprisingly, it had flown the coop, and has not been seen since the original sighting. Four pipits and no White-fronted Chats had us searching though. Josh has never successfully twitched an Australian vagrant, and the trend continued today. Despite this failing, we made the best of the day, driving round to Haslam's Creek near the Olympic Stadium, where a female Musk Duck had been for a few weeks. We'd barely arrived at the site when Josh exclaimed "There it is", and indeed, an unwattled Musk Duck could be seen diving on the still, wide, deep upper reaches of the creek. Just across the road, where we'd parked, a Glossy Ibis was found at one of their known haunts in the area, and a good day's birding ended, oddly, with me only able to lift my year list by five to 80.

***

I woke the next day to find a very exciting report on Birdline. A Barking Owl had been reported from Warriewood, on Sydney's northern beaches!! This was a bird that I had not seen since 2008, when a group of Varied Honeyeaters flushed one in Townsville, so was not only a year tick, but a NSW and Sydney tick, and a terrific bird. However, it seemed an unlikely sighting, and I didn't know the reporters. While it is nice to think that all birdwatchers are good and reliable birders, it is undoubtable that some birders just aren't that good, and could, easily, confuse a Barking Owl with a Boobook. So it took until midafternoon when I finally decided to chance my arm, and get on a bus to the northern beaches. It is a painfully long way by public transport to what has to be Sydney's most affluent yet simultaneously inaccessible by public transport area, and I didn't arrive until almost 6:30. Thankfully, the magicalness that is daylight saving meant that I had almost 2 hours of daylight, and I certainly made the most of it. An Azure Kingfisher (a bird it took til November to see last year) flew by just downstream of the reserve, and I ticked off other nice birds such as Dollarbird and White-cheeked Honeyeater.

However, there was no sign of the Barking Owl at its reported roost site, despite a thorough search, and, becoming bored, I headed across the road into Irrawong Reserve. While Warriewood is a combination of vegetated wetland and melaleuca swamp, Irrawong is just that extra bit upstream, and the habitat is markedly different. Much denser, and much wetter, the site has recorded such rainforest birds as Noisy Pitta and Superb Fruit Dove, and is home to Brown and Grey Goshawks. In this late afternoon light, I found Rufous Fantails, Eastern Whipbirds, Lewin's Honeyeaters, a Buff-banded Rail, and two immature Brush Turkeys, foraging like small chickens with (in one case) a big tail. The waterfall at the track's end was the site of the camp in the movie of Tomorrow when the War Began, and in that movie, I have heard Cicadabirds concurrent with the site's footage. Sadly, there were none here today, but a pair of Needletails circling above - golden in the dying light - were more than sufficient consolation.

What a bird!!

The sun was gone by the time I returned to Warriewood, with the intent of walking out through to the bus stop and giving up. I had not, after all, brought a spotlight. However I was brought up short on the boardwalk by a hawk swooping low over a mass of vegetation full of Purple Swamphens settling in to roost - or at least, they had been until this predator sent them into a frenzy. The bird landed, and turned, and I was shocked to stare into the hypnotic yellow eyes of a Barking Owl!! At the last possible minute (it was 8:15pm!), it had revealed itself. With no flash, I could do nothing but crank up the ISO on my camera, rest it on the arm rail of the boardwalk, and hope that 1/30th of a second would be fast enough. Somehow, it was, and I came away with a shot or two that I was pleased with, given the circumstances. For the next quarter hour, it hung around, flying low over the reeds again four times, harassing the swamphens, but never making a realistic attempt at catching them. Given the comparable sizes, I would have been amazed to see it. The owl eventually vanished, after having trilled a few times, and I headed off. At the exit I found a fellow birder just getting out of his car with spotlights and the full works, and I had to give him the bad news that I'd seen the bird not five minutes earlier, but that it was no longer around. I left them to it, and hopefully they had the same luck I did.

***

A couple of days later, I had an opportunity to meet yet another young birder who I'd only "met" on the net. Julian Teh is a 14 (almost 15) year old birder who also keeps finches, and has the job we all want: assistant at a walk-through aviary in Canberra, where he lives. He's up in Sydney, rooming with Simon, who is his age, and they have hit it off well, which suggests they both enjoy that high school humour that I like to think I grew out of years ago. Simon and he had successfully twitched the Barking Owl the previous night, following my report, and today we were planning on ticking off some waders for Julian, whose list is the poorer in this regard, for living so far inland. First stop today was Boat Harbour, Kurnell. Despite getting there shortly after high tide - a good time - it's fair to say I've had better days this summer. Little Terns were on hand, as were Ruddy Turnstones and Red-necked Stints for Julian, but there was no sign of Common Tern, Kelp Gull or Reef Egret. The Common Tern was particularly worrying. Since I first ticked it in 2006, I have missed it each odd year, and seen it each even year, and so, despite having seen them as recently as 28th of December (at Stockton), it seems that this year is already on track to continue that trend.

From here, after seeing Swamp Harrier in the car park, a first for me at the site, we headed on to my spot at Quibray Bay, where the tide had receded enough for the Whimbrels and Eastern Curlews to come out to feed. The Red-capped Plovers were here, as well as a group of Red-necked Stints, which I haven't seen here before. Sadly, of the Emuwrens that seemed resident here in 2009 and 2010, there was no sign, and I think they may no longer live here. A Pied Oystercatcher was a good find, especially given the pair that live at Metromix Wetlands, round the corner, were not there, for the second successive visit after I made that fateful "dead cert" call to Josh in December. We wrapped it up after that site (which gave good views of at least three Brown Honeyeaters), with a good range of birds for the day, and my year list pushed up to 110, in just eight days. I have only once previously reached 100 in January, and that was way back in 2007, when I managed only 177 in the year (in fairness, my life list was a meagre 238 by year's end).

Julian is also involved in bird banding, out at a site near West Wyalong, and he's invited me along to a weekend out there over Australia Day, so I have something awesome to look forward to! It should also give me a serious year list boost to round out January.

Til next time!