Oz birding east & SE of Melbourne (1 Viewer)

I am going to a concert in Melbourne on Friday night (Percy Grainger, Grieg Piano Concerto, Beethoven's 5th - all good stuff). Seeing as I'll wind up that far to the east already (I'm Ballarat-based), I plan on driving for an hour or so to somewhere near or just past the edge of Melbourne, hitting a motel for the night, and making a pre-dawn start on some birding on the west or south-west of Melbourne.

When the light gives out - at this time of year it gets too dark for decent digisoping at about 3PM most days - I'll carry on eastwards to stay with my brother & his wife at Inverloch, on the coast a little past Wonthagi. Sunday I can combine birding, visiting, and travelling slowly homewards.

The big question is - where do I go on the Saturday morning?

French Island is probably out, as by the time I get there and the ferries start running, the day will be half over.

The Mornington Peninsula National Park is probably out, as it's a long way to get there and an even longer way all around the circumference of Westernport to get to Inverloch at the end of the day. In any case, I can get to the Mornington Peninsula more convienently some other weekend by driving to Geelong and taking the car ferry from Queenscliff to Portsea - much shorter for me, as Geelong is practically spitting distance from home.

Phillip Island? Take me ages to get there on Saturday morning, but a possibility.

I figure there must be some good spots in the area bounded (roughly) by Hastings, Koo-Wee-Rup, and Emerald. What about the north shore of Westernport?

I'm not looking for anything in particular, but it would be nice to see species that I don't see on my normal beat: Ballarat-district woodlands & farmlands, and the south-west coast. Open or semi-open country preffered: thick forest makes for very difficult photography.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Tannin,
Try this website - http://www.eurobirding.com/
There are 80+ reports for Australia. I'm sure somewhere there will be some reference to the Melbourne area.

Have fun. We still haven't had a trip to Oz yet!

Percy Grainger will be turning in his grave to hear that he's on the same programme as Beethoven! He hated Beethoven's music (I can't conceive how that's possible myself)!

Can't help you out but I wish I had a weekend's birding and music in Victoria ahead of me!

Dear Edward,

Couldn’t agree more.

Last year Mrs. Boreham-Styffe and I traveled up the West coast of Norway to the Lofoten islands, Beethoven country, Across Lapland, Mozart country, to the Gulf of Bothnia, Hayden country.

Now when I have my night cap and listen to any of the above, it is a transport of delight to such happy memories.

Percy Grainger indeed.

Yours etc:
Gordon Boreham-Styffe.

Well, at least they are in that order: Grainger has the safety of a Grieg concerto and an interval to protect him from the dreaded da-da-da-DA! Interesting, I didn't know that anyone hated Beethoven. Certainly not the 5th, which although I have seen and heard it many times before, never fails to please. In the old Melbourne Town Hall too, rather than the vast and overblown Melbourne Concert Hall which despite its lushness is simply too big to be really suited to anything short of very loud, large-orchestra works like the 5th. A Shostakovich (or Beethoven) symphony is fine at the Concert Hall, but anything more on the gentle side - a Mozart concerto, say, or chamber music - is lost in the big hall. An odd irony, isn't it, that the cleverly-shaped place that was designed for playing fine music is mediochre, while the plain, rectangular Melbourne Town Hall, which was not designed for music, never fails to produce a good, lively sound.

Err .... I seem to be off-topic.

Helen, thanks for the link. I have gleaned something from it (not least a desire to see several of the interstate places mentioned! and ASAP) and at this stage am inclined to just make it a pot-luck day - after all, many of the best birds are found in surprisingly small habitats. I took some nice Crested Pigeon pictures the other day on a suburban golf course in North-east South Australia, for example.

Also chucked over the incongruity of this modern electronic world: here I am, a man in central Victoria, finding a bird in eastern Victoria, with the help of a web site in Europe, suggested to me by a woman in Texas. Throw in my Japanese camera, Spanish-made car, Austrian scope, Italian tripod .... and I haven't even mentioned Edward in Iceland yet!

Dear Tannin,

Music can evoke as much passion as bird watching if not more.

Enjoy your trip and post a report please.
One of the pleasures of this global net business is printing off a report ad reading it in conjunction with the atlas.

I enjoyed your letter. Thank you.
Kind Regards.
G B-S.

Off-topic, Tannin? Beethoven's always relevant! And never mind the Da-da-dah, what about when the third movement slowly drifts off, lets you relax and then the fourth movement suddenly blasts you out of your seat. Sounds like that concert hall would also be perfect for Bruckner and Mahler. Well, Grainger was a neurotic, extreme right-wing mummy's boy so disliking Beethoven was just one of his peculiarities. He even left Australia to live in England - now that is certifiably insane behaviour!

Look forward to seeing your Crested Pigeon shots. Pigeons are not a group of birds which really thrill me generally but you have some good ones in Oz. The Wompoo Fruit-dove (and it's "bollocks-are-blue" song as paraphrased by Pizzey) must be spectacular.

E

Hi Tannin, I dunno how far away you want to get, but there are a number of good spots out along the Princes Hwy, towards Morwell and Traralgon (which is about 2 hrs drive from Melbourne's CBD). The Drouin Sewage Ponds can be good for wetland birds, and about 40km down the road, is Mt Worth State Park. You get to this either through Darnum or better yet, through Yarragon (which has a couple of good places to get a coffee and a bite to eat). It is a largish patch of Mountain Ash rainforest/wet sclerophyll and at this time of year has robins, pilotbird, lyrebird, satin bowerbird and general wet forest species. About 80km further than that is Tarra-Bulga NP, which is the same sort of thing, only bigger.

If you get as far as Trafalgar, check out the Uralla Nature Reserve. It is more dry-side mountain forest, and I have seen Red-browed Treecreeper in there before. When in Trafalgar, turn right off the Highway, and head towards Mirboo North. About 1/2km through the town, there is a sign pointing to the tip. Uralla Nature reserve is opposite the tip, and is normally a very good birdwatching spot for general birds in that area.

When you are at Inverloch, there are several excellent birdwatching spots. Wonthaggi Heathlands (behind the tip - again!) can be fantastic. Southern emu-wrens, Striated Fieldwren, Painted Button-Quail and Brush Bronzewing can all be found in the heath - I usually come back with 50-60spp. from an hour there.

Bald Hills Wetland Reserve is about 30km the other side of Inverloch, just past Tarwin Lower. It is a mixture of near-coastal woodland and lakes, and there is a wide variety of birdlife along the walk into the birdhide. On your way between Tarwin Lower and Inverloch, there is Maher's Landing, a boat ramp which is surrounded by mudflats. It is a good place for over-wintering waders, including Red-necked Stint and Double-banded Plover.

A little bit closer to Melbourne (along the Sth Gippsland Hwy) is the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens, which has a wide variety of birdlife. If you have the time, Phillip Island is also very good. The Seal Rocks boardwalk is good for seeing Kelp Gull and terns, and overwintering Cape Barren Geese can often be seen.

Good luck, and enjoy the concert!

If you want more open areas, there is a good roadside stop on the old Princes Hwy, just past Gumbuya Park; nothing too special, but can be good. The shores of Lake Narracan (to the north of Moe - don't go to the town of Narracan, it's 20km to the south), especially around the boat ramp on the south shore, can also be good. If you do get lost and go to the town of Narracan, there is a 3.5km walk along the creek called the Narracan Way, which has a mixture of paddocks, open woodland and riparian forest. At this time of year Flame Robins are a distinct possibility, about 3km up it. The start of the walk actually goes through my parents' bottom paddock. It starts next to the bridge, on the opposite side to the church.

Even closer in? Olinda State Forest in the Dandenongs can be good, but may still be recovering from bushfires a couple of years ago. I have been told that Bunyip State Forest is good. If you get as far as Morwell, check out the Morwell Swamp, which is being rehabilitated by Hazelwood Power. It is a bit early for the Black-winged Stilts and waders to turn up, but it has a good diversity of birdlife, and Golden-headed Cisticolas often give good views near the turnout on the Morwell-Mirboo North road.

Hope this helps.

Wow! Thanks Mike! There is more information in your post than I can digest in my pre-work morning hurry, but I'll print that out and use it to plan my trip tonight. I doubt that I'll get to more than about 3 or 4 of the spots you mention in a single weekend, but that's fine - I can always make the other spots reasons to visit my brother again another time - I don't see him nearly often enough anyway, and his wife is a fantastic cook.

Tony

Hi Tannin,

Pity you can not get to French Island as it is (well it was when I had the luck to spent a week there way back in 1976) so lush and green.

Hope the birding is as varied as the music appears will be!

csider

And thank you Tony, I hadn't realised there was a performance of Beethoven's fifth on tomorrow. I may well go to it, if I can get a ticket. Enjoy your weekend.

Thanks, Csider. I'll leave French Island for another time, when I can take a few days there and not have to rush back to work.

Town Hall concerts are always great, I think, Mike. But they can be booked out very easily, I'd be a little surprised if there is a seat available. But it's certainly worth a phone call.

I've read your comments over more carefully with map in hand now, and I think I'll start with the Drouin Sewage Ponds and the Mt Worth State Park.

I travelled through from south to north not too far from there a little while ago: indeed I think I probably went through the State Park on my way from Inverloch to Yarragon via the back roads before I had the scope. (But I was in my favourite navigate-by-the-sun mode, so I have no idea where I actually went.) Then all the way round the top of Melbourne via Noojee, Healsville, Kinglake, Wallan, Romsey, Woodend, Dalesford to Ballarat. It was a very long day in the car, but entirely worthwhile to see the landscapes slowly changing from the sea to South Gippslands fertile and unnaturally-green hills, to the magnificent Mountain Ash country; to watch that slowly fade and dry and become shorter and, eventually, become the abused and degraded open plains of Whittlesea before finally reaching Dalesford and home territory: dry and barren by contrast with the ranges, and with none of the grandeur, but with a subtle beauty all its own. That drive was special because it made me realise how much I have come to love this relatively barren countryside around Ballarat. Indeed, I think I could very happily live further to the north and west where it's realy dry, in the Mallee perhaps.

Later in the day, time permitting, I'll try Uralla. That should just about see the last of the good light, and I'll make a change of pace by looking at the seabirds around Inverloch on the Sunday. The key issue is going to be finding a motel that doesn't mind me checking in at 11:30 or so on Friday night. I'll get on the phone and sort that out in the morning.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I'm sure it will be a great trip.

Edward - I aready owe you my Musk Duck pictures (which I promised to post ages ago and haven't yet - largely because I decided I want to re-shoot some of them) but I'll post at least one Crested Pigeon right away. Common as you like, but pretty things just the same.

Tony

Some days iz good days, some days ain't good days. The executive summary: I went to a lot of nice places, and didn't see much at all, bar the old familiars I see here in Ballarat.

Them's the breaks. I can't complain: over the previous week or two I have had some wonderful good luck, and I was almost starting to think that I had a god-given right to be presented with great views of rare and difficult birds on a daily basis. So I'm back to earth now.

The concert ... to hell with the concert. This is the Bird Forum, right?

I stayed in Drouin, or just outside it, actually, at a place called the Robin Hood Hotel-Motel. 2 star, $50 a night, didn't pretend to be anything fancy and wasn't. But it was clean, perfectly comfortable, and the publican was easy-going, friendly, and happy to help with directions and advice.

First stop was the Sewage Farm at around 8:00AM. Not a bad start, considering I didn't ge to the motel till just after midnight. If you are after ducks, you will find plenty there. I didn't spot anything special, but there was certainly a lot of the usual crowd: several hundred Common Coot, and an equal number of the very beautiful Pink-eared Duck, a massive great raft of them out in the middle of the south-east pond, just dozing away for the most part.

It was still cold, almost frosty, and the sun was low in the sky with not a breath of wind. Photography was a little difficult as I had to walk past the birds (disturbing them) to get to a position where I could take pictures without looking into the sun. (Another time, now that I know how to get there, I'd come from the other direction.) The light, however, was fantastic. Not far off 1000th of a second through the scope at that time of the morning!

I felt very confident that these shots would come out as crisp and clear as you could possibly want, and I spent quite a while playing with camera angles and reflections and ripples and arty stuff.

Alas, in my befuddled early-morning state, I'd left the camera set to ASA 200, so they all came out grainy. (I thought I was getting wonderful fast shutter speeds!) When I realised, I decided not to trouble going back and shooting again.

Here is the scene: