MKinHK
Mike Kilburn
Monday 18th April
A red-eye flight arriving in the early morning before a three-day conference in Gold Coast in Australia allowed the rare luxury of a near full-day’s birding before the event kicked off in the late afternoon. The upside of arriving at 0600 is that prime birding time was on offer. The downside was the fear of falling asleep at the wheel – a problem I solved by asking long-established local guide Barry Davies of Gondwana Guides to guide me for the day and drop me at the hotel in Surfer’s Paradise.
Even before meeting Barry a Black-winged Kite drifted over the terminal building as the aircraft taxied to the gate and a couple Magpie Larks flopped by with their rather laboured round-winged flight.
The first half of the day we spent on four small wetland sites around the Port of Brisbane. The first of these was an open site that contained a couple of stands of mangroves, some shallow open water and some meadows held a pair of White-breasted Wood Swallows, a briefly-seen Striped Honeyeater, Spangled Drongo (which should never have been lumped with Hair-crested Drongo!), Masked Lapwing, a few Grey Teals, a Black-winged Stilt and the terrific spectacle of a pair of Galahs flashing pink and grey in the early sunshine as they harassed an Australian Hobby that kept trying to land in stand of dead trees. Noisy and Little Friarbirds were migrating overhead in small groups, Welcome Swallows zipped around and the first of several Crested Pigeons, Pied Butcherbirds, Rainbow Lorikeets, Australian Magpies and Torresian Crows made an appearance. Other waterbirds included Great, Intermediate and Cattle Egrets, Australian White Ibis, and a distant Australian Purple Swamphen, the latter very different from the grey-headed birds that occur in southeast China.
Our second site – a deeper lily-covered pool surrounded by melaleuca trees – was the highlight of the day for me. Immediately on arrival a Collared Kingfisher was perched very close to the road, but the glory of the site was the waterbirds, starting with a dead tree that had keeled over held a couple of Australasian Darters, three Royal Spoonbills, Australian White Ibis, Pied, Little Pied and Little Black Cormorants. One tree!
Wandering Whistling Ducks, Australian Coot and Dusky Moorhens lurked among the lilies and my first Comb-crested Jacanas strolled across the surface – including four ginger-capped youngsters. If that were not enough a couple of Australian Reed Warblers lurked in the nearest reeds, my first ever Pacific Baza flapped slowly over and the first of some 200 Magpie Geese dropped onto the lake in groups of 20 or 30. Walking a little further in we stared to pick up a fine range of passerines which started with dowdy but noisy Brown Honeyeaters, half a dozen Crimson Honeyeaters, including some spectacular males, a well-seen Striated Pardalote, Mistletoebirds, two Plum-headed Finches that perched very briefly before zipping off at high speed. A Black-faced Cuckooshrike – much bigger and more striking than the Black-winged Cuckooshrikes I’m used to from Hong Kong – perched nicely shortly after a wonderfully deep blue Forest Kingfisher stayed exactly not long enough for a photo.
We also made more inroads into the honeyeaters, picking up Lewin’s and White-throated Honeyeaters, and a demure grey and brown female Rose Robin picking its way among the branches along a ditch. A power line runs through the reserve on pylons. Beneath this is a strip with waist-high grass on either side of a central path. This was excellent for grassland birds, including a few Superb and Red-backed Fairy Wrens, all sadly in non-breeding plumage, Chestnut-breasted Manakins and a Rufous Grassbird that shot across the path, barely showing more than enough to get the vaguest impression of size and colour. It popped up for Barry and minute or so later and he was able to confirm my first impression. I also had a couple of finches with white rumps flying away out of the grass but got nothing more on them. Looking down the power lines we had a couple of White-breasted Wood Swallows, and half-a-dozen Blue-faced Honey-eaters, that were much larger than the others with an attractive pied head and big blue facial patch. Barry also pointed out a big nest of sticks on a telegraph pole just as an Osprey arrived back at the nest, and a small patch of bare mud held a pair of Black-fronted Dotterels.
A red-eye flight arriving in the early morning before a three-day conference in Gold Coast in Australia allowed the rare luxury of a near full-day’s birding before the event kicked off in the late afternoon. The upside of arriving at 0600 is that prime birding time was on offer. The downside was the fear of falling asleep at the wheel – a problem I solved by asking long-established local guide Barry Davies of Gondwana Guides to guide me for the day and drop me at the hotel in Surfer’s Paradise.
Even before meeting Barry a Black-winged Kite drifted over the terminal building as the aircraft taxied to the gate and a couple Magpie Larks flopped by with their rather laboured round-winged flight.
The first half of the day we spent on four small wetland sites around the Port of Brisbane. The first of these was an open site that contained a couple of stands of mangroves, some shallow open water and some meadows held a pair of White-breasted Wood Swallows, a briefly-seen Striped Honeyeater, Spangled Drongo (which should never have been lumped with Hair-crested Drongo!), Masked Lapwing, a few Grey Teals, a Black-winged Stilt and the terrific spectacle of a pair of Galahs flashing pink and grey in the early sunshine as they harassed an Australian Hobby that kept trying to land in stand of dead trees. Noisy and Little Friarbirds were migrating overhead in small groups, Welcome Swallows zipped around and the first of several Crested Pigeons, Pied Butcherbirds, Rainbow Lorikeets, Australian Magpies and Torresian Crows made an appearance. Other waterbirds included Great, Intermediate and Cattle Egrets, Australian White Ibis, and a distant Australian Purple Swamphen, the latter very different from the grey-headed birds that occur in southeast China.
Our second site – a deeper lily-covered pool surrounded by melaleuca trees – was the highlight of the day for me. Immediately on arrival a Collared Kingfisher was perched very close to the road, but the glory of the site was the waterbirds, starting with a dead tree that had keeled over held a couple of Australasian Darters, three Royal Spoonbills, Australian White Ibis, Pied, Little Pied and Little Black Cormorants. One tree!
Wandering Whistling Ducks, Australian Coot and Dusky Moorhens lurked among the lilies and my first Comb-crested Jacanas strolled across the surface – including four ginger-capped youngsters. If that were not enough a couple of Australian Reed Warblers lurked in the nearest reeds, my first ever Pacific Baza flapped slowly over and the first of some 200 Magpie Geese dropped onto the lake in groups of 20 or 30. Walking a little further in we stared to pick up a fine range of passerines which started with dowdy but noisy Brown Honeyeaters, half a dozen Crimson Honeyeaters, including some spectacular males, a well-seen Striated Pardalote, Mistletoebirds, two Plum-headed Finches that perched very briefly before zipping off at high speed. A Black-faced Cuckooshrike – much bigger and more striking than the Black-winged Cuckooshrikes I’m used to from Hong Kong – perched nicely shortly after a wonderfully deep blue Forest Kingfisher stayed exactly not long enough for a photo.
We also made more inroads into the honeyeaters, picking up Lewin’s and White-throated Honeyeaters, and a demure grey and brown female Rose Robin picking its way among the branches along a ditch. A power line runs through the reserve on pylons. Beneath this is a strip with waist-high grass on either side of a central path. This was excellent for grassland birds, including a few Superb and Red-backed Fairy Wrens, all sadly in non-breeding plumage, Chestnut-breasted Manakins and a Rufous Grassbird that shot across the path, barely showing more than enough to get the vaguest impression of size and colour. It popped up for Barry and minute or so later and he was able to confirm my first impression. I also had a couple of finches with white rumps flying away out of the grass but got nothing more on them. Looking down the power lines we had a couple of White-breasted Wood Swallows, and half-a-dozen Blue-faced Honey-eaters, that were much larger than the others with an attractive pied head and big blue facial patch. Barry also pointed out a big nest of sticks on a telegraph pole just as an Osprey arrived back at the nest, and a small patch of bare mud held a pair of Black-fronted Dotterels.
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