Swamp Harrier, Common Sandpiper

Today, on the spur of the moment, I decided to have a crack at a couple of local birds not on my list yet. Last week, on the Broadwater trip, Andy Jensen had told me that he had a Swamp Harrier and a Common Sandpiper being seen regularly at his local patch, Kedron Brook. This, interestingly, is the same place I had the Grass Owl at the beginning of the year, but I have never been there during daylight before.

I gave Andy a call about 4pm and asked if he was interested in having a look around. He was already out in the field, having a look around on the off-chance of a Black Bittern turning up, so was quite happy to meet me at the wetland and show me where he had the birds. When I got there Andy was there, and chatting with local birder and guide Roy Sonnenberg plus his guest. They were there having a look for Lewin's Rail (apparently seen twice at the site this year so far) and of course for the famous owl. We had a quick chat and then set off across the sodden field.

Now at this point I should mention that I haven't owned gumboots (wellingtons/galoshas, etc) since I was about ten, but being out with Rob last week in the mud at the wader roost really pointed out the usefulness of this bit of birding kit. Rob said I could pick up a cheap pair from Big-W, though I ended up getting a $20 pair from Kmart. Well today they paid for themselves, as wading across that former grassland (current lake) would have ruined my expensive boots or any other shoes I chose to wear on the day. So armed with gumboots, camera and binoculars we set out. We didn't have to wait long, with a young male Swamp Harrier gliding across the back of the field, and then shortly after an adult female flushing from nearby the track we were walking down. We reached the back of the field and walked along the muddy channel at the far side. The very high tide was a little disheartening, but about 15 minutes into the search, Andy called out that he had a Common Sandpiper on the far bank. And another. Then I picked up another two. In all we had four Common Sandpipers on this small stretch of creek bank, all together. This was pretty extraordinary as they are a species I wasn't positive I would see this year, didn't even have a potential site to look, and had never seen in south-east QLD before. I'm aware they aren't as rare as I am making them out to be, and I know people who have sites they swear by that I have always failed to find birds at. All I know is it's now on my list and I'm very happy about it. And lets not forget, Common Sandpipers are one of the most charismatic of our waders, with their bobbing tails and short, erratic running. It was good to see them again, regardless of their place on my year list.

Total birds to date: 293

Double-banded Plover, Collared Kingfisher

So today I braved a tsunami to go birding. Ok, sure, that's a slightly creative take on what actually happened, but there was a tsunami alert for the coastal areas, and Rob and I were heading out to go wader watching anyway, so technically its true. The tide for the day was already planned to be massively high (by Brisbane standards anyway, around 2.6m without the "tsunami's" assistance), and the flocks of waders on the coast were huge as they sought refuge where they could above the tide mark. Rob and I managed to find a particularly good group of birds, the largest I have ever seen outside of the Port of Brisbane (which is not publicly accessible). All up there must have been well over 5000 birds. We were mainly looking for Asian Dowitcher, a very rare bird locally and one I don't really expect to get for the year. Sadly, today I was right, with nothing presenting itself. We did have a small flock of Black-tailed Godwits in amongst the thousands of Bar-tailed Godwits, and a pair of Grey Plovers were also good for the site. The stars of the show, however, were the birds in breeding plumage. By early March, many of the migratory shorebirds are ready to start migrating, and one of the first things we noticed on arrival at the site was the Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers in stunning breeding plumage. As the day progressed we saw Pacific Golden Plover and Curlew Sandpipers in partial breeding plumage, and a couple of Bar-tailed Godwits resplendent in their blood-red plumage. After spending an hour going through each bird at the site carefully, we finally admitted there probably wasn't anything rare at the site. Having made this admission, I promptly found a Double-banded Plover (#287) in non-breeding plumage, just to prove me wrong. Now these birds aren't really that rare in Brisbane, it's just that right now they are meant to all be in New Zealand. I'm not sure whether this was a very very early non-breeding arrival from NZ, or a bird that decided to stay in Aus instead of migrating home (how unlike a Kiwi!), but either way it was a big surprise to see one in February.

Moving on from the wader watching, we headed to the boardwalk at Wynnum to try for Collared Kingfisher (#288) - a bird I had missed to now. We spent a bemusing ten minutes looking around the area without hearing any, before first hearing a pair by the track on our way out, and then seeing one right at the exit before leaving. We also stopped by Fuller's Oval to see if we could luck onto something rare, but the wetland is so full there was no chance. Still, two new species for the day was most welcome, and seeing the high tide and the huge flocks of waders was great too. I didn't take my camera out to the wader roost due to the intensely muddy conditions, so photos shown are from other areas we visited.

Total species to date: 288

Photo 1: Juvenile Dollarbird, Fullers Oval
Photo 2: Brahminy Kite, Wynnum

January 17th: Broad-billed Sandpiper

Thanks to Laurie Knight I managed to get in on a Queensland Wader Study Group (QWSG) wader count at the Port of Brisbane. Brisbane generally has a pretty poor reputation among twitchers for rare shorebirds - it barely rates a mention for the most part. And in publicly accessible areas around Moreton Bay this is probably a fair assessment these days. In days gone by Brisbane had many rarities dropping in - Asian Dowitcher, Long-toed Stint, Ruff, Oriental Plover, Oriental Pratincole, the list goes on. But through development and massive overpopulation the shores of Moreton Bay have become a hub of human activity, and the major shorebird roosts have been lost. Enter Port of Brisbane. In creating extra facilities the Port Authority destroyed Lytton Roost, one of the major wader spots in the bay. Because this occurred, the Port Authority created an offset area by constructing a series of ponds at the north end of Fisherman's Island as part of a "reclamation" project. Until Sunday I had no idea how successful they had been. The site is a mecca for shorebirds and terns; I saw thousands of waders at the small fraction of the site I visited. Grey Plover - a species I had been happy to see one of the other day, were there in number (at least 30, probably more). There were nearly a thousand Bar-tailed Godwit, hundreds of Knot, Sand Plovers, thousands of Stints etc. Little Tern, an endangered species, were there in massive numbers - about a thousand, including a couple of breeding-plumaged birds. And five Broad-billed Sandpipers, a major rarity in this part of the country.

When I worked at the Broome Bird Observatory, Broad-bills were a fairly common sight. By the end of my year at Broome I was fairly comfortable picking a single Broad-bill out of a flock of thousands of stint and sandpipers. But I hadn't seen one since I left Broome in 2005, and I had been concerned that I might have lost my edge when it came to picking them up. Fortunately I needn't have worried, and within five minutes of arriving at the first counting spot I had picked out my first Broad-bill and managed to show the rest of the counters. In all I counted five birds at the site, a good haul for a Brisbane count.

The downside to this is that the Port of Brisbane wader roost is off limits to the public behind a locked gate and heavy security, so even having made this sighting public, twitchers can't just go and find the bird. The only way of getting in (other than working for the Port), is to go in with the QWSG on an official count, which they do once a month on a weekend high tide. It is not arduous work, so it is something I'd encourage all local wader watchers to sign up for. QWSG are mainly looking for regular counters so if they have enough people and you're not a regular you may be turned away. Having visited this site now, I have no problem saying its the best wader spot in southern Queensland by a long margin.

We finished the day with a quick swing by Wynnum to look for Black-tailed Godwit and Collared Kingfisher. The Godwit were present in very small number, and were quite difficult to confirm ID on in the heat haze (the day was a scorcher, clocking in around 35c). The Kingfishers, normally easy at the site, were nowhere to be found! However, with a Broad-billed Sandpiper on the year list, another major rarity for the region joined my list and made 350 species look just that bit more possible.

Total birds to date: 188

Photo 1: Port of Brisbane wader roosts
Photos 2&3: Broad-billed Sandpiper

January 10th: Grass Owl

The goal of heading out today was twofold: find as many migratory shorebird species as possible during the day, and see the Grass Owls near the Brisbane Airport that have become suddenly reliable at sunset.

We started in mid-afternoon with an overly hopeful trip to the Metroplex Wetlands to try and see Little Bittern. While this didn't pan out (unsurprising), it was a pleasant stop on the way, and we did manage to add Australian Reed Warbler to our year lists. Our next stop of the day was at Thornside, formerly one of the best wader roosts in the state, though now sadly severely depleted due to human activity. Indeed, there were people on the roost with toddlers and dogs while we were there, though we did manage to get a few species of waders. Of more interest (to me) were the Mangrove Honeyeaters, an easy species if you know where to look, but still a satisfying one to get on the list early on. I also added Mangrove Gerygone, and a juvenile Brahminy Kite.

Our next stop was at Manly. The fishermen were out in force (well, it was a Sunday), but fortunately there were no dogs around to scare off the shorebirds. And that was a good thing too, as there were several thousand around. We managed to find 19 species of shorebird at Manly, including 16 migratory shorebirds. A single Grey Plover in the main flock was definitely the highlight - an uncommon species in SEQ. We searched the waders very carefully for something really unusual, but sadly no Dowitchers or Broad-billed Sandpipers could be found. We spent a lot of time here and sadly had to skip Wynnum and head straight to the airport.

It was a good thing we did, as we got there with only half an hour to spare before "go-time" when the Grass Owls would hopefully lift off from the grass and fly around. We ran into a number of other people there with the same idea that we had, including a group from UQ at least one of which had been there the night before. As we waited the mosquitoes became gradually worse, until we all agreed they were as bad as we had seen anywhere at any time. The sun went down, and it got darker. The time the owls had come up and flown around the previous few days went past and it got so dark we could barely see anything. And then, someone called out -they had seen one take off! That bird went down into the grass again, but then someone shone their spotlight onto something overhead and there it was, a Grass Owl metres from our heads, cruising over silently. It circled us once only, and then headed off over the treeline at the far edge of the field. We beat a hasty retreat, but everyone was satisfied and we had all had great views of this elusive bird.

Total birds to date: 171

Photo 1: Mangrove Gerygone, Thornside
Photo 2: Manly Wader Roost
Photo 3: Striated Heron, Manly Wader Roost
Photo 4: Black-winged Stilt pair, Kedron Brook Wetlands

January 6th: Pectoral Sandpiper

Today Andrew Stafford and I visited the Lockyer Valley, ostensibly to see the Pectoral Sandpiper that was seen there last week, but also to get a headstart on the year of birding with some of the local specialties in that area. Our plan was to visit most of the local waterbodies, as this year has seen many places fill with water that have been dry for several years.

We began at Lake Dyer near Laidley, and were off to a cracking start with Plum-headed Finches and Red-backed Button-Quail along the edge of the dam, two very good species for the region. From Laidley we headed around the back of Gatton straight to the UQ campus, and Lake Galletly. This proved to be a great move, because we found not only the Blue-billed Ducks reported earlier in the week, but also a Little Grassbird that has been resident since last year, and a Lewin's Rail, a first for the site we are told. All three of these birds are very hard in SEQ, with Lewin's Rail being particularly difficult. Lake Galletly was also great for more common birds, such as Pink-eared Duck, Plumed Whistling-Duck and Magpie Goose, none of which are easy in Brisbane but all specialties of the Lockyer Valley.

Our next stop was Lake Apex, which was by and large quite disappointing. We added only Cattle and Intermediate Egrets to our day list, and were quite disappointed by the condition of the lakes. Similarly with Lake Clarendon, our next stop, which was surprisingly empty. With these two normally productive bodies of water being so disappointing, we moved on to Jahnke's Lagoon, the site of our Pectoral Sandpiper target. Fortunately, despite a shaky beginning we managed to pick our rare US vagrant out from the more regular Sharp-tailed Sandpipers that were in good numbers at the lagoon. We also had Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoos chasing each other through the air in front of us, and I heard a Rufous Songlark, though I didn't manage to find it despite the call coming from fairly close to us. From here we went to Seven Mile Lagoon, a wetland that has only had water since about February 2009, after being dry for about seven years. This used to be a famous local birding spot, with some great vagrant species having turned up in the area. This trip all we were able to add was a pair of Black-necked Storks, Australia's only stork and a fantastic bird to see on any day. We are investigating the land tenure situation, as Andrew assures me birders used to have access to the lagoon to walk around its edges, however an electric fence at the perimeter indicates that may no longer be the case.

On the way to our next stop, Atkinson Dam, we managed to very fortuitous sightings. The first was at a random farm dam by the road. We stopped because it looked good, and we're lucky we did, because there were a number of Hoary-headed Grebes on the water, a very rare species for the area. Then, just around the corner, we came across a family of Ground Cuckoo-Shrikes, one of the highly sought-after local specialties. Not only did we see these birds, we were able to photograph them from the car without disturbing them, and so got very close to them. Atkinson Dam itself was pretty slow, though it did have a Yellow-billed Spoonbill, a nice bird to find so early on, though not particularly unusual for the area.

Moving on from the Lockyer Valley area, we decided to head home via Mount Glorious and Lake Samsonvale. Mount Glorious is a beautiful sub-tropical rainforest habitat in the mountains north of Brisbane, and we managed to add a few rainforest specialists in a brief walk, including Green Catbird and Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove. Lake Samsonvale was also productive, with a quick walk in the grass flushing King Quail and Brown Quail (and a very large Red-bellied Black Snake!).

All up, we had a number of rare and difficult to find birds, and by the end of the day had heard and seen a whopping 149 species. My highlights for the day (and of course new for the year) were Plum-headed Finch, Red-backed Button-Quail, King Quail, Lewin's Rail and Pectoral Sandpiper.

Total birds to date: 144

Photo 1: Intermediate Egret, Lake Apex
Photo 2: Plum-headed Finch, Lake Dyer
Photo 3: Ground Cuckoo-Shrike, Lockyer Valley