Australia

Beach Thick-knee

I have been in Australia for almost two weeks now, visiting my brother in Sydney. I have also tried to get in as much birding as possible with a trip up to Cairns and the surrounding areas. The time of year wasn't the best but have been happy so far, getting great views of most of my target birds. Lots of waders on the mud right below the promenade were a nice surprise. This thick-knee was one of two on Wonga beach, a reliable site for them, but a long walk in hot weather!

Bush thick-knees

These thick-knees were a little more co-operative, 2 of 3 that spent the days under a tree in a quiter area of the centenary lakes in Cairns.

 Noisy Pitta

I was delighted to finally find my first pitta in cairns, on the blue arrow trail overlooking the city. The hike wasn't the toughest, but the 'viewpoint' was very disappointing, completely enclosed by tall trees blocking the view of Cairns below! Fortunately I had already seen what I went for, this was one of 2 seen really well on the trail.

Sacred Kingfisher

 Sacred Kingfishers were quite common, this was one of a pair in the Centenary lakes park in Cairns. I think I saw all the kingfishers in Queensland at this time of year, and was lucky to get great views of them all.

Sooty tern

I went on one of the tourist boats to the reef, stopping off at a sea bird colony off-shore. I was really hoping for bridled terns, but despite searching I had to settle for a few thousand sooty's, noddy's, booby's and a couple of lesser frigatebirds. Had great close and pro-longed views of 3 green turtles, shame I don't have an under water camera!

Australian Bustard

I had some gen on where to find the bustards from staying in the Kingfisher lodge near Cairns, driving a few dirt roads eventually led to my first, followed quickly after by several more. The bird above was one of a pair that refused to move off the road!

Salt-water Croc

I had been hoping to find my own croc by searching from lay-by's over looking rivers but had no luck, eventually I gave in and travelled on a tourist boat from Daintree. I had told them I hoped to see birds and after a quite first trip, I was offered a free trip on the next one where we got great views of this 4 1/2 metre croc plus little and azure kingfishers, Brahimy kite and a few other great birds. 

Great knot

Upto 75 great knot were on the sea front in Cairns at high tide everyday. Most were in winter plumage, but a  few showed some advanced summer plumage. On my final evening I picked up a red knot with the naked eye, delighted at how obvious the bird was, will hopefully be as easy when I find a great knot in Ireland someday! With the knot, there was good numbers of bar-tailed godwits, grey tailed tattlers, red-capped plovers, black-fronted dotterels, lesser sandplovers, whimbrel, 2 terek sandpipers and a sharp-tailed sand. It must be a fantastic location in winter when there are huge numbers wintering here.

pratincoles and sharp-tails

Sharp-tailed sandpipers were very common through out my stay and I spent a lot of time sketching these birds. 

Oriental pratincoles arrived during my last few days. After sitting back and watching them from a distance at first, I was amazed how close I could get. The birds even flew in and landed beside me several times allowing some detailed studies.

Red-necked Phalaropes

 Towards the end of my stay I found 5 red-necked phalaropes on a small fish pond behind the mudflats. The are one of my favourite families and I spent a lot of time sketching and photographing them.

 The flock were made up of 2 males and 3 females in various stages of moult. Above are the 2 males, below females.

 Its often hard to comprehend the size of these birds sometimes, seeing them feeding amongst little grebes was a great reminder of how small they really are!

Asiatic Dowitcher

I found this summer bird on the 16 of May on the fish ponds and it remained until the next day. Unfortunately it showed up the morning after my friend left, and both days the weather was awful. I was able to get very close and settle down for some sketching. The constant drizzle made painting a little messy and I was never happy with the shape or character of my sketches.

I spent a lot of time sketching the bird but it was constantly feeding. It disappeared both days for a few hours and I couldn't find it on any of the nearby ponds, so  I assume it was asleep somewhere quite.

Spoon-billed sandpipers!

I have just had the chance to scan a few images from my trip to Rudong. The whole area was fantastic despite all the land reclamation and construction. We managed to see several spoon-bills but it was a lot tougher than I thought. Picking the birds out of a roosting flock of red-necked stints was nearly impossible, and nearly every time we did pick one up the whole flock would fly for seemingly no reason. On one of our last evenings we finally found a bird close to the road and were able to watch for a long period in relative comfort and great light. As the tide dropped we were able to follow it out onto the mud and continued to get great views.

Most of the time watching the birds were spent photographing the them as the encounters were quite brief. The drawing above was done from a short video the evening after.

I generally scanned the roosting flocks as they arrived, but after a  few pans of the scope I would settle down for some sketching. On one of these occasions, I started sketching some roosting terek sandpipers and a spoon-billed sand wandered infront of them! But as usual, the whole flock flew off shortly after.

Terek Sandpipers and spoon billed sand.

Nearly there!

 I have spent the last few weeks working on my final college projects and am almost there, just one more to go and have that in hand, I hope! I am also hoping that this time next I will be watching a spoon-billed sandpiper or two in Rudong, China. There have been a few seen there already this spring, fingers crossed they remain for another while.

 I finished off the the harrier and pipit plates for one of the final projects a while back but havn't found the time to put them up or lay them out in  a spread yet. With most of the pressure off now, I hope to get some time to work on layouts next week before I head off.  Above is Montagus harrier.

 Pallid Harrier

 Northern Harrier

 Hen Harrier

Tree and Olive-backed Pipits

Sinensis Cormorants again

I was passing Swords yesterday so decided to pop in for a while as it has been so long since I have been out in the field. Driving along the river on the north side I picked up the 1st winter sinensis feeding close to the bridge. It was difficult to follow through the trees along the road, but eventually it sat out under the flyover. 1 ruff and an adult little gull showing the start of a hood showed nicely infront of the dog kennels.

While out on a break this morning I finally pinned down an adult sinensis that had been present all winter on the canal near my house. Most times I saw it I was on the bike and it would dive, re-surfacing 30-40 metres away so I could never confirm it. Other times I saw it from the car as it sat on street lights but views were never clear enough.

Was delighted to finally be able to confirm it before it departed. It has been niggling me all winter because it has been so close to the house. The  ring-billed gull seems to have left, I last saw it on waste ground a week ago. Still no signs of spring, not a single migrant yet.