Little + Red

So my backyard is not really very birdy.  I don't have a very big yard list, but what I do have is a grevillea.  And therefore I have Wattlebirds - they love that sweet nectary goodness!

Red Wattlebird

Mmm, nectar!

The grevillea is very conveniently just outside my kitchen window so lately I've been keeping my little secondhand Canon SX50 handy in the kitchen to see what I can capture.

Apollo Bay Birding

A kinda spontaneous pre-Christmas trip meant last weekend I ended up in Apollo Bay with a non-birder. But of course I had packed my binoculars and done a little eBird research...

No, you are not getting a chip.

Not sure you can call it birding, but the first stop along the Great Ocean Road on Friday night was Anglesea for some non-fish fish and chips. The local Silver Gulls greeted us and our dinner at the foreshore park and there were also some nice Crested Terns and a few Pacific Gulls. 

Towards town

The next morning in Apollo Bay we wandered down the beach from the caravan park to check things out and saw a few birds. Nearing the mouth of Wild Dog Creek we came across the local Hooded Plovers. There were at least four that we could see. Hopefully they have a successful nesting season!

Little Bittern!

Back in October, like many Melbourne birders, I spent some time standing around a reedy pond in an industrial estate in Braeside.  And then obviously took a while to post about it...

Anyway, an Australian Little Bittern wasn't being as skulky as usual so was getting quite a few visitors. Luckily, when I went to have a look I didn't have to wait too long for the female bird to show herself and I had great views of her preening and enjoying a bit of sun before she snuck back into the reeds.  And yes! There was phonescoping!

Cruising the Prom

I happened to see a post about this Wilsons Prom Whale Cruise on Facebook. The Prom (a fave), seabirds (maybe), whales (duh) and a chance to get out on water again before doing my first pelagic soon (!!) was a winning combination.  Oh, and a discounted introductory price - bonus!

Port Welshpool jetty and our boat

We did this as a day trip from Melbourne, leaving at about 6.30am and getting to Port Welshpool with plenty of time to spare. At 10.00am we met the crew of Wildlife Coast Cruises and headed out towards Wilsons Promontory National Park aboard the Brianna Lee in calm sunny conditions. The plan was to cruise down the east coast of the Prom to hopefully meet some whales on their southerly migration.

The Looong Jetty

Osprey + Lapwings

Over winter there was an Eastern Osprey hanging out at the K Road cliffs in Werribee.  This is totally old news but I'm still catching up on some pre-blogging birding adventures.

Ospreys are pretty rare in Victoria and it seemed almost everyone had been to see this bird so at the end of July Leigh, Leila and I went to have a look too. But the bird was a no-show and the wind was insane. Also I got sick.  So yeah, not the best day out.

Sure it looks nice but you can't see the wind in this picture.

Two weeks later Leigh and I made a second attempt. It wasn't so sunny but there was much less wind and as soon as we got out of the car Leigh spotted the Osprey - hooray! It was on its usual blood-stained branch with a fish.

Eastern Osprey

Little Stint @ Stockyard Point

So the very day after I went to Stockyard Point to look for the SIPO, a Little Stint was found amongst the over-wintering waders by Scott Baker and co. Another rarity had been hiding right in front of us!

This time there was a two-week wait for tide times to align with a weekend. But again there had been continued sightings so Leigh and I were hopeful as we set off to look for it. 

An increasingly familiar walk.

We arrived at the point as the tide was rising and the first waders were coming in to roost. Soon more birders joined us scanning for the Little Stint, which was, very conveniently, in breeding plumage.

Again there were plenty of Red-Necked Stints, Curlew Sandpipers, Double-banded and Red-capped Plovers, some Red Knots, a Terek Sandpiper and then finally... a little orange bird! The Little Stint! It was running around, head-down-tail-up apparently guarding a hole in the sand and furiously chasing other birds away, popping in and out of view. It seemed a little crazy, actually.

But then the whole flock flushed, settled on another part of the beach and decided it was sleep time.

Orange needle in a grey haystack.

SIPO @ Stockyard Point

This is a quite belated post about the South-Island Pied Oystercatcher at Stockyard Point, aka 1N, aka the SIPO, aka Syd.

Basically, it was banded at Stockyard Point in August 2016, but only identified as a Pied Oystercatcher of the South Island variety when it was noticed at Broadwater Beach in NSW in January 2017. These guys are supposed to be in New Zealand - twitching commence!

South Island Pied Oystercatcher, Stockyard Point, 24 June, 2017.