There are always interesting birds in the car park where we launched the kayaks. This Mangrove Honeyeater was sitting in a tree with its feathers fluffed up, but let me get a photo showing its blue eye.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Shorebird Count - Again.
On Sunday I kayaked around to the Mullens Creek shorebird roost with Kelvin and Amelia and did a count of the birds. It was a very high tide and we found an increase in bird numbers from the lower tides that we have been counting recently. This is a much larger roost site and there are always more birds here than on the Crab Creek Site. We counted about 2,300 birds (I don't have final count numbers yet). Most were Bar-tailed Godwit and Eastern Curlew. The Eastern Curlew flew right after we had counted them but then re-settled on the other side of the bay and we checked our numbers there again. 
There are always interesting birds in the car park where we launched the kayaks. This Mangrove Honeyeater was sitting in a tree with its feathers fluffed up, but let me get a photo showing its blue eye.
There are always interesting birds in the car park where we launched the kayaks. This Mangrove Honeyeater was sitting in a tree with its feathers fluffed up, but let me get a photo showing its blue eye.
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Hi Gouldiae, somehow your comment got lost! Sorry. It was a very satisfactory count indeed. Nice to know that the two major sites we regularly count still have lots of birds on them.
ReplyDeleteGouldiae was probably jealous Mick, all those birds. All being well I'm taking him out after waders on Friday, wish us luck.
ReplyDeleteHi Duncan, I do hope you see lots of waders. You two can always plan a trip up here and see what problems are caused when counting large numbers of waders!
ReplyDeleteI think I should add to my last comment. It is ALWAYS great to see large numbers of waders as you know that this means they have successfully survived another mammoth journey. However, when they are clustered thickly along the shoreline there are problems. How close can you get to accurately count them without disturbing them? Then if they do fly off - did something I do disturb them or is there a raptor around? Do you then start a new count or make a guess as to the percentage of the flock remaining? An accurate count is necessary but it really is more fun to just observe and photograph!
ReplyDeleteQuite a contrast between our surveys, Mick. I've seen just two Little Bitterns in two months. You get 2300 waders in a morn.
ReplyDeleteHi Tony, I don't think I have seen Little Bittern at all down here. Maybe the habitat is different or maybe I haven't looked in the right places.
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