Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Noosa River Birding - January

Yesterday I spent another perfect day out on the Noosa river helping with a survey of the birds on the sandbanks. The Noosa area was full of holiday makers! Noosa is still building and major construction is clearly visible from the river.
The best bird sighting for the day would have to be a third Beach Stone-curlew on one of the sand islands in the middle of the river. The most spectacular bird sight was definitely the thousands of terns. On the early very high tide they could only find a roost on the sandbank at the northern side of the river. Even there the waves were breaking over the sand and running over to the other side. On the low tide there were plenty of banks available and by 5 o'clock we counted over 4 thousand terns on one bank and they were flying in constantly. One member of the group counted 300 arriving in 5 minutes. Later in the evening even larger flocks came in around dark.
Migratory terns made up the largest numbers. There were numbers of Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), White-winged Black Terns (Chlidonias leucoptera), Little Terns (Sterna albifrons), Crested Terns (Sterna bergii), and a few Caspian Terns (Hydropogne caspia). It is always interesting to see different terns standing beside each other.
I have put in the names of the terns on the next two photos.
The terns in this photo were all just lifting off to fly and by chance I photographed this larger Crested Tern with the smaller Little Tern in front of its wings. Quite a size difference!

14 comments:

  1. Hi Snail, just lost some comments and yours among them. Sorry!

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  2. G'day Mick,
    Thank goodness for people like yourself and places like 'Sandy Straits'. We get excited over 50 terns down here. 4 thousand on one sand bank, Beach Stone Curlew, wow!

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  3. Thanks Gouldiae, but I am very new at the tern counting - I am learning from those in the group who have been doing it for years. Its their experience which makes the survey so interesting for me!

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  4. That last photo is a ripper Mick. We see the WWBT down here occasionally, one late Autumn we watched one in full breeding plumage at a local saline lake.

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  5. Thanks Duncan and its very interesting that the WWB Terns get down as far as your way. Their breeding plumage is certainly spectacular.

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  6. I like that last picture too. It's wonderful when differing species group together.

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  7. Thanks NM. The different terns always seem to roost together.

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  8. Good work! Scarcely a tern to be seen anywhere up this way in recent weeks.

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  9. Hi Mick
    A great day of birding, obviously.
    Your photos are coming up really well now. Lovely image of the two terns in flight on top of eachother.
    .
    Duncan is right. You are blessed with so many terns and other shore birds and waders.
    Cheers
    Denis

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  10. Thanks Tony and Denis. The terns come and go - and it appears to be connected to the presence or absence of large schools of bait fish - but unfortunately no-one keeps track of them so its guesswork where the terns will go next!

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  11. Hey, Mick. I've been away from blogging for over a week and glad to be back. What a fun bird count day. I love the dramatic size contrast in that last photo.

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  12. Thanks Vickie, I always enjoy the counts down on the Noosa River

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  13. Just been catching up on your blog. As always some fantasics birds. Enjoyed your Memorable Moments of 2008 and the frilled necked lizard and I see you even posted a butterfly. Great stuff!

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  14. Hi Mosura, glad to see you are around again and I'll be looking for your next post!

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