Jade Craven

Tawny Frogmouth near Balyang

November 28, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

In my last post, I wrote about how tawny frogmouths are evil and intentionally hide from me. I know that they don’t but this was the second time that they have eluded me.

Glenn was going to go down by himself to get photos but I offered to go with him. He doesn’t have my prowess for finding birds. We had explored the region for about 5 minutes before he left for Balyang. He asked me to get him if I found the birds.

Guess what I saw about 2 minutes later? I could still see Glenn and tried shouting to him. He didn’t hear. So, I tried to get a photo.

Alas, this isn’t my photo. After about 10 minutes of stuffing around, I realized that I’d lost my memory card. One of the ones that Glenn had lent me was faulty. The other was full. I was livid. It didn’t matter though, as Glenn had the better lens.

After exploring Balyang and the Barwon river, he eventually! went to the other side of the river in search of the bird.

Apparently it isn’t nice to mock your partner for being a crappy birder. Especially if he is colour blind and can’t distinguish between certain colours! That shut me up rather quickly.

We were just off the path and there was a lot of stuff in the way blocking the view. I was struggling really hard to get a focus. I ended up getting a clear view and immediately switched it to manual focus so it wouldn’t change.

That ended up working really well for us. I didn’t tell Glenn, so we accidentally left it on manual for the rest of the time we were there. It worked out well though.

He ended up going down the bank somewhat, sliding down a hill, to get better shots. I disagree with stuff like this because I get concerned it will bother the birds. Glenn said the frogmouth didn’t care. It looked down briefly and then continued pretending to be invisible. He did get some lovely close ups of darters on their nests. That made me uncomfortable as I prefer to leave nesting birds along.

I have to admit, he got some brilliant shots at that angle.

Finally, the obligatory shot of the wood duck family.

Days like Tuesday make me fall in love with birding all over again. Glenn was amazed at how well camouflaged the bird is – despite having seen it twice in captivity before! I love owls.

2015 Birding Goals

November 16, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

An acquantaince on a bird photography Facebook group recently posted that he had seen over 730 birds. Wow! I posted that I was happy I had reached over 100.

And, I am. My nephew may have seen 71 species compared to my current 112 but I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’m broke, agoraphobic, often severely depressed. I have very few connections. Keeping up my birdwatching hobby over the past year has been extremely difficult for me.

I’m hoping to change that somewhat in 2015. I want to get it up to 250 birds and know that realistically I can do that. I’d love to get it higher and know that it is feasible – especially if I increase my income. I just know that there are no guarantees when it comes to birding.

This is the list of birds that I’m going to try to target by the end of next year. I know I’ll see some before the end of this year. I also know that circumstances will change and I’ll probably get to go birding with others at some point. Regardless, I just want to have some kind of plan.

Target species

Crested Shrike Tit: Often found around the area I live in. Would like to find before I move suburbs
Tawny Frogmouth: One of the more common owls. Just need to find a reliable location close to public transport
Rufous Bristlebird: Aireys Inlet
Rainbow bee eater
Banded Stit
Swift Parrot
Southern emu wren
bell miner (Melbourne botanical gardens)
Eastern Spinebill (Melbourne botanical gardens)
Shy albatross
Southern Giant Petrel
Southern Boobook
Painted button Quail (point addis)
Ballians Crake
Spotted Crake
Cape Gannet
Kelp Gull
Crescent honeyeater
Lewins honeyeater (dandenongs)
Superb lyrebird
Brown headed honeyeater (Pt Addis)
striped honeyeater
tawny crowned honeyeater (pt Addis)
White eareed honeyeater (Pt Addis)
White naped honeyeater (Pt Addis)
Arctic Jaeger (Pt Lonsdale)
Little Lorikeet
Purple crowded lorikeet
Mistletoe bird
Red capped plover
Fairy Prion (Point Lonsdale)
Flame Robin
Pink Robin
Rose Robin
Caspian Tern
Fairy Tern
Little Tern
Bassian Thrush
Song Thrush
White winged triller
Eurasian Tree sparrow (Melbourne zoo)

That brings the numbers up to a paltry 150ish, but it gives me several ideas for ‘easy’ birding trips I can make. I assume I’ll make some other sightings in the key areas. I’ll explore some of the gardens close to Melbourne, especially if they are close to a rail trail. I’ll go to Point Lonsdale, Point Addis and probably a trip to the Dandenongs.

My focus next year will be work and a return to hiking. I really don’t know what I will accomplish birding – but having a plan makes it heaps easier.

Gannets at Eastern Beach

November 10, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Last Wednesday, Glenn and I were at Eastern Beach. We were a bit cranky. We hadn’t seen anything of interest at Balyang the night before and the only birds we could really find at the botanical gardens were wattlebirds. Ironically, right now he is meant to be AT Balyang but he is distracting the backstory of photographer Vivian Maier.

Anyway. I wanted to take him to the place where I saw Pacific Gulls last time. He was feeling exhausted so we didn’t make it that far. We did see FOUR gannets soaring over Eastern Beach.

We had trouble getting clear photos, as Glenn didn’t want to get the tripod out. We did get some solid shots. I’m hoping to go out on a boat at the end of the month to get close up shots of a gannet colony.

Also, I highly recommend you check out this photo series: The Underwater World of Gannets

Birding at Lake Colac

November 2, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday I was lucky enough to visit Lake Colac with my nephew. We were in the area to go to the Colac Show. Sethy and I hadn’t hung out properly in ages and seriously, who wouldn’t want to be in a situation where you can share a dodgem car with a six year old?

The other reason I wanted to go up was to practice my fireworks photography. The night before, though, it hit me. Isn’t Lake Colac in Colac? (shut up.) Are there any birds there? None of the books I have really talk about colac as a birdwatching region. I didn’t think we’d get a chance to go but it’s always helpful to know what is local. Sethy was looking over my shoulder as I was researching. “Look at all those pelicans!” At that point, I really wanted to see if we could get there.

Only issue? I didn’t know where it was

We had just left the show and I saw a sign pointing to the botanical gardens. I asked if we could have a quick look, and we got dropped off while my parents did some shopping. It was a fantastic opportunity that didn’t take them out of their way too much.

We weren’t even at the bird sanctuary. We were near it though and Seth started running along a wooden pier/jetty. He saw this little guy and was so excited!

A month early, we had gone to Avalon Beach to do some beachcombing. I didn’t have a camera with me but I had read their were red necked avocets in the area. I showed Seth a picture of them in the bird book and he was really interested, he loved the upturned beak.

I wasn’t expecting to see them yesterday and was so excited when we did. Seth LOVED it.

I loved how they looked for food. They moved their beak side to side until they found something. I love how Seth gets to see stuff like this.

We also go to see Black winged stilts, something that Seth enjoys seeing. Haven’t seen them at Belmont Common yet. We also saw a whiskered tern. “That’s two new birds I’ve seen!” He said. We actually put a dot in ~~my old~~ his field guide, so he count all the birds he’s seen. I only saw my first whiskered tern a couple of weeks ago along the Barwon River.

Startled Coots

We were looking at the pelicans when something spooked the eurasion coots. I love seeing larger then normal populations of birds moving together. I so badly wanted to go to Broome Bird Observatory. Imagine the photos we can get!

Sandpipers

Had another unexpected lifer with these sharp tailed sandpipers. I had to use a facebook group to help ID them. I was able to narrow them down to sandpipers, which is pretty good for me! I was confused as to whether some could be pectoral based on the bill colour but others said it was unlikely. And used a bunch of terminology I’m not yet able to understand. So. Much. To. Learn!

Sometimes I worry that I’m pushing my hobby onto Seth. That he may be pretending to be interested because he’s my little mate. (I have anxiety, I’m always worried.) Days like yesterday confirm his genuine interest. He has a strong focus on birds, like I do, mostly because they are so available. His other fascinations – marsupials, insects, reptiles – are harder to indulge in when you live in suburbia. We do get to see something interesting animals occasionally.

He also loves volcanos and dinosaurs so we also talk about that when birding. We talked about volcanoes when we visited the You Yangs. He’s a kid that loves learning and I share the same personality trait – to the point where I have books that answer his questions.

Glenn is also starting to share my fascination. It’s nice to have people that understand my weirdness 🙂

Belmont Common: Cygnets are grown up

October 29, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I was always planning to go to Belmont Common today. However, when mum phoned up asking if I wanted to go to the pet shop, I saw the opportunity for a lift there. I had forgotten what life is like with my 6 year old nephew. No amounts of promises that he’ll behave will stop him from acting up sometimes. Intentionally.

Despite his best efforts to scare everything away, I was able to make the observations that I wanted to.

There are plenty of babies around. I saw this butcherbird chick.

I could hear multiple honeyeater fledglings. I saw a mudlark next that a friend had recently photographed. As they predicted, another bird species was stealing nest materials rather then using the now abandoned nest.

There was a lot of activity in the area near the golf course. A LOT of swamphens. One heron and an ibis. Of course, someone ‘accidentally’ scared them away.

I saw this magpie that looked a little worse for wear. Will research it later. Is it ill or just had a dirt bath?

One of the main reasons I wanted to go there was to suss out whether the cygnets where still there. They were, and they were mostly grown up. I wonder what happens when they grow up – when do they decide to leave? Do they stick together as a family? Where do swans hang out – and how do they know to hang out in a certain space?

Dad said it was possible they’d go to Swan Bay 😉

I also believe I saw a number of Latham Snipes. I think that’s what they were. Someone was running up and down the hill at the back and flushed several before I could try to get a photo. I’d estimate there was at least 6.

I know that the tone of this post is somewhat depressive – one of the challenges of living a normal life while suffering from a mental illness. I think it’s important to keep up the observations regardless of my mood as I can forget key details over time.