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eastern rosella

Swan Bay: Viewing from a distance

August 7, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

I used to love hiking. I had to drop the hobby when my agoraphobia worsened. I couldn’t leave the house and lost my fitness. I also lost all my blog posts from around that era.

Sometime, before 2009, I walked Bellarine Rail Trail. I did it over two separate visits and both 16km walks were enough to encourage me to buy expensive hiking shoes! The majority of the walk was through farmland and was beautiful, with the occasional opportunity to photograph a black shouldered kite. I was enamoured though when I got to the Swan Bay portion of the walk.

I don’t know if it is possible to get any closer, especially as I’ve since learned that birds love this area.

The photographs are beautiful but are of rather generic birds. I didn’t have the zoom lens at this time and my feet were blistered. I’m so keen to return here – especially over summer – which I know will annoy the heck out of me considering it is an hour on the bus. Also keen to explore swan bay. No idea how I’ll explore here as well as focus on Serendip + my other chosen locations.

It truly is an amazing wetland.

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Filed Under: Bellarine Peninsula Tagged With: Australian White Ibis, black swan, eastern rosella, pelican, swan bay

First Visit To Kerang Lakes: Fantastic Birding in North Central Vic

December 29, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

‘Twas a couple of nights before Christmas. News had arrived that two MORE vagrants were seen at Lake Tutchewop. A  red-necked phalarope and oriental plover had been sighted, in addition to the much reported dowitcher. People were planning their trips for after Christmas, hoping the birds would stick around.

They didn’t.

I was fortunate enough to visit the Kerang area on the 27th though, accompanying Owen Lishmund and Tim N. It was a brilliant days birding and one that makes me keen to explore more areas of Victoria.

Lake Tutchewop.

The alarm went off at 4.20. I was at the train station and 4.55 and at Footscray Station waiting to be picked up at 5.20. I wasn’t lucid at that hour, but it was surprising to realize that I was the oldest one in our group.

We got to Kerang around 9ish. It was surprising to see how many raptors where there! Owen was looking at the window and just saying various names. I scored a new bird, the black falcon, pretty quickly.

We got to the much hyped Lake Tutchewop. This is what greeted us.

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Red capped plovers. And didn’t have to fall into a river to see them!

It was at this point that I realized I probably wouldn’t see the vagrants. Many people were there and we all saw the same birds: sandpipers, one banded stilt, one avocet and a bunch of pelicans.

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We visited both sides of the lake. It is an area I’d like to return to do some photography. The guys suggested that we return later in the day when the waders were more likely to be active and do some other birding in the meantime.

As we were leaving, they heard the sound of a white winged fairy wren. Shame I didn’t get to see a male, but I still got a blurry photo of a female.

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Also got a clear shot of a black kite. The markings are different to what I expected. I’m hoping that I’ll be as good as others with raptors soon enough.

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Tresco West

We went to Tresco West specifically to find the blue bonnets, because I’d mentioned my fascination with parrots. I felt a bit guilty about doing a detour just for my interests, I don’t want to be the newbie that annoys others. I know other birders are awesome and love sharing but I still struggle with the social nuances of group birding.

Tim Dolby wrote more about the bushland reserve here.

We heard the blue bonnet early on. The were very skittish though and I’d only get glimpses of them flying off whenever we got too close (which was still a comfortable 5-10 metres way.) They are apparently the shyest parrots. The subspecies we saw was apparently Northiella haematogaster haematogaster – commonly known as the yellow-vented bluebonnet. Apparently located in multiple places along North Central Victoria.

I’m defintely returning to spend half a day – at least – just to watch the blue bonnets. The reserve deserves much more exploring.

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Was also fortunate enough to see a yellow throated miner, something I’d placed on my bucketlist for the day. There are five subspecies of this, although on the east coast it’s primarily race flavigula. One of the races is called a dusky minor – apparently can also be confused with noisy miner. It means I only have one species of miner to find – the black eared miner. This was previously a race of the yellow throated. This is why I keep an eye on subspecies.

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Apparently Goschen was bad this time of year, so it was decided that we would cross the border to see a feral population of ostriches. Only I didn’t realize we had crossed the border until I saw signs saying NSW.
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Part of me doesn’t see the point in seeking out feral populations just to add them to the list. Lists in general bore me (like state lists, year lists.) I guess I’ll grow into the ideas. I’m too lazy, I think, I prefer just sitting and watching the species that fascinate me. I like adding birds to my list because I then have the context to learn about them. And, I suspect in 20+ years I’ll regret not ticking some species.

If you want more info, both Kay Parkin and Tim Dolby have written about them. Apparently they do disgusting poops.

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The guys wanted to look for bush stone curlew so decided to explore the cemetery, which looked like it was the right habitat. Both of them could look at an area and saw whether it was the right habitat for certain species. I hope to be that smart one day.

This area was amazing, along with the adjoining bushland. We didn’t see any curlews but one of the first birds I saw was a rainbow bee eater.

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I’ve been wanting to see bee eaters in the wild for some time now. You can get them at the you yangs but I haven’t visited there properly in ages. The colours are beautiful and they are even more magnificent in flight. They were definitely a highlight of the day for me.

We were all wandering about, following the various calls, when Owen shouted at us to come over.

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I was expecting to see a bird but no, it was JUST A LACE MONITOR HANGING OUT IN A TREE! *This* is why I need to leave my suburban birding spots and start going into outback/rural areas. I love seeing other animals. Developing a fascinating with lizards.

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Very, very thankful the little guy made it across the road safely.

Was also a number of kangaroos in the area.

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At some point, I saw this juv blue faced honeyeater. I have now seen them in three different states.
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Return to Lake Tutchewop

We returned to a group of people who had been looking there for a while. No luck. I was knackered at this point, and the sun was really beating down. I decide to just sit down and get photos of both chats and plovers. I do love mucking around with photography but only when it doesn’t interfere with other peoples plans.

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This chat has different colours – am assuming it’s a juvenile. There were crimson chats in the area but apparently the bad on this bird is different?

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Was nice to get a shot of a plover that wasn’t running away from me.

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We’d regularly see large flocks of waders flying around various parts of the lake.

Town and Back Swamp

It was decided that we should head to this swamp. I was knackered and didn’t expect much, I was happy to along with anything. For me, it was one of the highlights.

We did a loop around the swamp, taking note of any interesting birds along the way.
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It was very difficult for me to see this glossy ibis, which was one of my target species for the day. It was similar in colour and size to the shelducks (!) that were there. It is smaller then other ibises. I think this will help with identification in the future.
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This is a dusky woodswallow. I almost didn’t both taking a photo of it, as I thought I’d seen it (and, I tend not to care about anything at the end of a twitch when I feel exhausted. I’d been active for 14 hours at this point.)

One was a juvenile, which was lovely. The woodswallow I had seen was (duh) masked. There are no subspecies of masked but there are two of dusky. Looks like I have to go to WA!
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Eastern Rosella. I don’t care how common they are – or if they look like blue bonnets in the shade. I love them, and I especially love photos of birds feeding.
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The below is a photo of a variegated fairy wren. We had seen one earlier in the day but not views as clear as this. There are five subspecies. This is race assimilis, the one that you will find across most of Australia. Kinda resembles the blue breasted but this wasn’t in the range. The guys were awesome. They could hear a bird call and then hone in on it, knowing exactly what it was. And they haven’t been birding their whole lives like I assumed. There is hope for me yet!

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“Theres the brown quail for you, Jade.” Earlier in the day, we were talking about quails and I mentioned the one that had eluded me at Jawbone. We were at the end, walking towards the car, when we saw this. Hope to see more quails and get better views in the future

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It was a fanastic days birding. I didn’t care about dipping on the big three. There were a number of birds they heard during the day that I would have loved to see. They heard birds and saw things such as little friarbirds. It’s the same with any trip though, I’m so overwhelmed by all the movement and sounds. I think I’ll be like this for quite a while until I get the hang of it. It is a bit of information overwhelm.

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Oh! We were driving up there and someone in the car noticed that Kevin Bartram was in a car next to us. That man is a birding legend. I don’t fully understand the story, but apparently he did something similar to Kenn Kaufman by hitching his away across the country when he was 18. I think I met him at some point, but I was exhausted and feeling anti social at that point.

I also met Craig Morley, a prolific birder from Geelong. I see his reports of ebird a lot and had hoped to bump into him one day.

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I plan to return to the area in the future – when I can drive – and explore it properly. Not just birding. It was fascinating. I especially want to go to the ibis rookery.

Filed Under: Other Tagged With: black kite, blue faced honeyeater, brown quail, dusky woodswallow, eastern rosella, ostrich, rainbow bee easter, variegated fairy wren, white winged fairy wren, yellow throated miner, yellow-vented bluebonnet

Serendip with Sethy

September 20, 2014 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Wednesday, I went to Serendip with my dad and nephew. I was hanging out with family while my mum was getting over an illness and dad decided to give mum a break for a couple of hours.

It was raining on and off, so we first drove around the you yangs for a short while. We tried to find the tawny frogmouth near the information centre with no luck. I later read that this can be rather difficult.

We also went to big rock. I loved the bush there, I hadn’t been there in ages. I’d love to return there to bird!

We got to Serendip just as a group of school kids arrived, which is always fun.

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We saw this Eastern Rosella. I did hear another interesting bird but of course, Sethy wouldn’t be quiet while I tried to find where it was.

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One of my main priorities was seeing any baby goslings.

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I saw these two cape barron geese. I love baby birds. I later saw magpie goslings.

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I got this cute photo of a kangaroo sticking its tongue out.

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I met a lady who had the same camera as me but wanted to check out the quality of my sigma lens. Accidentally caught the wren with it’s mouth open! Feeling kind of smug, considering Glenn has been struggling to capture one.

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While in an open aviary, we saw this rail and it’s chick. Sethy saw the chick first. Wish we’d gotten more photos!

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An older gosling.

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This bird was apparently sitting on an egg. I’ll have to visit to see the baby when it’s hatched.

Planning to visit again with Glenn this time. We didn’t get to check out any of the decent areas as it started raining again. Also: what is the best time to see brolga courtship displays?

Filed Under: Geelong And Surrounds Tagged With: buff banded rail, cape barren goose, eastern rosella, serendip sanctuary, superb fairy wren

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