grey fantail

Groundcover is Returning At The Property

June 11, 2016 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I went up to the property again. Mum and dad had to meet someone so I took advantage of the lift to properly check out the changes. Apparently it is a lot easier to look for fungi when it isn’t incredibly windy?

I’ll talk about the fungi in a future post as there were a LOT of photos.

This photo was taken to compare with the photos of the burned cars I shared in the first post. There is one main difference. There is a lot of greenery on the grown! Two weeks and decent rains can make a difference.

This is to contrast with the green fields in the background.

The sundew is coming up really nicely, accompanied by grass.

I tried to experiment with little dew drops on the sundew. Alas, it was incredibly muddy so I kept on sinking into the ground.

This is a little dip where there are a lot of quartz around. I’m not sure what the proper explanation is for it. Regardless, there is NEVER water in it. Yesterday, it was full. Was a great area for fungi too.

Plants:

I didn’t notice any orchids on this trip but I did notice other plants growing from the ground. Not sure what they are or if they are relevant.

The above photo I took because it reminded me of the monster from “Little Shop of Horrors.” I showed Seth the photo and he saw the similarity. YES! It means I’m only slightly weird.

Birds:

Great day for birds to, in many respects it reminded me of what it was like before the fires.

Grey fantail chasing a varied sitella. Haven’t seen a sitella here for ages!

Young grey strike thrush. Two hanging around as we were walking back to the car.

Wedge tailed eagle! It was sitting on a tree and then it flied off. I swore in front of my parents because I didn’t expect to see a wedgie that close. A friend since told me it’s common to find them near farming areas, as they get easy feed with the dead lambs.

I also heard a whistling kite and kookaburras. It definitely sounded like the birdlife was back.

Creative:

Mum had an interesting comment recently. She said a lot of these photos weren’t my style, that I’ve been trying to emulate someone elses style. She is true, to a degree. I’ve been pursuing citizen science projects and my number #1 priority has been getting all the diagnostic features I can. This really limits creativity when you are pressed for time or when the animal is at risk of moving.
Or when it is really muddy.
These are a couple of experimental shots. I may explore properly next time, if we have longer.

I’m hoping to get more scientific in future trips. Look into ethical surveying techniques, like tiles for reptiles and and wildlife cameras. Just need to do my research and wait until the clean up has finished.

Grey Fantail Building A Nest At Toolangi

December 3, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

On Sunday, I went to Toolangi with friends to track down the black faced monarch and the many robins that were in the area. We had met up with some other birding friends when Caroline noticed this grey fantail building a nest.

At first I thought their may have been chicks on the nest so kept my distance. When I realized it was in the nest building phase, I moved forward to take more photos.

The nest is shaped completely different to what I thought it would be. The fantails would grab a little bit of spider web or other nesting material, place it in the nest, and then move their butt around to shape it. It was fascinating to see.

Late November/early December is a brilliant time for birdwatchers to visit Toolangi. I highly recommend it.

Sethys First Visit To Lake Victoria

May 20, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

This trip took place on March 8th.

You know how it goes. I discover a place via the field nats – in this case, Lake Victoria – and have to take Sethy there so he can partake in the awesomeness. I know a lot of these posts lately seem to focus on him but it’s mostly because I’ve been too lazy to write up our combined trips. Mostly because it’s stuff I’ve already seen and there are too many solo trips demanding to be written up.

Sethy rather enjoyed it. Lake Victoria was interesting in itself, despite the first bird sighting being the obligatory grey fantail.

One of the reasons I wanted to take him there so badly was so he could see some shorebirds in breeding plumage. The area didn’t disappoint.

I also would have loved to have taken mum and Glenn here for landscape photography. I’m not sure it’s as haunting now.

We got to see birds in various stages of developing their plumage, which Sethy loved.

Stints too!

He really loved getting close up looks of the red capped plover. He was disappointed he didn’t get to see their broken wing display. I had shown him my photos from last time, and found some useful youtube videos. He thought it was fascinating and was glad to add another lifer.

It was also a good day for critters. He enjoyed finding the spider. 🙂 We really need to start ID’ing the spiders. I’m no good at it.

And this grasshopper, which is different from the others we have found.

Grey fantails used to confuse me but don’t anymore. Rufous look entirely different.

Thornbill. I’ve forgotten what it is but rest assured, it’s been added to his life list.

Alas, we didn’t see any hoodies. I will try to add them to his life list next summer 🙂

We did find some interesting plants though, none of which I can ID.

Walking to the lighthouse’

He probably enjoyed the walk to the lighthouse more. The beach was pretty generic but we were able to get really, really close to some of the terns on the beach. And we saw this pacific gull yawning!

Definitely need to find some more terns 🙂

This write up sucks due to the time that has past, but Sethy really did enjoy it. We got to explore the lake and the flora along the side of it. We got to get a close up look of a lighthouse and muck around on the beach. It was one of those trips that combine the best of both worlds. I try to incorporate kid stuff into our adventures but sometimes there just isn’t any kid stuff to do.

Very keen to explore more of the Bellarine Peninsula with him. It’s more accessible and interesting then other places. I’m actually keen to explore more of it by myself but it depends on how practical that is 🙂

Easter Adventures at Geelong Botanic Gardens

April 5, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Today marks the end of the first week of the school holidays. Other then the moth night, Sethy and I hadn’t gone on any adventures. We’d gone to the botanical gardens briefly on the Monday but I was feeling too sick to properly explore.

We decided to hit the storage pond to hunt for the pesky Ballions Crake, meander through the botanical gardens and end at Eastern Beach. Firstly:

We found the crake! We only saw it for a couple of seconds and it was a lot smaller then we expected. Sometimes Seth will say he’s seen a bird when he really hasn’t. He pointed to the exact spot where I had seen it and said it went behind the green grass. He also said how small it was. The above photo is the only photo we were able to get but I’m so glad we finally got to find the little bugger.

Now just need to find the lewins rail and I’ll have knocked off a lot of the ones that have taunted me thus far.

We saw just two grebes this time, and two pacific black ducks. I couldn’t tell if the grebe was from the previous or most recent clutch. We had a quick check again for the crake and, after dipping wandered over to the botanical gardens.

The main target at the gardens was the rufous fantail, eastern spinebill, pink robin and white browed scrubwren. Someone was a bit hyper and the gardens were pretty crowded. We did see a million bajillion leaf curling spiders, though – something I wouldn’t have known about if not for the local cadets group.

We did see this juvenile grey fantail, which I initially thought was a white browed scrubwren. It looked different. I’m quoting from Kevin Bartram in the bird ID page here, but “The buff tips on the wing coverts Is a characteristic of immature plumage, they are remnants of juvenile plumage.”

It was those tips on the wing that confused me – just little things, because I generally don’t pay attention to them in the field. I’m not a lazy birder but there is often so much going on that I have limited attention.

According to Graeme Chapman, there is a subspecies that migrates north from Tasmania in the winter. These often look darker then the other subspecies you find here. I never really knew that. Does the local subspecies migrate?

I’m not as confused anymore and more fascinated. We also saw a rufous fantail! I got good views of the colour and Seth saw the bird. Apparently this time of year is a great time to see them while they are migrating to their winter grounds. A mate says he doesn’t often see them so we were pretty lucky 🙂 I only went there because I had seen reports of them on ebird, I didn’t know they were that elusive. It’s fascinating how much you learn.

We went near the back where we spotted this sulpher crested cockatoo enjoying a sunflower head.

Limeburners Point

We then mosied over to Limeburners point, hoping to find a couple of pacific gulls. We were very lucky, Seth got good views of this Juvenile.

We saw this adult on a light pole but it appeared to have an injured leg.

There were a number of terns and cormorants about but we were quickly distracted by a black shouldered kite that was hovering nearby. It was awesome that Sethy got to see that hovering behaviour, I was hoping we would see a BSK when we went to Lake Victoria in March.

We saw it grab its meal and fly off to a nearby pole. I’m assuming it was a rat or a rabbit based on it’s size.

The following pictures show some interesting behaviour we saw. The kite landed on a pole and two butcherbirds weren’t happy about it! They would continually dive at the kite – either to defend their territory or to get a free feed. The kite wan’t too happy about it.

Seth walked up the hill to get a closer look and the bird flew off. I knew that would happen but understood Seths desire to get a better look, as I was looking through the camera. Was glad to capture the behaviour

It was a fun twitch. Seth didn’t get as much time to play as I’d normally plan for, as we had an impromptu trip on Thomas the Tank Engine at Eastern Beach. Also saw an egret and another juvenile pacific gull near the main beach.

Will try to do another two adventures during the holidays. Glad I got to get the little dude another 3 lifers!

First Visit To Point Henry

January 27, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

It was the final week of the school holidays. (Thank gosh.) The mister had asked if we could go to Balyang. I countered, asking if he’d be interested in going to Point Henry. He immediately said “Oh, the banded stilt place.” I don’t know how his brain manages to remember everything I’ve told him.

I asked my dad if we could get dropped off on his way to town as it was closeby. As dad lately pointed out, “It may be close as the bird flies but it is a fair bit of a detour.” I felt so guilty by putting my family out during Seth and my adventures but you know what? He has loved it. Loved it so much.

We got dropped off at the carpark and started wandering around the foreshore. There were lots of shells to look at and Seth tried to teach me how to skip rocks. As he later said to mum: “Aunty Jades rocks always made a big splash!”

Then I saw it.

European goldfinch, lifer #98 for him. I had seen them before when a family of them spent a week raiding one of the trees in our backyard but hadn’t seen them since. I was pretty stoked to see them again as I think they are beautiful birds.

I looked back towards Geelong waterfront. It was incredibly beautiful, especially with all the boats from the festival of sails leaving.

There was a lot of jellyfish washed up on the beach, which was kind of awesome. It’s sad, but it also provides a learning opportunity. We didn’t see any when walking around Williamstown/Altona the day before and I really wanted him to get a close up look. Well, we got several 🙂

We had spent about 30 minutes wandering around and I wondered how we were going to spend the rest of the time. Didn’t I read there was a boardwalk? We saw this bird resting on a fence and assumed that we weren’t allowed to walk down that path. Turns out that was an entry point to the wetlands area, but oh well. We found it eventually!

Grey fantail. Want to show him a rufuos one next 😀

Boardwalk

Was very happy to show him a golden headed cisticola, lifer #99. Not sure how to pronounce it but one of my attempts sounded like “testicular.”

Seth found these little bugs. He’s so awesome at finding bugs. At one point, he opened his hand and there was about five in there.

Teeny tiny baby dotterel! Bad photo, but saw the bird running after its parent.

We didn’t have much luck at any of the bird hides, although we did hear some rustling. I wonder if there aren’t as many birds there now that Altona has shut?

Along the foreshore

We wandered around the foreshore again while waiting for my parents to pick us up. We saw this white fronted chat while I was on the phone to mum. It’s behaviour felt different to the other chats I’d seen so was hoping for a plover. No luck.

Also a pacific gull, a bird that we both love.

It was a pretty good trip despite going to an unfamiliar area. Seth really loved it. He’s noticing similarities between the various coastal areas we visit. He’s learning a lot.

It’s definitely not a case of me forcing my hobby onto him. He’s the one that asks for it. He’s developing a fondness of hiking. I’ve definitely influenced him in the sense that he’s been exposed to the natural world, due to my keen interest. But he has his own unique interests in the natural world.

He’s a good little teammate too, helping me find stuff and forcing me to slow down. I’m so grateful that dad took the time to give us lifts to places. I’ve worked super hard not to inconvenience them. I know that our adventuring has helped them to allowed them to get more down with the move without a 6 year old running around.

He’s tiring me out though. 🙂 Lot’s of talking about things afterwards, looking at apps + guides and looking at the photos.

Thinking that I may try for either a banded stilt or a hoodie for bird #100 for him. He’s loving his life list – and he’s fast catching up to mine!