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Bird spotting By Rex Fisher High tide at Brunswick's North Head
If you’re on the north wall look for Little Black Cormorants (all dark with a black bill) feeding in the adjacent surf zone. I’ve seen one herd up a small school of fish then dive down several times to come up through them with its catch. It did this all on its own and had complete control – that’s competence. The nearby Seagull Rocks area is also used by Crested Terns, Silver Gulls and visiting Common and Little Terns (neither seen today) at lower tides. Oystercatchers and Ruddy Turnstones feed there as well and there is merit in the Council’s recent move to keep dogs away but I wish they would erect some signs and do some education work. Some of my best friends, the raptors, frequent this area and I and saw White-Bellied Sea-Eagle, Osprey and Brahminy Kites. If you ever see contented roosting birds suddenly take to the air then look up as there is probably a raptor around. Oystercatchers seem particularly sensitive to Sea-Eagles. On the eastern rock wall at Reading’s Bay there were resident Pied Cormorants (much longer bill, yellow patch before the eye and black patch above the leg when compared with the smaller Little Pied Cormorants), Great Cormorant (all black but with a longer, paler bill, paler face/throat than the smaller Little Black Cormorant) Crested Terns and Silver Gulls. Black and white Pied Oystercatchers could be seen on the sand behind them but I didn’t see the all black Sooty Oystercatcher today. Ever seen an open, empty pipi shell sitting upright on the beach with bird footprints around it? That’s probably where a Pied Oystercatcher, with its spectacular red eye, bill and legs, had its lunch. Sooty’s tend to be more associated with rocky areas but that is not a hard and fast rule. But onto the visitors that were present. Eastern Curlews are the big fellows with the very long, down curved bill that appears to be straining their necks as they walk. Obviously it doesn’t and it allows them to probe for food that other species can’t reach. The Whimbrel is similar in appearance and bill shape but both its body and bill are smaller. It also has a pale “eyebrow” line in contrast to the Curlew. A Bar-tailed Godwit, also restfully digesting its earlier meal, showed something special. It still had a tinge of red in its breast feathers, left over from the more resplendent breeding plumage it had assumed during its northern hemisphere sojourn. You can often see this colouration before the migratory waders leave us in autumn and when they first arrive back in spring (see the Turnstone photo above). Actually some Godwits (which are a bit smaller than Whimbrels and have a long slightly upturned pink bill) stay here over winter. I think they are younger ones. I didn’t see any Grey-tailed Tattlers on the rock wall but I think there were few on the oyster racks to the west, thanks to a telescope. (Postscript: there were 19 roosting on rocks near the oyster lease next day.) These fellows, around the size of a Magpie Lark, are generally in the area during summer. However I have been there looking through binoculars and just seen their little heads sticking up out of a hole in the sand flats so they may be hard to pick up. Grey–tails have a rarer but very, very similar looking cousin called Wandering Tattler which prefers rocky areas and Hasting’s Point is well known for regular sightings. Now here’s a useless question to ponder. Are these migratory waders visitors, or residents who flit of to Asia and Europe for a bit of good loving during winter? I suppose it really is just a matter of perspective, or jealousy. Anyway I’ll let you know what’s around at low tide at another time. |
Having recently said hello to some of the bush’s spring/summer visitors I thought I would check out waders around the Brunswick River’s North Head yesterday (24th Oct). Being high tide they, and some of their local mates, were roosting until the receding tide would once again expose their feeding areas. At North Head/Readings Bay these roosts appear to be rock walls and oyster racks. The north wall of the Brunswick also comes into play as the photos of Crested Terns (right), and Ruddy Turnstone (below left) illustrate. Silver Gulls weren’t so constrained by the tide and they could be seen working over a feeding school of fish further out. 