Whirlwind tour of Tasmania Part 1

Hi everyone,
This post actually covers an older trip. Near the end of 2012 I decided to head down to Tasmania for a week to visit the breeding grounds of one of Australia's rarest species, the Orange-bellied Parrot.
Just a little background info, this species breeds in south-west Tasmania and migrates up the west coast to spend the winter feeding along the Vic and SA coastlines. Sadly this species has been declining recently and at the time of this trip it was estimated that there were less than 30 individuals left in the wild.

With much anticipation I left hot and sunny Perth and landed in cold wet Melbourne with a few hours to spare before the boat was due to set sail for Devonport. At this point I have to say a big thanks to my parents for not only letting me borrow their 4WD for the week but also for packing a lot of the camping gear for me and meeting me at the airport! Unfortunately we didn't get much time to catch up before it was time to board the boat.

Thankfully, the boat ride was very smooth as I get seasick at a wet forecast. The boat docked around 5:30am and by 6 I was drowning myself in maccas coffee in Devonport and waiting for the local camera shop to open to pick up a new flash for my camera. Quickly getting bored of coffee and the local paper I went down to the foreshore to do a little birding. Down at the breakwater in Devonport the birds were just starting to move about, naturally the first bird added to the list for the trip was the ubiquitous Silver Gull! closely followed by Common Starling, Welcome Swallow, House Sparrow and a Little Wattlebird feeding in the shrubs along the path. Along the edge of the water were two species of Oystercatcher, the Sooty and the Pied along with a lone Pacific Gull. By this point it was time to head back to the car and pick up the new flash! The walk back added three new species, Superb Fairywren, Masked lapwing and a pair of European Goldfinches.

I arrived at the camera shop to gut wrenching news, the model that I had ordered was not available.. to his credit, the manager of the camera shop in Devonport is a deadset superstar and set me up with a more advanced model than I was first looking at and great deal on the price so thankyou very much!
The drive to Launceston from Devonport was relatively quiet, only adding Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Black Swans and Tasmanian Native Hens (the first endemic of the trip!). I stopped off in Launceston for more coffee with family friends before heading out to the airport to pick up Jordan, Brendon and Jason. With a quick stop for more coffee and supplies we headed off to our first overnight stay, Cradle Mountain National Park.

The drive up took a little longer than expected and we ended up arriving about an hour before dark, adding White-winged Triller, Great Cormorant, Laughing Kookaburra, Olive Whistler and White-faced Heron to the bird list and Tasmanian Pademelon, Common Wombat and Short-beaked Echidna to our mammal list. When we arrived at the national park there was Just enough time to drive down to Dove Lake and grab a few photos of Cradle Mountain among the clouds and tick a Grey Currawong hanging around in the carpark.

Dove Lake with Cradle Mountain

After setting up camp at the local campground we had a quick feed and then headed off down some of the roads and walking tracks, saying hello to some of the local furries.

Joey

Pair of paddies Sprung!

Cool temperate rainforest near camp.

We found this strange looking fungi in the forest above, any help with an ID would be great!

A wolf spider (Lycosa spp.)

Tasmanian Native Hen near Dove Lake.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos near Cradle Mountain National Park

Overnight the heavens opened up and it rained solidly for several hours. I woke up the following morning to see the outside of the tent covered in leaches. Probably my least favourite creature on the planet. After carefully extracting myself from the tent we had a quick breakfast and then headed back into the national park where we ticked Grey Goshawk, Swamp Harrier, Crescent Honeyeater, Australian Magpie, Forest Raven followed by a few endemics, the Yellow Wattlebird, Green Rosella, Yellow-throated Honeyeater, Tasmanian Scrubwren and the endemic herps Crinia tasmaniensis and Cyclodomorphus casuarinae.

Tasmanian Scrubwren

Tasmanian She-oak Skink

Tasmanian Froglet

The highlight of Cradle Mountain definitely came from our second night, while out spotlighting we came across a sight that no longer appears on mainland Australia, an Eastern Quoll and its fair to say it didn't really hang around!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's gone!

The following morning we set off from Cradle Mountain, destination Hobart!

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Cheers

Chris

A Day and Night in the Perth hills!

Hi everyone,

So over the weekend just gone (1st/2nd September) my mate Jordan was in Perth for a few days after a week in the Pilbara. Initially our plan was to head into the Perth hills to do a bit of birding around Victoria Reservoir as part of our "photographic birding big year" ( a friendly facebook competition to see how many bird species you can photograph in 12 months). Sadly the conditions for birding were appalling, lots of rain, horrible glare from the overcast sky and quite a bit of wind!

We arrived at Victoria Reservoir at 6:30am and right away bumped into a flock of Carnabys Cockatoos feeding high in the trees.

                                                         Carnabys Cockatoos

This early in the morning the boom gates were locked and we needed to walk along the main access road, this turned out to be quite productive with many small honeyeaters darting between the roadside vegetation. We also got caught glimpse of the a Common Bronzewing sitting high in one of trees which thankfully sat very still and pretended we weren't there.

                                                            Common Bronzewing

As we began the walking track down to the dam wall, we managed to locate a a Southern Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops australis) beneath a rock. Blind snakes are quite a cryptic species and it's unusual to find them just by looking beneath debris so this was a good herpetological start to the day and was also a new species for Jordans reptile list. I might add that these can a right pain in neck to take photos of and also exude one of the worst smells in nature :/

                                            Southern Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops australis)

As we moved down the path closer to the dam wall the New Holland Honeyeaters were everywhere but managing to get a good photo proved to be quite a frustrating task and in the end I gave up in a fit of photographical rage. Down near the dam wall the birding was rather quiet, more New Holland Honeyeaters, a few Brown Honeyeaters, Spotted Pardalotes, a singular Ringneck Parrot, some very wary Red-capped Parrots and this Grey Shrike-thrush.

                                                               Grey Shrike-thrush

At this point we could see a large rain shower heading our way so decided to quickly head back to the car but not before snapping a few shots of a Splendid Fairywren and Scarlet Robin that poked their heads out of the bush!

                                                                Scarlet Robin

                                                                Splendid Fairywren

We made the decision at this point that as we hadn't been that lucky with birds and that the conditions were terrible for photography that we would head out to some bushland near Mundaring to see if there were any frogs about. Within 5 minutes of reaching our site we had several species photographed including:

                                                    Sand-plain Worm-lizard (Aprasia repens)

                                                    Red-thighed Froglet (Crinia georgiana)

                                                    Clawless Gecko (Crenadactylus ocellatus)

                                                    

                                                     Tree Dtella hind foot (Gehyra variegata)

Closeup of the hind foot of the Tree Dtella, the horizontal white lines are known as the subdigital lamellae.

               

                                                          Greys Skink ( Menetia greyi) 

This is the smallest species of Australian skinks, this one was roughly 4cm long!

Along with the interesting reptiles and amphibians there were also a number of orchids about, the two below belong to the genus Caladenia. South-west WA is one of the worlds biodiversity hotspots and is home to over 150 species of orchids!

                                                          Spider Orchid (Caladenia sp.)

                                                          Spider Orchid (Caladenia sp.)

By this time the rain had truly set it and we decided to head back to Perth. As we drove home the thought of coming back that night to do some frogging brought up and some new plans were devised! With a quick detour to pick up a crazy biologist friend Magnus, we headed back into the hills determined to find some of the WA endemic Heleioporus frogs that occur within the region. True to form, within 30 seconds of beginning our search we were rewarded with a huge Hooting Frog (Heleioporus barycragus) who was willing to sit nicely for a few photos.

                                                                    Hooting Frog (Heleioporus barycragus)

                                                                  Hooting Frog (Heleioporus barycragus)

Not long after we managed to find another Heleioporus species that appears to be a hybrid between two species H. eyrei and H. albopunctatus (more ID photos come soon!)

                                                                The mystery Helio!

After more searching just turned up more Crinia, we decided to head further up the road to a spot that Magnus knew of, again within 30 seconds of leaving the car we found a heap of these large Litoria moorei or Motorbike Frogs!

                                                                 Motorbike Frog

The last species found that night was the quite small Slender tree Frog (Litoria adelaidensis), this one was quite drab looking and didn't have as much green as some of the other ones that I've seen. Hopefully the next outing will produce a nicer coloured one!

                                                           Slender Tree Frog

If you made it this far than thanks for having a read! There will be a new post going up soon that details my trip to Tasmania over Christmas with a few mates to go and find one of Australia's rarest birds, the Orange-bellied Parrot!

Cheers

Chris

ALCOA Wetlands Birding

1st post!

Hi everyone,

Over the weekend I ventured down to ALCOA wetlands about half an hour south of Perth to meet up with several other birders/photographers. It was my first trip to this area and from all the reports it can be a pretty good spot for several rare species. I got there about 6:30am and got a Boobook Owl just after getting out of the car. The birdlife was reasonably active with several birds calling. I stopped in at the Warbler hide for about ten minutes to see what was about but it wasn't too busy, just the usual assortment of Pacific Black Ducks, Eurasian Coots and Australian Wood Ducks but there were also a few Great Egrets and White-faced Herons around the edges and the trees were packed with Australian White Ibis and Straw-necked Ibis.

While leaving the hide a small flock of Australian Ringnecks flew over followed by a few Red-capped Parrots. I'd seen Red-caps before but this was the first time that I got a really good look and they are a pretty spectacular bird with amazing colouration. Further along the path the Grey Fantails started flying about and displaying all over the place, they were one of the most abundant 'bush birds' of the day. At the next small lake the numbers of waterbirds was much higher than the first with several other species including Grey and Chestnut Teals, Hardheads, Blue-billed Ducks, Musk Ducks as well as all three Grebe species (Australasian, Hoary-headed and Great Crested). I spotted the first of several birds of prey here with a Swamp Harrier swooping low and taking something from the water, unfortunately I didn't have the camera out at the time so that was an opportunity missed.

Further up the path at the main lake there were hundreds of water birds with a further bonus of three species of Egret (Great, Intermediate and Little). The Ibis and Yellow-billed Spoonbills were working the edges while Australian Pelicans dabbled about in the center of the lake. On a small island in the middle were quite a few Black-winged Stilts with the smaller Red-kneed Dotterels feeding in between them.

By this time I had met up with several other people and we chatted for a while before heading back to the Warbler hide for our 10:30 meeting time. A small group gathered outside the hide and compared lists and photos for ten or so minutes before we were joined by another birder who operates the rare bird sightings page at http://birdswa.org.au/sightings.htm. A few people left at this point leaving just four of us to wander around the lakes again but this time there was a bit more success with a Collared Sparrowhawk, White-backed Swallow, Australian Shoveller, Little Eagle and Black-fronted Dotterels being spotted at one of the far lakes.

We arrived back at the carpark around noon and chatted a while, I even made some future plans to head out on my first pelagic birding trip in August so I'm looking forward to spotting some of the seabirds that we never really get a chance to see.

Cheers for reading!

Chris

Full bird list from the day.

Australasian Darter

Australasian Grebe

Australasian Shoveler

Australian Magpie

Australian Pelican

Australian Raven

Australian Ringneck

Australian White Ibis

Australian Wood Duck

Black Cormorant

Black Swan

Black-fronted Dotterel

Black-winged Stilts

Blue-billed Duck

Boobook Owl

Carnabys Black Cockatoo

Chestnut Teal

Collared Sparrowhawk

Eurasian Coot

Galah

Golden Whistler

Great Crested Grebe

Great Egret

Grey Fantail

Grey Teal

Hardhead

Hoary-headed Grebe

Intermediate Egret

Laughing Kookaburra

Little Black Cormorant

Little Eagle

Little Egret

Little Pied Cormorant

Magpielark

Musk Duck

New-holland Honeyeater

Pacific Black Duck

Pink-eared Duck

Purple Swamphen

Red Wattlebird

Red-capped Parrot

Red-kneed Dotterel

Rufous Whistler

Silvereye

Singing Honeyeater

Splendid Fairy-wren

Straw-necked Ibis

Striated Pardalote

Swamp Harrier

Tree Martin

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Weebill

Welcome Swallow

Western Gerygone

Whistling Kite

White-backed Swallow

White-faced Heron

White-necked Heron

Willie Wagtail

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

Yellow-rumped Thornbill