So after spending an amazing two weeks on holiday in Thailand, it was a rude shock to have to go back to work again. For me I got to go to the Upper Spencer Gulf for four days which gave me an opportunity to catch up with a few birds I hadn't connected with, but sadly for Sue she was desk bound. A quick ten minute pit stop at the wetlands at Port Wakefield on the way through afforded me great views of a few
Freckled Duck roosting close to the road that had been reported a week earlier. Later in the week I took a drive out to Yorkeys Crossing north of Port Augusta after work to see if there was anything around. Despite the fact it was a little windy I soon came across two pair of
Rufous Field-wrens sitting on a fence within a short distance of each other. Closer to town two
Chirruping Wedgebills sat up in a bush giving me good views. Home Friday and we packed the car ready to head back up the Gulf coast to try and find some of the missing shorebirds from our lists
An early start saw us at Thompson Beach at dawn, to coincide with an early high tide. We quickly located a roosting area of a large group of shorebirds further south down the beach. Here we found some good numbers of birds that were starting to colour up into breeding plumage including
Red Knots and
Great Knots but also had 93 Bar-tailed Godwits and
good numbers of Grey Plover, Turnstone and several thousand mixed Curlew Sandpipers, Red-necked Stints and a few Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. Sue managed to pick up a recently arrived
Double-banded Plover and we both added that to our lists. Other birds of note included a young Spotted harrier cruising along the beach and a pair of Brown Quail dust bathing on the side of the main road
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Large group of shorebirds in the early morning light
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| The birds were up and about heading out to richer feeding areas |
At this stage after a couple of hours watching the birds go about the business of feeding ready for migration we noticed the approaching front that had been forecast for the weekend. We decided then to head over to the upper Gulf via Port Wakefield so Sue could pick up the Freckled Ducks I'd seen earlier in the week. After poking about in Port Arthur and Port Clinton seeing not much of interest we went straight to Chinaman Wells north of Port Victoria to see if we could connect with Rock Parrots. On the drive out the storm clouds were gathering and the humidity increased providing great conditions for Swifts and luckily enough we connected with a flock of 80+ Fork-tailed Swifts flying north over the road
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| One of 80 Fork-tailed Swifts against a heavy sky |
Despite our best efforts and having a false start or two with Elegant Parrots we failed to connect with any Rock Parrots at all. There were some nice shorebirds on the beach here though to keep our interest and we counted at least another 800 Red Knot, some more Bar-tailed Godwits and a close flyby of two Double-banded Plover. From here we drove all the way down to Gleesons landing near Corny Point to try and find Reef Herons and Hooded Plovers. There were lots of people camping here and why not? it looked like a really nice place. As we drove around the edge of a cove Sue spotted a suspicious looking Heron loafing on the rocks. I had to drive past it in order to turn around. As we got out the car Sue called it.......
Reef Heron, a tricky bird to find in SA as they are in very low numbers and found with any regularity in only a few places. We managed to get some photos then realised the bird nearly walked straight on top our other main target here,
Hooded Plover......nice. Time was flying and the day was drawing to a close so we headed over to Edithburgh to stay for the night.
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| Reef Heron at Gleesons Landing |
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| Hooded Plover nearly got stood on by a Reef Heron |
The next morning we decided to go down in to Innes National Park and search for some of the special birds that occur there but it quickly became apparent we'd be up against it with unprecedented numbers of people and wet and windy conditions. We did manage to get on to
Eastern Osprey relatively quickly at Chinamans Hat but that was going to be all she wrote given the conditions, so we beat a hasty retreat and headed north to try for Rock Parrots again. Just outside of Port Victoria we picked up some
Banded Lapwings in a paddock, a pair of which had two tiny chicks. It was at this point we drove home via Port Wakefield again where we managed to locate some
Black-tailed Native-hen in the wetlands there between heavy downpours.
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| Banded Lapwing near Port Victoria |
Monday morning we had prearranged with our friend Colin Rogers to pick us up and take us out to the former Penrice Saltfields where he had seen some very nice birds over the previous couple of days. The Saltfields used to be a jewel in the crown of Adelaide birding hotspots and it was never difficult to gain access, even allowing birders to become key holders but sadly it is no longer a commercially operating business and the place has declined dramatically. It's very sad to see its demise. Having said that we had this limited opportunity to go in with Colin so we took it. The first birds we scanned for during the high tide were 9
Far Eastern Curlew. These had proved difficult to locate anywhere else in the Gulf region so far this summer so we were well pleased with seeing them. The next location on the agenda was Buckland Park Lake. This legendary place had seen some spectacular rarities over the years and with high water levels receding it had lots of birds on it to look through, but we were looking for something more specific. 4
Black-tailed Godwits were another shorebird in short supply this summer, these being the only ones I'd seen having been reported anywhere in the State. The muddy wet edges of the samphire on some pools near the main lake edge harboured up to 6 Long-toed Stints, some of which were starting to show some nice colour on them as they moult in to breeding plumage. The main target here though was a female
Pectoral Sandpiper that Colin had found earlier. Once located she gave some nice views. On the way back to the car we eventually bumped in to a single
Marsh Sandpiper. Not normally difficult to see in SA but for some reason this summer they are mostly absent from all of the known areas they can usually be easily seen.
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| Probable female Pectoral Sandpiper Buckland Park Lake |
Back in the car we drove around to a site that almost always has
Slender-billed Thornbills and the little darlings didn't want to disappoint, so we were happy to add those to the list. On our way out we stopped to scan some of the larger ponds nearer the lake to see if we could find some
Great-crested Grebes that usually loaf around here and we duly did, eventually seeing 20 birds in total that seemed more interested in having a snooze than anything else. it can be a difficult bird to get outside of the Saltfields so I'm glad we got them today. That brought us to the main event that Colin had originally invited us to see. We drove to a spot where he had located these special birds on the previous Friday and again on Saturday. We were worried the rain on Sunday might have interrupted there behaviour and being a bird that normally never hangs around in the one spot longer than a day or two my expectations were not high. As we approached the site we slowed down and began to scan close to the track where he had seen them previously..................nothing!!.....No surprises there I thought, that's how I roll. Still determined to exhaust all our options to find them we decided to drive the long way round on a back track, stopping and scanning every now and again. On the third such stop my bins locked on to one straight away....
Little Curlew. "I have one I exclaimed."......two.....three.......four.......five" A grand total of 5 of one of the rarest Shorebirds that turn up in South Australia or anywhere in the Southern States for that matter. A cracking bird and one I'd only seen on three other occasions
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| Little Curlew |
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| Two of the Five Little Curlew |
Not much could be improved on for this weekend so we took the rest of the day off and took Colin out for lunch to thank him and celebrate "cleaning up". A nice group of birds that included 10 species of shorebird. Next weekend hopefully sees us on our first pelagic of the year where we hope to go past the 250 species mark.
