CorwinCaelin

Chasing the spotted one

Posted on March 30, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

It was on a late January spotlighting night with Chris Sanderson in the Yarra Ranges that I learnt of a lodge in the far north of NSW that “guaranteed” quoll for visitors. Spot-tailed Quoll has long been on my most wanted list so I was very keen to see one. Chris and Katrina gave glowing reports of watching quolls feeding outside the accommodation so I did a bit of further research on the Guestwick Eco Lodge http://www.guestwickecoresort.com.au/ and contacted Adrian to book a night. Around this I decided to plan my first ever mammal-centric twitching trip – while I still needed quite a few birds in the SE Queensland area I planned this trip to be mammal first. So flying into Brisbane the plan was Lamington first night, Guestwick the second and then a bit loose after that with two rock-wallabies on the agenda. Eventually I had the leave pass confirmed so flew into Brisbane on a Thursday afternoon. Flight was delayed so I copped Brisbane right on peak hour which was frustrating but it did mean that I hit the Logan area right on dusk as a huge Flying-fox camp moved out. Standing like a true dork on the side of the road I added Black Flying-fox to the year list as well as picking out a Grey-headed as many, many bats moved out to the surrounding suburbs. I finally escaped the traffic and headed up to the campground at Green Mountain picking up the excellent Hare and Fox on the way as well as many Cane Toads. Things were looking a bit bleak until I hit the edge of Lamington NP where I stopped at the first pull-in. Here I picked up a rather cranky Short-eared Brushtail Possum (technical tick!) and a number of Grey-headed Flying-foxes feeding above. Driving slowly up I rumbled a number of small mammals on and beside the road – the first being an antechinus which at the time I took to be Subtropical (read more on this later), a Fawn-footed Melomys (tick!) which gave great binocular views as it nibbled on something on the road and a Bush Rat which actually ambled off the road. Also very prevalent were a good number of Lechriodus fletcheri (Black-soled Frog) which was new for me.

Lechriodus fletcheri

I quickly setup my tent at the campground at Green Mountain, twice hearing a Sooty Owl bomb nearby and then loaded up ready for a long night of spotlighting ahead. Red-necked Pademelons were everywhere and I actually tripped over one as I headed up to the road to begin the action. I headed up past O’Reilly’s Guest House where many pademelons and a couple of Northern Brown Bandicoots fed on the lawn. I did the Tree top walk loop picking up Brown Antechinus, Long-nosed Bandicoot and more Bush Rats and a Fawn-footed Melomys. Red-legged Pademelon was quite easy to find in the rainforest itself and while shyer than its Red-necked cousin it was easy to get good looks. I heard a Sooty Owl a couple of times here but I suspect it might have been some punters at O’Reilly’s playing the call. The most common mammal by far was the Eastern Ring-tailed Possum which are quite rufous in this area and most rustles in the canopy were this. The animals here are allegedly more rufous but looked a lot like those in the Otways so perhaps its a wet forest thing.

Eastern Ring-tailed Possum

I walked slowly down the road from the campsite spotlighting as I went. In a couple of places Noisy Pitta called in the darkness even though it was now pushing 11pm. On the aptly named Python Rock Track I was happy to find a carpet python in ambush position completely ignoring me. Sugar Gliders were calling in a number of places and I managed to spotlight a couple in the rainforest. There were many, many microbats of different sizes and colours which made me wish for a decent bat detector although the Black and Grey-headed Flying-foxes feeding in the canopy were easier. There were plenty of Black-soled and Great Barred Frogs which gave good photo opportunities although none were calling and a couple of Southern Leaf-tailed Geckos which was new for me. I eventually made it to Duck Creek Road despite the distractions and immediately heard a Marbled Frogmouth followed by a couple more. It took a bit of effort and wandering through the forest but I eventually got some decent views of them in the canopy although they really did not like the light on them. This was a new bird for me so I began the walk back to the tent with most reasonably possible targets under the belt jumping in to bed about 2am.

Carpet Python

As I could not peg the tent out properly on the packed gravel tent sites I woke up early a little bit dusty with the damp tent on my face. I immediately remembered why I love Lamington with excellent birds flitting through the campsite area continually. I put aside a couple of hours for birding doing the Tree Top walk again and my favourite Python Rock track picking up some nice birds including Albert’s Lyrebird and Paradise Riflebird but I had to remember this was a mammal trip and not a birding trip so had to move on. Again I saw a couple of Antechinus which were very brown and quite long tailed – typical Brown type. When I returned at the end of the trip I asked on the Facebook Mammal Watching Forum about antechinus at Lamington as I was sure i had seen two species with typical Brown types around O’Reillys and what I thought were less-brown and shorter tailed animals down the mountain. However I (and others) were to be disappointed with Angus McNab confirming that genetic work shows there are only Brown Antechinus at Lamington (plus a couple of non Brown types). I had been told that Pretty-faced (Whip-tailed) Wallabies were found on the way down on the grassy slopes towards Canungra and I managed to find three sitting nicely for a couple of photographs.

Pretty-faced (Whip-tailed) Wallaby

For most of the Friday I was dealing with calls from work while I worked my way towards the Guestwick Ecolodge over the border in NSW. Near Beaudesert I stopped to inspect a poor road-killed Boobook owl and was fortunate to have a Yellow-footed Antechinus watching me. I eventually arrived at Guestwick mid afternoon and was met by the very hospitable Adrian and his wife Karen. I had been warned that the quolls had not been seen for a few days but was still keen to visit and put in a good effort. Was a great place with excellent, comfortable accommodation and abundant wildlife nearby. Red-necked Wallabies fed within meters of the cabin and King Parrots were within touching distance. I was here for the quolls and Adrian did everything humanly possible to get them in with a road-killed hare wired up and lamb shanks and chicken necks outside the accommodation. University researchers had recently collared the resident male but he had returned since a number of times so I was hopeful. Adrian even setup a trail camera that would flash if it detected movement from a quoll on the hare. After having a good wander and getting to know the local inhabitants I had a relaxing beer and awaited darkness.

Red-necked Wallaby

As it got dark the Brush-tailed possums were the first to appear, looting the bird feeders and some cut up fruit put out for the bettongs. After half an hour there was no sign of quoll or bettong and a fierce electrical storm hit dumping large amounts of rain in a short period. At this stage I was worried I was heading for a double dip! Eventually the rain started to clear and I saw my first Rufous Bettong – over the course of the night I saw at least eight individuals and they are now on my patted list after very slowly crawling up to one. Excellent stuff! There were no signs of quolls and no flashes from the camera so I spent many hours exploring the property. There were a number of frogs around including Ornate Burrowing Frog (Platyplectrum ornatum), Red-eyed Treefrog (Litoria chloris) and Stony-creek Frog (Litoria wilcoxii). Wandering around the property I also saw Echidna, Bush Rat, Sugar Glider, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and around 3am a female Powerful Owl called incessantly from across the hill. But unfortunately no quoll despite spotlighting from 7pm til 12:30 am and then getting up every hour after that.

Rufous Bettong

Litoria chloris

In the morning I slept in so I missed the Glossy Blacks that visited the yard but I did eventually get up and have another wander around the property before heading off. Adrian was very apologetic about the quolls and offered me the next night with no charge but as I said, no promises with wildlife! I will be back to this excellent property though, quolls or not, Lucas would love it. From here I headed north to a site near Oakey to search for Plum-headed Finch – Doctor’s Creek Reserve. Not having more information than the site name, I parked the car and walked down the power easement to the creek line where I pretty quickly saw two Plum-headed Finches flush and fly away into the distance! I was quite torn as I know they were PHF and I got ok binocular views but it was hardly a satisfying experience. I should not have worried though as I soon found more birds which gave good views, TICK! This site seemed to be a pretty good birding spot with White-throated Gerygone calling and a number of other nice birds around but I could not stay and had to move on. I had read David Andrew’s new Mammal Finding Guide which mentioned there was a Little Red Flying-Fox colony at Kearney’s Springs Historical Park in Toowoomba and as I needed this for the year list I diverted there. When I got there I could only find Black Flying-Fox and eventually a few Grey-headeds but no Reds… and then I read the council signs which also suggested these were the only two species here. This was a couple of hours diversion but at least I got to visit Super Rooster for a chicken fix. From Toowoomba I headed north to Lake Perseverance which is well known for being a good spot for Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby. Despite it being mid afternoon and quite hot I was quickly able to spot a couple of animals on the dam wall. This seems to be the kind of place it would be worth coming back after dark as the wallabies would likely be feeding on the lawns. Still it was a decent twitch and I could not be too fussy. From here I went to the nearby Cressbrook Dam which is supposed to be good for Red Deer but all I found were Eastern Greys. I dropped back in at Perseverance on the way back out and got good views of a Rock-wallaby foraging in the creekline below.

Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby hiding

Final destination for the day was the main Dandabah campground at Bunya Mountains National Park where I had booked a site. I arrived just before dark and quickly set up the tent before heading to the “bat house” which is the largest known maternal roost for Chocolate Wattled Bat in Australia. I got excellent views of the animals leaving under red light but even that seemed to bother them a bit so I left to their own devices and headed out into the rainforest. Great Barred Frogs (Mixophyses fasciolatus) were calling all night and were everywhere on the paths – after the third one jumped into me I stopped freaking out (much). My main target here was Black-striped Wallaby and after about an hour of spotlighting I found one which gave unsatisfactory views. I continued to search but was rudely interrupted by a pair of Sooty Owls trilling their heads off above me for a good 20 minutes. I eventually found more Black-striped Wallabies with the area around the Tim Shea Falls beings best – they were much shyer than the much more common Red-necked Wallaby and quite distinctive looking with a different gait. Quite happy I headed back to the campground to enjoy a quiet birthday beer and update my records.

Mixophyses fasciolatus

I could not be kept in camp however with a nearby calling Sooty Owl again calling me out for another couple of hours spotlighting. This time I added Long-nosed Bandicoot to the day list as well as getting some nice pics of Short-eared Brushtail Possum before escaping to bed a little later than intended. I was rather unimpressed by a rather nasty looking spider beside the tent which had me checking bedding and the like as I had left the tent partly open. In the morning I did a bit of birding down some of the rainforest paths picking up some nice rainforest species. From here I had a bit of a conundrum – do I go and chase a nice suite of birds I need around Rainbow Beach or do I go after the next Petrogale up the coast – the Herbert’s Rock-wallaby. Of course I chose the rock-wallaby and headed a few hours away to a site in the Andrew’s Mammal Finding Guide – the Auburn River National Park. Unfortunately when I arrived at the Auburn River NP it was already after lunch time and the temperature was mid 30’s and humidity high. The guide mentioned a lookout that was good for looking for the wallabies but this was overgrown so I had to venture down into the gorge. I loaded up on a heap of water and there was plenty of water in the gorge but over the next few hours of searching I pushed myself a bit far and ended up with something close to heatstroke. In three hours or so of searching I didn’t even find any rock-wallaby scat so they are probably not in particularly high numbers at this location and certainly searching during the heat of the day was quite foolish! When I finally got back to the car I had a celebratory chunder for the dip and then spent the next half hour trying to cool down.

Short-eared Brushtail Possum

Bitey McBitey

I decided to cut my losses on the rock-wallaby and made a beeline for the Cooloola National Park on the coast arriving just on dusk at the famous T&T powerline site. I heard at least six Ground Parrot calling at this location and shortly after true dark I was rewarded with brief but excellent views of a Grass Owl which I squeaked in. I had heard that playback was useless at this location due to many years of overplaying but did find my poor squeaking imitation of a dying rodent worked well enough although the owl fled as soon as I put light on it. Over the next half an hour I had several more brief views and heard it trilling a number of times. It was very depressing to see the numbers of Cane Toads at this site…. On the way out I flushed a couple of White-throated Nightjar from the road. I camped at Inskip Point and was murdered by sandflies in the morning. I spent half an hour looking for BBBQ but only found old platelets before I had to make a beeline for Tin Can Bay. Tin Can Bay gives an opportunity every morning to see Australian Hump-backed Dolphins being fed at Barnacles Dolphin Centre – http://www.barnaclesdolphins.com.au/ and today was no exception with four dolphins visiting. It is quite a good experience and only costs $5 which in turn gives you $2 off a better than average coffee so well worth a visit. It is only moderately touristy and the volunteers know what they are talking about and it gives you a good chance to get close to an otherwise somewhat difficult species to see. In the nearby mangroves I was also able to fill a rather embarrassing hole in my bird list, finally picking up Mangrove Honeyeater which tried to land on my head when I pished – good times.

Australian Hump-backed Dolphin

Not sure why they are called Hump-backed Dolphins….

About now I was quite stuffed from the previous days exertions and several nights of little sleep so I headed slowly back to Brisbane birding at a couple of sites without seeing anything spectacular. I ended up heading to the lounge early to enjoy a beer or three while updating notes and entering ebird records. In the end the damage was 14 new mammals for the year list and 4 new birds for the life list! Pretty good going! I will be back for that quoll and that rock-wallaby however! Thanks to Lucas and Sim for letting me escape.

In possum country

Posted on March 6, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

The monthly Portland pelagic was cancelled so I was looking for something to do on Saturday evening. I decided to go spotlighting for a change as it had been a week and I was having withdrawal symptoms. It was late notice but Jono and Chris stepped up to the plate and met me out at Powelltown at 8pm – the Powelly pub was going bananas with at least 5 cars there but we resisted the urge to go in and evangelise in this hard core logging town on the virtues of the Leadbeater’s possum and a Great Forest National Park. We headed north to our first stop which was just on true dark – Jono heard a Sooty which was a good sign but it was a false dawn as it was the only Tyto heard for the night. I had recently acquired a low end bat detector so waved that around a bit and I can confirm that indeed there are bats around and I can hear them with the device. In fact bats were a feature of the night, at every stop we had many microbats of various sizes and flight patterns zipping around but unfortunately all remain unidentified aside from the White-striped Free-tailed Bat which was heard and even spotlit at most stops. After a bit of stuffing around it was time to get serious so we headed off to find some possums.

We stopped at a spot I had seen Leadbeater’s earlier in the year and after a bit of pishing Chris was able to get onto a couple of Leadbeater’s possums which got the night off to a good start. Further up the road there were a number of Geocrinia victoriana calling and then at least three Leadbeater’s possum zipping around the area. At one stage two were on a branch and I almost got a good pic but without time to setup properly just ended up with some blurred blobs. Still it was great to observe their behaviour and again we heard their drumming call. A lyrebird calling at 10pm was somewhat novel.

Two Leadbeaters in the one frame – pity about the focus

Further up the hill we went to an area of regrowth which is regularly frequented by various types of possums due to the prevalence of thick hickory and silver wattle. Tonight was no exception with good views of Sugar Glider and a number of Bobucks including one fatty that was as wide as it was tall. Also throughout this area we came across individual Leadbeater’s Possum that clearly travel into the area to feed from roosting sites nearby. I need to come back here during the day to see just how close the nearest suitable stags are as they are not immediately apparent from the road. Was fortunate enough to have one animal come quite close for photo opportunities but again I had a double failure – first failing to turn the flash on when it was closest and then not nailing the shot when it leapt from one trunk to another. Still we again got to observe these animals – the way they move is diagnostic with no other Australian mammal like it. I was now a couple of Canadian Club and dry cans in and with 8 or so Leadbeater’s under the belt it was turning into a good night. Here we had the standard nightly run in with some friendly boguns in a 4wd who were suitably amazed when we said we were looking for possums and owls although they understood better when I explained it goes well with a couple of cans.

Turn the flash on muppet

This could have been great!

From here we headed into new areas and at the first stop we jumped out of the car and heard a Limnodynastes calling. Whilst the others were chasing frogs I managed to pish up some Leadbeater’s quickly and we soon had 3 performing quite nicely. At one stage I had three on the same branch but it was too overgrown to get a shot!

Moving on again we stopped at the top of a likely looking hill and started walking down. This proved to be great country with Yellow-bellied Glider calling and good numbers of Bobucks and Ringtails. As we moved down we had two excellent Greater Gliders on a branch staring down at us – one was a white morph and one the more regular dark morph. I have only rarely seen the white morph in these forests so it was very cool to watch and photograph these cracking animals. Of course we were distracted from the Gliders by performing Leadbeater’s possum with a number of animals seen as we walked about 800 meters down the hill. It was now about 12:30 so it was time to call it a night with the drive back to Powelltown being largely uneventful.

A relatively slim Bobuck

This pair of Greater Glider was a highlight of the night

Pretty good night really – out of 7 spots we had Leadbeater’s Possum at 6 of them with 3 of those sites being new for me. We saw a conservative minimum of 18 individual LBP but it was likely higher than this. Records will be submitted to the appropriate authorities for the LBP and Greater Gliders. Somewhat surprisingly the only mammals seen were possums and gliders (6 species) and the microbats and the only birds heard (by me) were Boobook and a single Owlet-nightjar. 3 species of frog rounded out the vertebrate list. It was a long drive back home from Powelltown but well worth it and I am already looking forward to the next night out. #GFNP If anyone wants to come and help identify the myriad of microbats out there please let me know!

Nice pair

If only….

Posted on February 28, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

After having such good fortune on most of my spotlighting trips this year I was about due for a quiet one. I headed out to Bunyip late afternoon for a bit of pre-spotlighting exploring of a new area which had no tracks marked on the map. After a bit of poking around I was able to find a management track into the area I was interested in but it was very quiet with only a few birds seen and nothing of particular interest. Still it was a worthwhile exercise with large areas of Banksia spinulosa about to come into flower which will be worth checking shortly. Headed into Gembrook for dinner and met up with my two companions for the evening Dean and Chris. Chris is a bit of a veteran of my spotlighting nights but this was the first time I had managed to drag Dean out. A few White-throated Needletails hawked above Gembrook before dusk.

We headed to the Helipad arriving right on dusk but no nightjars were evident although a Sooty did call from Ash Landing Road. Another reliable nightjar spot again drew a blank – perhaps they are starting to head North as they were very much in evidence last week. My main target for the night was to try and photograph the Masked Owl I had seen last week so we headed over to the area. We had some distant call response but no action so after half an hour moved on to another spot. Many of the eucalypts were flowering so there were large numbers of Grey-headed Flying-foxes around which I don’t recall seeing in such numbers in Bunyip State Park before. A Greater Glider also fed on the blossum and Sugar Gliders yapped from various places. Many, many microbats flitted around which remain frustratingly unidentified.

We headed to Mortimer’s Picnic Ground where the well known juvenile Sooty Owl continued to show well while calling incessantly although staying too far away for photos. Mum (or Dad) called from nearby but did not show so we headed back to the original site. After poking around there for half an hour with a gliding Sugar Glider the highlight we were about to get in the car when a Sooty Owl called from directly above the car. This bird looked to be an adult male on size but had a bit of a teenagers voice as its bomb calls cracked and warbled. Still it gave great views and photo opportunities, particularly for Dean with his excellent camera setup. While we were admiring and photographing this owl, the Masked Owl started calling strongly from down the road so I jumped off to chase it. Unfortunately it shut up after a couple of minutes and did not call again while we were there which was somewhat disappointing. Still the Sooty Owl decided to follow us down the road, trilling as it went giving us more photo opportunities. In the end we left it there and for all we know it is calling still.

All in all a good but not great night with walk away views of the Sooty Owl and 12 identified mammal species – will be back out again soon.

EBIRD LIST

Sooty Owl – Bunyip State Park

If only the flash had fired 🙁

A bit of Bunyip action

Posted on February 22, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

It is no secret that Bunyip State Park is my favourite place to go birding and I had been meaning to take Lucas camping here for ages. So when a spare Saturday night came up and with Simone safely out for the night we took off for a spot of camping. After a bit of exploring we chose a campsite at the Nash Creek campground which we had largely to ourselves. There were some nice birds around with Red-browed Treecreeper, Rufous Fantail and Rose Robin being camp ground birds. Lucas had a ball and was great to see him so excited exploring the area and doing his own brand of nature watching. He is fascinated by the natural world around him as are most children and I hope he never loses it.

Lucas and his cave

On dusk we did some spotlighting and Lucas was very pleased to see his first Greater Gliders in the tree above the tent as well as many Swamp Wallabies coming out to feed on the grass. After Lucas went to bed we were visited by a Long-nosed Bandicoot briefly and there were also Sugar and Yellow-bellied Gliders around the campground. Considering I didn’t leave the immediate area of the tent I ended up with a pretty decent mammal list. The highlight however was a lovely female Sooty Owl which came in and hung out above the tent for most of the night. It went through the full repertoire of calls including constant trilling and many bomb calls – a very cool experience with my favourite bird. Judging on size I believe it was an adult female and was a new territory for me. In the morning we packed up and pottered around in the park before heading home with Lucas already planning his next camping trip.

Greater Glider – Bunyip State Park

Sooty Owl – Bunyip State Park

As always it wasn’t too long before I was heading out to Bunyip again, this time last weekend with mate Paul Brooks from Tasmania. Paul has the privilege of being one of the few people I had failed to show a Sooty Owl to in a previous visit, even after a long night in the forest, so we were keen to fix that. We arrived at Mortimer’s Picnic Ground only to find the place packed for a “bush doof” dance party! Even Sooty Owls with their electronic trills could not compete with this so we moved on after a quick poke around. We drove across the park from this location and found Sugar and Yellow-bellied Gliders at the first location. A second stop and we finally had a Sooty Owl which snuck in quietly but was betrayed by the click of its talons on a branch. Paul got excellent looks at his first Sooty Owl which gave a nice bomb call as it moved off. On size I would have said this was a male bird and possibly the mate of the bird I had seen the previous weekend.

Sooty Owl peers down rather aloof

With the night now officially a success we moved on to the Helipad which was very quiet with no sign or sound of Nightjars. Further along the road we stopped again and heard two White-throated Nightjars before being interrupted by a couple of 4wd’s of your standard breed Bunyip bogan who were friendly enough until I asked them if they were after deer which made them shut right up. Pity as I would have told them where to go to find them! After they moved on we were lucky enough to get great views of the Nightjar in flight and perched high on a dead branch – another lifer for Paul!

Moving on we went to a new location that I thought looked good for Masked Owl – sure enough within minutes Paul noticed a bird fly in but when we searched it flew off but binocular views in the moonight and head torch revealed an excellent Masked Owl!! Great success! We hung around the area a while until a Masked Owl (presumably the same bird) started screaming incessantly but unfortunately as we walked up to try and get a photo a car went past and the bird shut up never to call again. Eventually a Sooty came in to see what all the racket was giving us our second bird of the night. I will certainly be heading back out soon to scope out this new location during daylight to look for likely roost places as well as trying to get that elusive photo.

Sooty Owl came in to see what all the racket was about

A last stop on the way out turned up good views of a Yellow-bellied Glider peering down at us from above before we finally decided to call it a night. As we travelled south out of the park I thought I saw eyeshine so slammed on the brakes and jumped out but it was only a can. I noticed plenty of flowering banksia around so jokingly said I would look for Eastern Pygmy Possum. Within a couple of minutes I noticed some eyeshine that I thought looked like a frog but on closer examination it was indeed an Eastern Pygmy Possum peering at me through the grass!! Excitedly summoning Paul to keep a light on it, I was able to snap some very bad pictures. As I contemplated trying to catch it, it slipped away quietly into the night. At the start of this year I had never seen a Pygmy Possum of any description and now less than two months into the year I have three species under the belt! Western and Long-tailed look out, here I come! As we cruised home we decided it had been an acceptable night…..

It is an Eastern Pygmy Possum, honest!!

As always I can highly recommend the downloadable map from the Parks Website and the use of the Avenza PDF Maps application – http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/bunyip-state-park

A good ordinary Portland Pelagic

Posted on February 8, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

“A good, ordinary Portland pelagic” – fateful words and one that all too often describes a pelagic over the Summer months out of Portland in SW Victoria – a pelagic with good numbers of ordinary birds but lacking that special one. After a week of favourable looking forecasts the trip was confirmed on the Friday night and I headed down with Scott Baker who gripped me continually with tales of his recent 6 week birding exploits in India. We had a bit of time before dinner so had a walk around Point Danger looking for vagrant penguins and had a quick glance at the Cape Gannet whose chick was coming along quite nicely. Was actually quite birdy with Blue-winged Parrots being chased by a nice Collared Sparrowhawk while Rufous Bristlebirds called in the background. On the way out a hunting White Goshawk was a nice bonus. The usual half a cow for dinner was not washed down with the usual beers as I am trying to do Febfast – something felt wrong and after casting the bones and examining the auguries it was clear that the signs for tomorrow were not good.

Great-winged Petrel coming in

At 7am we jumped aboard the Timaru of South West Charters and headed out to the shelf. As we past Lawrence Rocks we had a brief fly by of a jaeger but it was too far to get a positive ID. There were small numbers of common shearwaters offshore but almost no albatross were encountered until we hit the shelf. A small pod of Offshore Bottle-nosed Dolphins just before the shelf provided some interest and was a new one for my mammal year list. Conditions were very benign and remained so for the whole day – I wore shorts and had no regrets. As we hit the shelf we encountered a good sized pod of pilot whales for the third month running with some impressive bulls passing very close to the boat! Of course my camera was still in its bag inside the cabin…. after getting some cracking views of the whales I raced in and got the camera out only for the pod to be disappearing into the distance…. what could have been!

I could have had awesome pilot whale shots…..

We started berleying and soon gathered good numbers of birds behind the boat. A highlight was watching the Short-tailed Shearwaters diving deep chasing fish and liver scraps – sometimes remaining under the water for near a minute. There were good numbers of Great-winged Petrels with gouldii outnumbering macroptera about 10 to 1. We had a good amount of shark liver and the shark off-cuts were particularly fought over by albatross and petrel alike. Considering the summery conditions it was surprising that we only had a couple of White-chinned Petrels and Flesh-footed Shearwaters across the day.

Just a Shy

We are getting Nick from SW Charters quite well trained in the art of berleying now and he was keeping large numbers of birds interested. It was the sort of day where something rare could just fly through but if it did we missed it. Still there continued to be very good numbers of Great-winged petrel behind the boat at all times as well as shearwaters and Shy and Yellow-nosed Albatross. A late Buller’s Albatross was probably the bird of the day. There was some excitement when a large whale spouted beside the boat but it sunk beneath the water without showing any features and could not be relocated. The time of year would make a Blue Whale most likely but the spout didn’t seem right – sighting of the day gone begging!

Shy Albatross hooking in

I spent the whole way back in looking and hoping for a Blue Whale as they had been regularly seen over the proceeding few weeks but with no luck. A stop at Lawrence Rocks produced the usual fur-seals as well as views of the impressive gannet colony. Gannets now cover every possible nesting spot including some in some very precarious positions. I think there was an air of some slight disappointment as we docked – but still it was “a good ordinary Portland Pelagic” with birds many birders around the world would love to see.

Curious young seal

Ebird Species list – http://ebird.org/ebird/australia/view/checklist?subID=S27365843

The littlest possum

Posted on January 31, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

On Thursday I flew down with Rohan Clarke – http://www.wildlifeimages.com.au/ for back to back Eaglehawk Neck pelagic boat trips on the Friday and Saturday. We had flown in earlier than usual as we had originally intended to chase Tasmanian Tree Frog (Litoria burrowsae) but apparently they had not been calling due to dry conditions – as it turns out we did not have to worry about dry conditions as it rained much of the weekend with the East coast in particular receiving some serious drenching. Instead of frog hunting we headed to Eaglehawk Neck and checked into the trusty Lufra Hotel. Despite the sketchy looking weather the pelagic was confirmed for the following day so we dropped bag and headed out for a bit of recce followed by some serious spotlighting. We dropped into Fortescue Bay, scoping out some likely looking places before heading down to Remarkable Cave which lived up to its name. Dropped into the Port Arthur Caravan park as soon as it was dark and eventually picked up a nice Long-nosed Potoroo among the numerous Pademelons.

Shitty phone pic inside the Remarkable Cave

Headed back to the Fortescue Bay entrance road which was the target site for the evening. Unfortunately the weather was setting in with rain squalls and an serious level of wind. As we headed down we were very lucky to see a small mammal on the road which turned out to to be a Little Pygmy Possum! This happens to be the smallest member of the possum family and an adult weighs between a 1/4 and and 1/8th of the Mountain Pygmy Possums we found earlier in the month. The possum was rescued from the road and placed in a shrub where we managed to get a couple of quick photos before it slipped away. It has to be a candidate for the cutest animal in Australia. This was a completely unexpected mammal tick for me and already made the weekend worthwhile! Despite recent reports of Tassie Devils in the area we didn’t see or hear much else of note that night but it was still a very successful evening!

Little Pygmy Possum – Fortescue Bay

12 of us jumped on the trusty Pauletta – http://www.paulettacharters.com/tours.html – at 7 am and headed out into lumpy seas. There was a fair bit of spray on the way out which made standing at the back a bit uncomfortable but excellent views of a Buller’s Shearwater more than made up for that. It was a bit of a strange day with the disappointment of not being able to get onto a couple of small Pterodromas being more than compensated by a South Polar Skua!!, several Great Albatrosses of various taxa and then a fantastic White-necked Petrel which was a lifer for me! This bird looped around the boat giving fantastic views for all on board. Paul Brooks, the doyen of all things Tasmanian Birding has indicated it is only the 5th Tasmanian record. Unfortunately due to the wet conditions I left my camera inside all day so have bugger all to show from these close approaches. As we were about to leave the final berley point a flyby of a Cook’s Petrel gave a nice but brief view. The trip back in was largely unpleasant with heavy rain and a bit of swell making it a rather damp experience. Still – running at 1 mammal and 1 bird tick and some cracking loose change it was already an awesome trip!

White-necked Petrel courtesy of Rohan Clarke – http://www.wildlifeimages.com.au/

After a slab of cow and a couple of beers at the Lufra, Rohan and I headed out again to the Fortescue Bay road to again search for Devils and other mammalian targets. Rohan had a FLIR which pics up heat signatures so we had a crack in the floristically diverse areas along the entrance road and down near the Fortescue Bay campground. Aside from a few Brushtails and some roosting birds the highlights were a few frogs brought out by the damp conditions. Of interest we both heard a White-striped Freetail Bat on the Fortescue Bay Road calling and then doing a feeding sequence which does not seem to be known from Tasmania – inquiries with bat experts in Tasmania are continuing. As we headed back intending to do a quick loop around the peninsula disaster struck with a large wattle tree across the only exit road!! We tried to move it but with 10 meters of trunk back into the scrub we were well stuck. Back 10km to the campground and Rohan spoke to a few drunk campground denizens before having to wake up the awesome ranger Matt who drove out and chopped up the tree in 2 minutes with his chainsaw. We were lucky to get back to the hotel by 12:30am when it looked for a while that two not small gentlemen would have to overnight in a tiny Barina! 8 trips up and down the Fortescue bay road over 2 nights = 0 Devils.

Litoria ewingii – Tasmanian animals sound slightly higher

Crinia tasmaniensis

Was a bit dusty when the alarm went off but again we were back at the dock at 7am for another trip on the Pauletta – http://www.paulettacharters.com/tours.html Conditions today were much better and it wasn’t long on the way out until again we had great views of a Buller’s Shearwater behind the boat which looped a bit giving everyone a good look. Soon after a small pale shearwater flew past the back of the boat which I had excellent views of – was very pale underneath with no triangle in the armpit typical of Fluttons types but had a very solid cap at eye level or lower which threw me a bit as I was used to extra white on the face from Aussie birds. It was a Little Shearwater and independent descriptions from others on the boat confirmed as likely from the Sub-antarctic elegans population. great start to the trip!

Across the rest of the day we had other excellent sightings including three Long-tailed Jaegers giving close approaches, a lovely adult Salvin’s Albatross, 3 Wandering types and best of all 2 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters which are a Mega off Tassie! although most of the boat were not impressed. Given the warmer water and birds like White-necked Petrel across the weekend I guess it was not unexpected to get Wedge-tailed Shearwater although there are actually very few records off Tassie! Jack Moorhead again proved to be an awesome Cookalaria spotter calling a Gould’s Petrel very early giving everyone the chance to get great views. Had a very relaxing trip back in interrupted by disappointing views of another Little Shearwater type. On the way back to the airport we checked out a few wader spots around Orielton Lagoon although didn’t see much wader action aside from 60 odd Pacific Golden Plovers before checking in for the flight home and a well earned beer. Thanks to Rohan for organising an awesome weekend and Simone and Lucas for letting me go! Was also very good to catch up with my Tassie pelagic friends and meet a pile of new ones. And yes – the highlight was the littlest possum….

Exulans

Young Exulans

Going a little batty

Posted on January 17, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

As someone who regularly goes out spotlighting in the forests around Melbourne I regularly encounter large numbers of microbats flitting around, particularly on warm Summer nights. Aside from the large and audible White-striped Freetail Bat these largely remain unidentified to the casual observer and at best get filed under microbat sp. There are apparently some 16 species recorded in the Greater Melbourne area (although only 5 make it into the inner suburbs) so I was keen to look at ways of exploring this under appreciated part of our mammalian fauna. A bit of googling found the excellent work done by Robert Bender and Steve Griffiths at Wilson Reserve and Organ Pipes with the ongoing bat box monitoring and bat banding programs – https://batboxes.wordpress.com/ On the website I noted that monitoring was on Saturday at Wilson Reserve so I came along to see what it was all about. Wilson Reserve is well known in birding circles as an excellent spot for Powerful Owls although I did not have a chance to have a look this time. At 3pm a couple of cars with ladders rolled in which I rightly assumed meant they were here to check the bats. Robert was very personable and quickly made me feel welcome and I was given the very important job of holding a bag of “important stuff” while we went around and checked the various bat boxes. There are 26 boxes up at Wilson Reserve over a space not much larger than a couple of acres and are roughly split into a forest and a meadow area. My group was given the task of checking the forest area which consisted of Robert climbing the ladder to a precarious height of 5 to 6 meters and reporting on the content of the boxes. In the forest area there was little found aside from a few Huntsmen guarding eggsacs. We moved on to the last few boxes in the meadow where we found two boxes with about 10 bats each – mostly Gould’s Wattled Bat and a few Eastern Broad-nosed Bats. It is not til you see these in someone’s hand that you realise how small they actually are. The bat’s are caught, bagged and taken back to Robert’s house for processing – this clearly does not stress these bats too much – they have been doing it for years and regularly retrap the same bats and have to follow strict ethical guidelines.

Gould’s Wattled Bat ready for processing

Processing ran like a well oiled machine and I must admit I felt like a bit of a third wheel for a while until I found my niche as an umbrella holder shading the processors. To handle and process bats you need to have a complete rabies vaccination and some training which Robert and Steve are more than happy to help with. In addition to the processors there are scribes who record all the measurements and more importantly remind the processor what is missing – when there are over 50 bats to process this is very important. I was fortunate to meet “white-spot” – a female Gould’s Wattled Bat who has been around the 5 years of the WIlson Reserve banding program and has been re-caught over 40 times. There were 2 species caught across the day – the majority Gould’s Wattled Bat (~50) and around 5 Eastern Broad-nosed Bats. The EBN Bats are noticably smaller than the Gould’s and clearly occupy a different ecological niche – so much so that they are tolerated in the same boxes as the larger Goulds. There is a fantastic body of knowledge being built up through this program and a lot of thanks must go to Robert and his tireless work. Eventually I graduated to scribe duties where Robert gave me advice on the acceptable ranges for measurements to help eliminate human error in the records.

Eastern Broad-nosed Bat

Gould’s Wattled Bat

I get the feeling that these programs – https://batboxes.wordpress.com/ – are running from the smell of an oily rag so always need volunteers – so if you are curious and want to get involved, come along and have a look – even if it is just to hold an umbrella or carry a ladder. I know I will be bringing Lucas along sometime soon to have a look at these fascinating mini-beasts.

Checking reproductive status of Gould’s Wattled Bat

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay to see the bats released in the evening although I will certainly do so in the future. From the leafy suburbs of Ivanhoe I drove east an hour and half to Powelltown where I met up with Steve Davidson – http://www.themelbournebirder.com/ and Jono Dashper – Flickr for a spot of spotlighting. Neither of them had seen Leadbeater’s Possum so that was to be the primary target for tonight’s somewhat limited time budget. We headed out north of Powelltown and reasonably quickly found a couple of Leadbeater’s Possum which gave good views although the photographic opportunities were limited. After a great experience we moved on – hearing a distant Sooty Owl at one site and encountering some Bobucks and YB Gliders at another. After a few frogs we left for a relatively early, but successful night.

Leadbeater’s Possum

Litoria ewingii – recent morph

Epic couple of days

Posted on January 15, 2016 by CorwinCaelin

At the start of last year if you told me I would have had been able to see and photograph a wild Leadbeater’s Possum at close range I would probably not have believed you. But thank’s to the excellent field skills of Rohan Clarke – http://www.wildlifeimages.com.au/ – I was able to spend a number of nights out in the Mountain ash forests around Melbourne having close encounters with Leadbeater’s Possum and even getting a couple of reasonable images. If it was possible to get good photos of the “critically endangered” Leadbeater’s Possum we wondered if the same could be done for another endangered possum – the Mountain Pygmy-possum. I spent a fair bit of time researching online information and chatting to some people in the know and hatched a plan to try and see Mountain Pygmy-possum in Victoria – Simon Mustoe http://simonmustoe.wildiaries.com/ was particularly helpful. Rohan and I had set a few days aside at the start of the New year to have a crack in the Victorian High Country but the report of the first Paradise Shelduck for the mainland turning up at Lake Wollumbulla in NSW caused a change of plan. The Shelduck is usually only found in New Zealand and there had been no confirmed mainland records for Australia so the bird was well lost. We would drive up to Lake Wollumbulla on New Years Day, twitch the duck and then head to Kosciusko National Park for one night trying to find the Mountain Pygmy-possum – sounds easy really.

It was somewhat strange to go to a New Year’s Eve party and hardly drink but it meant I could be up at a reasonable hour on New Year’s day for the trip up the Hume. We arrived with a couple of hours of daylight left and quickly found the duck and were able to spend a fair bit of time with it without interruption. We were somewhat surprised at the lack of people looking for the duck but I guess the Sydney locals would have already twitched it and the interstaters were still coming. At this point I realised I could no longer claim to have never gone interstate to twitch a vagrant bird – the start of a slippery slope towards becoming a twitcher perhaps? On the way out in the increasing gloom we managed to pick out the other famous vagrant at the site at the moment – the Hudsonian Godwit – a bird that more normally inhabits the Americas. I had seen a couple of times before in Victoria but it was still very nice to see. We spent a few hours spotlighting in the State Forest and National Park south of Lake Wollumbulla without much success – most of the forest roads were gated and there was ridiculous amounts of traffic on the roads for the time of night.

Paradise Shelduck – a long way from home

Up at dawn we were back at the duck and were able to spent a good couple of hours observing and photographing the bird. It was very wary and alert which made approach difficult and again was a point to it being a wild bird. Lake Wollumbulla is a great place with tonnes of birds and with the extra attention of birders is bound to turn up more interesting sightings over the next few years. As we left the first birders started to arrive with quite a crowd building up. The drive to Kosciusko was interesting, passing through a number of National Parks and reserves. At Jerrawangala National Park I saw my first Rockwarbler in over ten years at a site which must be getting close to the southern most part of their range.

Rohan approaching the duck

After a stop off in Cooma for lunch and supplies we made it to the might Kosciusko National Park with plenty of time for reconnaissance and exploration. I had never been to this area before and it is quite spectacular – will need to return sometime to further explore. We identified a couple of rocky boulder/scree slopes with low heathy vegetation that is supposed to be the preferred habitat of the pygmy-possum. On dark we setup in locations with a good view of area to listen, watch and wait. The weather was closing in fast and the radar showed significant rain on the way. The first small mammal seen was a Bush Rat which seems to be quite common at this altitude. White-striped Freetail Bats were clicking around, several times nearly running into me – with no tree canopy they were much easier than normal to get a spotlight on. Eventually after hearing many soft little noises of small mammals we were able to get fleeting then excellent views and even photographs of the Mountain Pygmy-possum in between squalls of wind and rain. This had to be one of my best wildlife experiences to date and there were two very happy observers! I was extremely happy to get the few photos below – I missed the tail but I can live with that. I was quite surprised how chunky the animals were but I guess they need serious fat reserves to survive winters at this location.

Mountain Pygmy-possum playing peekaboo

We ended up being quite fortunate with the weather because no sooner had we packed up the camera gear and got in the car that the rain really started to pour down. We spent a bit of time driving around in the rain listening for the endangered subspecies alpina of the Verreaux’s Tree Frog without any luck – all we heard were a few Crinia’s. Still we could hardly complain after the cracking success of the evening! Further spotlighting and slow driving found some more common mammals including Wombat, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Red-necked Wallaby, Swamp Wallaby, Brush-tailed Possum and near the park entrance a small group of Fallow Deer expanding their range. We drove the back route through the south of Kosciusko National Park to get home the next day which was impressive and had a brief stop at Burrowa-Pine National Park in NE Victoria which will require further exploration in the future. All in all a very successful couple of days and now time to work on the next target 😉

Mountain Pygmy-possum coming out to play

Mountain Pygmy-possum is curious

Mountain Pygmy-possum posing on stage