Sunday, November 24, 2013

Capital Weekend

It was decided to have a weekend close to home, so no long road trip, just a couple of outings in between cleaning up my patch in the garden and catching up with friends.

On my drive to work, I often pass birders setting off for an early morning walk through Callum Brae Nature Reserve. The lucky buggers!  So, Saturday morning and I was up at sparrows. There were already a couple of cars parked, at the gate on Mugga Lane when I arrived at 6:00. The circuit of the reserve took about 90 minutes. This is definitely the best time of day, and no snakes.
Birds of note were, Black faced cuckoo-shrike, Wedge Tail Eagle, Straited Thorn-bills nesting, Rufous Whistler and Buff Rumped Thorn-bill. 17 species all up, that I could confidently identify. 

Sunday morning, we finished off the last of the cleanup of spent annuals in the front garden. Time to pack a picnic lunch, load the kayaks onto the trailer and head the 20 minutes down the road south to Tharwa Village on the edge of the Namadgi National Park.
 We are so lucky to have this great area on our doorstep, our destination today was the Tharwa Sandwash and the Gigerline Nature Reserve. We have walked this area a few times, but this was our first paddle in the Murrumbidgee River.

The Sandwash parking area has nice shade trees, with picnic tables. There is easy carry to the river for the kayaks via a  rock stairway. A group had been camping overnight in swags. Fishing is not permitted, I didn't see any No Camping signs.

We headed up stream towards Angle Crossing. There were plenty of birds visible along the banks, of special note was a Black fronted Dotterel, all on its lonesome and 2 Little Corellas.
Mr P hoisted his sail, and copped some heckling from the campers. He  made good time up stream with the wind. This is still very much a work in progress, so no photos yet. We decided that we needed to adapt a fly proof eating area, before our trip in May. Another use for my large roll of camouflage netting.  

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Sunday, November 17, 2013

Far South Coast Weekend

After consulting the Bureau of Met. on Friday it was decided that the proposed trip to Bendalong would have to be postponed.  The rain depression along the coast was moving north and the Far South Coast  looked like having more stable weather. We decided to take the Snowy Mountains Highway down the Brown Mountain to Bermagui on Friday afternoon.

We arrived at Bermi (local lingo) around 7 oclock and the southerly was still in full swing. We found a camp near Wallaga Lake and settled in for the night, we were a little closer to the road that we would have usually pulled up. fortunately the rain drummed out any traffic sounds.

Saturday morning and Wallaga Lake was alive with birds, it was too choppy for a paddle so we picked up the SMH and headed to Camel Rock. The rain had now stopped and I set off to walk to around the headland back to the lake via Murana Point. Mr P settled in with the paper and his new Wilbur Smith read.

North of Camel Rock

Mt Dromaderry and Wallaga Lake     


Shell Midden on Murana Point


The headland scrub was alive with superb fairy wrens, whip birds and red browed finches. Birds of note were 2 juvenile sea eagles and a wedge tail eagle hunting around the cliff.




I then spent the rest of the morning checking the 100s of dead Shearwaters on the beach for bands.  Gruesome task, the odds of finding a banded bird are a bit like winning the lottery.




Saturday, November 9, 2013

Bird Banding at Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve, NSW

Many thanks go to my gorgeous nephew Lee and Master Bird Bander, Mark Clayton for including me in their latest bird banding trip to Charcoal Tank, NR near West Wyalong.

Friday was going to be a scorcher with an expected 37 degrees forecast for the western plains. I left Canberra around midday and stopped to stock up on supplies in Yass. I wasn't going to need much in the way of food, the plan was to eat out both nights. My rendezvous point with the banders was the West Wyalong Services Club at 1900 hours.

The wheat harvest is currently in full swing across most of the central west area, local croppers were casting nervous eyes skyward as the cool change and storm clouds rolled in. By the time I had reached Barmedman, the storm had passed and the temperature dropped to 2O dregees, it was still very humid.

Barmedman grain silo

I arrived at the club in WW and watched as car loads of very glamorous looking folk piled inside, definately not birders! More like a night at the Logies, all that was missing was the red carpet. Turns out it was the year 12 formal. Fridays night's dinner was pretty ordinary, it was decided to try another regular haunt, the Long Hong Chinese restaurant for tommorrow night.

There is no shortage of hotels, motels and restaurants along Main street. The town is at the intesection of 3 highways and half way point between Brisbane and Adelaide. The reason for the trip was not to crtitque restaurants and look at beautiful old federation architecture, but to band birds.
Federation architecture in West Wyalong
Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve has been the site of a very comprehensive banding program for the past 19 years. The reserve conserves a woodland of mugga iron bark and black cypress pine growing on the lower slopes and green, blue and bull mallee on gravelly ridges.
Lee carefully releases a White Plumed Honeyeater 
Mr Red-capped robin is banded

Bird paparazzi

The banding party was made up of members of the Canberra Ornitholigists Group as well as bird banders from Sweden and Canberra.  Any time spent in good company and in the outdoors is always rewarding and I added another 10 birds to my life list.

 I departed the camp at 930hrs on Sunday and headed for the mineral pool at Barmedman; a flushing loo, a shower and a swim in the mineral pool, just what I need after a couple of nights bush camping. I also managed to pick up 3 White Winged Trillers that I missed at CT as well as a new bird for me, a White Browed Woodswalllow. It was soon time to chase the storms back to Canberra and plan for the next adventure.

Mineral Pool at Barmedman


Sunday, November 3, 2013

Narooma, swimming, fishing and wooden boats

No work Friday, meant that we headed to the coast early. Mr P took Dusty down  the mountain on Thursday and I hitched a lift with No1 daughter and No1 grandchild on early Friday morning. We made for Batemans Bay, we had a date with family to make our Christmas puddings.

Puddings made and Mr P arrived showing off his fishing spoils from the previous night. We hit the road south at around 2 o'clock for a night of fishing up the river. No joy on the fishing front, it was a perfect night though for dinner around the fire and a bottle of red.  Saturday dawned and I set off for an early morning paddle, at that magic time when the mist  rises off the water, before the breeze comes up. P kept up with the fishing, but apart from being bitten off by a stingwray it was pretty uneventful.
Nice flathead


After a clean up of rubbish from  around the camp site we headed into Narooma for the Wooden Boat Afloat at Fosters Bay. It was a picture perfect day for snappers, Narooma has the most amazing blue water and you need a just the right light to show it off.




Fosters Bay has some really cute boat sheds. After a wander through the sheds set up as art galleries and some lunch we drove over to Bar Beach, to do what everyone does at Bar, sit and chat with mates, swim and more chatting. Fortunately we made the most of the glorious weather before the Southerly hit on Sunday mid morning.