Today in the USA

Back on the 'net

2009-01-06T10:04:00.003+11:00

Hey blogreaders, I'm finally back on the net! So I'm fairly behind because, believe it or not, it is in fact possible to be unable to get on the Internet in the US. Also, there were shiny things. Many shiny things. So here's the deal. My flight home is tomorrow. I can't upload any more photos til I get home. I will finish this blog. So stay tuned, this will get finished, with many photos. For those of you who live in Brisbane there will be a slideshow at some point too. With non-bird photos, I promise :)

So for now, I hope you all had a great Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever else), a very Happy New Year, and watch this space...

The Week in Review part 3

2008-12-19T07:24:00.002+11:00

Ok, so now the birdy stuff is out of the way (for now), I'll talk about some of the other things we did in New York. In between my brushes with nature I had some brushes with culture. The Natural History Museum I've already spoken about, but I also visited the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim, both famous for their art collections.

The Met is an art museum in grand style. It consists not just of paintings and sculptures, but also of history and culture (read: plundered treasures of proud ancient civilisations) in the style of the British Museum. I won't get into the curatorial debate about allowing the world to see vs returning to the country of origin, mostly because I'm not sure where I stand on the whole thing. Regardless, it is amazing to walk through the museum and see so much of human history on display. In the Egyptian section, for example, there is a whole tomb complete with carvings, painted walls (mostly intact) and statues. Last time I visited I spent most of my time in the Arms and Armour section so this time I resolved to try some of the other parts of the museum collection. Our family friends from Jacksonville, Florida (with whom I am now staying) were visiting us in New York, and Janice and I went through the Egyptian, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine and Mediaeval sections. The collections of religious (gold) artefacts from the Byzantine collections were particularly impressive, and cast a most informative light on possible motives for the Crusades back in the Middle Ages. The artistry of most of the items, and similarly the Roman and Mediaeval objects in the museum was amazing. I often feel this need for useful items to also be beautiful has been lost in modern times (though not always, think Apple). I think maybe one reason is that people often equate beautiful with expensive, so to convince a lot of people to buy a product you have to make it *look* like they can afford it. I'm not sure, I'm not into marketing. Anyway back to the museum. The Mediaeval section was surprisingly boring - mostly tapestries and religious statuary. The craftsmanship on them was amazing, but there's only so much of that I can take before I want to move on. The Egyptian and Roman sections were, of course, great. However, having spent a lot of time in the British Museum has probably jaded me on this a bit. No one really does either Egyptian or Roman quite as well as the Brits (though I hear the Cairo Museum is starting to come close) so while I can appreciate the collections at the Met are fantastic, there just isn't that wow factor there anymore. All in all an afternoon at the Met is a great way to pass time in New York and I highly recommend it for anyone coming here. Incidentally, the Arms and Armour section from memory was spectacular so make sure you get there if you can.

The Guggenheim is a very different animal to the Met. It isn't a museum, not really. It is very strongly an art gallery. It appears to specialise in Modern art. They have two main permanent exhibitions of very famous artists, and a series of spaces for current exhibitions to be put on. When we were there the main visiting exhibition was actually a series of photographic exhibitions by a single photographer. I was impressed that a photographer could get their work into the Guggenheim, but her style and subject matter (life in suburbia in the USA and sexuality) weren't really my cup of tea. I was far more interested in the permanent collections of work. Walking past works by Picasso, Van Gough, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Kandinsky etc is a kind of electric experience. Even if you don't always appreciate the craftsmanship of the works (some look like a child painted them), you have to appreciate that every single work in there is probably worth more than your house. And having criticised some of the artistry, I must say most of those pieces on display are well made, thought provoking and beautiful, all things I look for in art.

As well as the museums, we had one last brush with Broadway while I was there, to see a play called Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps. It was a short, comedic work based on a Hitchcock movie called the 39 Steps. The movie is a spy thriller full of rich characters and tense moments. The play is utterly ridiculous, but in a good way. Four actors (three men and a woman) play the entire cast of the movie. The scripting is frantic - in some cases a single actor is playing two or three people on stage. In fact a good deal of the humour in the play is based around these switches, and also in the many dropped references to Hitchcock's other movies. I think it was the actor playing Man #2 who impressed me most - his rendition of a rural scotsman innkeeper was so hilarious my family are still imitating him a week on.

So there you have it. Add in the Natural History Museum and the Lion King and we had a very rich cultural experience in the city that never sleeps. In short, a good time was had by all.

The week in Review part 2

2008-12-18T07:46:00.015+11:00

So on Sunday I had a fairly unusual opportunity - I was able to meet up with a friend who I have shown around Kakadu and Cape York (and met in Broome), to finally give them a chance to show me around their own stomping ground. I took a train out to Scarsdale and we drove from their into Connecticut to a place called Greenwich Point Park. It turns out my friend had organised our outing to conicide with a local Audubon group's field trip. I had a blast. It was great to catch up with Livia, but it was also an amazing opportunity to learn identification of the local birds, particularly gulls and sparrows. The morning had several highlights - the feeders in the park produced a number of woodland birds including a few new ones for me - Black-capped Chickadee and Hairy Woodpecker. As I said before, I'm really enjoying seeing the woodpeckers, and it was great to get a chance to see Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers side-by-side to see the subtle but definite differences in the two species. We had a few kinds of sparrows in the area too. I saw Song Sparrow and White-throated Sparrow well enough to identify, and saw a Savannah Sparrow duck into rocks but couldn't see the ID features (my companions identified the bird on features I couldn't see in time). The chickadee was a thrill for a whole different reason. Those of you who know me well enough might remember a t-shirt I wear occasionally that has a pair of birds on the front. Those birds are Black-capped Chickadees, and it was special to finally see some in real life. Of course I joke that they look like Great Tits (a bird found in England), so it looks like....eh, I'm sure you get it. Bird jokes, yeah...

Moving on. After our trip to the feeders (cut short by a dog illegally off its leash in the bird sanctuary) we headed out to the coastline. This is where things started to get very interesting. A Great Cormorant caused a bit of excitement among our hosts, so I gather it must be unusual for the area, or at least for the time of year. Horned Grebe were mucking around in the ocean nearby, and way out to sea we saw Red-fronted Mergansers and a single Common Loon. Further around the beach we started seeing a lot of gulls - mostly Herring Gull initially, but then many Ring-billed Gulls as well. Probably the most exciting bird of the day was a brief fly-by from a Bonaparte's Gull. I didn't get long to see it, but I clearly saw the white panels in the wings that are apparently diagnostic. Add in the Greater Black-Backed Gull and we had four gulls in a day, a feat which is nearly impossible in Australia, but evidently not too difficult over here. In amongst the gulls were around 30 Ruddy Turnstones, something which surprised me - I thought the waders would all be gone by now, but I'm assured some Turnstones and Purple Sandpipers (which we didn't see) overwinter in the area. Hooded and Common Merganser, Long-tailed Duck and Buffleheads rounded out our sea-going waterfowl for the morning, all of w hich were new bird for me. I missed a Belted Kingfisher that passed by (I saw a silhouette in flight so I can't really count it), but did see a Great Blue Heron and a Great Egret which really shouldn't have been there anymore but obviously hadn't yet migrated.

We rounded out the day chasing a vagrant Yellow-throated Warbler that was allegedly visiting someone's feeder nearby. I say allegedly because although the bird was seen at 7am the day we were there, by the afternoon it was nowhere to be found. We did have a nice chat with the owner of the house whose feeder it was, but eventually cold and the realisation that a Cooper's Hawk was hanging around the area drove us away.

Livia and I finished the day out having lunch in a hole-in-the-wall place in Scarsdale that was so busy people were standing waiting for tables for over half an hour. We sat at the counter and the food was definitely worth the inconvenience. All in all it was a great day.

For those interested, I saw the following birds in Connecticut on this trip:
Canada Goose
Brant Goose
Mallard
American Black Duck
Ruddy Duck
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Ruddy Turnstone
Bonaparte's Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Greater Black-Backed Gull
Town Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Monk Parakeet
Belted Kingfisher (silhouette only)
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Common Starling
Savannah Sparrow (too fast to ID)
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

The week in review

2008-12-18T05:37:00.021+11:00

Ok, ok, so I missed a few days. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida now, but I'll get to that in due course. First I need to tell you about the days in between. I'll lay it out in several posts (some bird-themed, some not). I've been sick as a dog the last four days or so, which isn't so much fun when the daily maximum is below freezing. However, I didn't let that stop me from getting out and about. I spent some time in Central Park with family and birding. At this time of year the park is a mix of green and brown, mostly brown. The trees have nearly all lost their leaves. On the cold days the puddles of water on the pavement turn to ice, which can be dangerous if you aren't watching where you put your feet. We were very lucky and had bright sunny mornings, though there was still ice on the paths despite the sun. Sorry Bonnie, this is going to get birdy for a while.

For those who know the park, the best birding was in two main areas. The Ramble, which is about level with 72nd St, was really great for woodland birds. The highlights for me were seeing woodpeckers (we don't get any in Australia). The Red-bellied Woodpecker and the amusingly named Yellow-bellied Sapsucker were obliging on the first day and I got some nice photographs. It's fun watching woodpeckers work up, down and around the branches of the trees - the pecking motion and the tapping noises on the tree when they "drill" for insects is somewhat surreal. It's hard to imagine headbutting a tree to get your food, but I suppose they must be used to it. I was also very happy to see a White-breasted Nuthatch - the first bird I managed to track down by call (not that I knew what was calling!). Nuthatches seem to be a lot like our Sitella - in both behaviour and shape. As I mentioned they have crazy sounding calls too - as famously mentioned in Charlie's Angels the movie (10 points if you remember the species mentioned without having to look it up). Bluejays and Northern Cardinals provided a splash of colour to the otherwise drab forest. For such a pretty bird, Bluejays have a horrible-sounding call. I visited the Ramble twice and can say that early morning is considerably better for birds, despite the cold.

A bit further north of the Ramble there were some trees with ripe berries that birds were going nuts over. We had many American Robins and Common Grackles foraging in the area, and a Downy Woodpecker a nd more Nuthatches scouring the tree trunks. There were lots of Tufted Titmouse (titmice?) in the area, which despite the name are actually a very cute bird, not a kind of rodent. Speaking of rodents there are thousands of Grey Squirrel in the park. While they are commonplace or even annoying for the locals, it was a real thrill to see them scurrying around, burying or digging up acorns and generally being playful.

The other spot that was great for birds was the large lake up near the Metropolitan Museum. There were many kinds of ducks, with my favourites being the Hooded Merganser and the Bufflehead. There was also a female American Wood Duck which probably should have migrated by now. My big day out birding involved a lot of waterbirds too, so I'll save some pictures for that post. More to follow.

For those who are interested, the list of birds I saw in Central Park was as follows:
Canada Goose
Gadwell
Northern Shoveler
Mallard
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
American Wood Duck
Ruddy Duck
American Black Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
American Coot
Mourning Dove
Town Pigeon
American Kestrel
Red-tailed Hawk
Hawk sp (Probably Cooper's)
Herring Gull
Greater Black-Backed Gull
Bluejay
Northern Cardinal
Northern Mockingbird
American Robin
Hermit Thrush
Common Grackle
Downy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Tufted Titmouse
Common Starling
American Goldfinch

Long Day

2008-12-13T23:52:00.003+11:00

So I'm throwing in some Matchbox 20 for variety. If this ends up being a soundtrack for my trip slideshow (and it may), its shaping up to be pretty eclectic. Friday was a pretty darn good day, but it was long. I started early, but delays getting everyone ready meant we didn't leave the apartment until nearly 10am. We headed down to the Marriott to meet the friends I'm staying with in Florida, and spent the morning looking at shop window displays. It's not a huge thing in Brisbane these days, but it used to be that the Myer Centre in the city would put up a special window display each Christmas and people would travel from a long way out of town to come see it. As I understand it, the window diplays here are similarly traditional and special. We ended up looking at a number of stores (you'd have to ask my sister which ones, the names mean very little to me), and I was impressed with the artistry behind them. We also made a pass by the Rockerfeller Center and saw their very impressive Christmas tree. They apparently have 30,000 lights on the tree, and the star at the top is made by Swarovski crystal and has emeralds and diamonds in it.

We stopped for lunch at a pub and Jacelyn's friend Emma joined us briefly. Emma lives here but is from Brisbane, so she has given us some hot tips for places to visit while we are here. Today we are trying drinks at the Boathouse in Central Park, I'll let you know how it goes...

In the afternoon I met up with a friend of mine who I know from online. Suzanne is an opera singer and she's in town for the audition season. We walked through the Christmas markets in Central Park, and then through the part itself down to some of the lakes. It was nice meeting someone face to face who I've spoken with so much online. She says her auditions weren't going so great (her audience looked bored - he's been doing this for 5 days), so I hope that improves for her before she leaves. On our walk we saw my first real American birds (Town Pigeons don't count!). Eastern Bluejay, Mallard and Titmouse were fairly easy to identify, but there were some strange sparrows in the mix of House Sparrows that have given me problems. I'll take my camera with me today and hopefully get some reference shots! There were also what I think were probably Ring-billed Gulls, but again photos will help. And finally, there were a couple of flocks of Canada Geese migrating south overhead. Migrating birds is something we really don't get to see much in Australia, so it was pretty cool to observe.

It started getting quite cold so I headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We went to the Tavern on the Green, which is a very fancy restaurant (read: hard to get vegetarian food). It was a pretty nice atmosphere and the food I had was extremely nice. My cold was messing with my head though (hot room, cold alcoholic drinks) so by the end of the night I was very glad to head home and get to bed. It was definitely a very long day.

Pictures at an Exhibition

2008-12-12T23:05:00.011+11:00

Ok, so I lied. I did go outside yesterday, despite the cold (max of 4 degrees celsius) and rain (that was nearly sleet/snow). For anyone interested, we are staying at a place called the Phillips Club, which is very nice and pretty centrally located in Manhattan.

I chilled for most of the morning, but headed out after lunch to go see the American Museum of Natural History, where we took a lot of pictures. So there's your title-song link. Tenuous, I know. The museum isn't all about rare animals being shot (though there was a fair bit of that). We actually spent most of our time in the fossil collections. I had a ball. It was like my Vertebrate Evolution course all over again, but this time I had actual examples (or at least well made copies) right there in front of me. Archaeopteryx, a fossil lizard with wings and feathers found in Germany, was particularly special for me to see. In a way its what started the whole evolution debate - it was the first major "missing link" found back in the 1800s after Darwin published his theories of natural selection and evolution. Similarly, the fossil Pterodactyls were very interesting. Some were only 10cm across, while there was an articulated wing hanging from the ceiling that was about 5 metres across. Apparently the largest Pterodactyls ever found were 12 metres in wingspan! Who knows how they took off, or flew? It was also pretty cool to see the other dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Allosaurs, Duck-billed Dinosaurs, etc.. all things I read about in my childhood but didn't get to see in real life (ok so they had/have a T-Rex skull at the Brisbane Museum but the rests were firsts). The next room was in some ways even more exciting. It had the stages of vertebrate evolution, backed up by fossil records. I won't go into the details here, but for me the highlights were a Lissamphibian skeleton (one of the very first animals to walk on land), various stages of fishes (from jawless through placoderms etc.) and reptiles. These are the kinds of fossils we definitely don't have easy access to back home, and I really appreciated being able to see first-hand so much evidence for evolution up close and personal.

As well as the fossil collections there were taxidermied specimens, mostly birds, and some exhibitions of American Indian artefacts. The bird displays from the New York area were interesting and informative (though sad for me, I hate seeing birds shot for science). The Passenger Pigeons were particularly poingnant. For those who don't know the story, the Passenger Pigeon used to be one of the most populous birds in the world. There was a single flock of over 2 billion birds living in the USA. There were so many that it took days for the flock to fly past a given point. That is until the Americans decided that this flock was a resource to be exploited. They made them into pies, they fed them to livestock. It took less than one generation to kill enough that the birds stopped breeding (it turns out they needed a critical mass in a flock before breeding would occur). Before too long they were extinct in the wild, and then finally completely extinct. For me this is the ultimate example of the impact of mans greed on the environment, and a good metaphor for what is happening with fossil fuels today.

There was also a large display on space/the universe, which was quite interesting. They had some meteorite cross-sections that were pretty cool, and a replica of the Mars lander which was interesting to see. All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon and I'm glad I went.

Hazy Shade of Winter

2008-12-12T03:30:00.003+11:00

I'm thinking the Bodyjar cover, but that's just personal taste. It's an apt song given the weather at the moment. Yesterday was unseasonally warm in New York, but grey and raining all day. Today is cold, grey and raining. I'm not complaining, just pointing out the relevance of the title track. So I've had some good news and some bad news since the last post. Or perhaps good/bad experiences. The good was getting out and doing some shopping around Manhattan yesterday. I picked up a North American bird book, and went to photography heaven on earth, also known as B&H Photo. I picked up some new memory cards, a spare battery, and a lens filter (since the hood that came with the lens is now resting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean somewhere off QLD). All things I should have bought months ago, but I'm glad I waited because the prices here are somewhat better, even with the exchange rate. I could have spent hours in that store. We also went early to pick up our tickets to the Lion King (booked online), because you don't want to have to wait in line once the show is starting.

After our bout of shopping we headed back and this is where the bad news came in. I've come down with a nasty cold. Probably not unexpected given the lack of sleep and extreme change in temperature/weather I've put myself through in the last few days, however still a miserable thing to happen on a holiday. I medicated myself to get through the Lion King in the afternoon. Had I been well I think it would have been a highlight of the trip. As it is I really enjoyed it, but its hard to get into something when your head is packed full of cotton wool and splitting open. I will say this - the show is very well crafted. The music is a combination of the familiar songs from the movie and original compositions adding to the score. There are some minor alterations to the plot - some blatant, others subtle, but the story remains faithful overall. The costumes and dancing are amazing. All in all it's a great musical and I'm very glad I went. As I said though, I would have enjoyed it more had circumstances allowed.

I'd say chances are there won't be much to report for the next couple of days. I'll be laying low trying to give myself a chance to recover as much as possible. I have some great plans later in the week, including ice skating in Central Park, seeing an off-Broadway play, and birdwatching in the Westchester area with one of the local Audubon groups and a friend I met in Broome.

One last thing. A friend pointed out I'd very cleverly blocked commenting on my blog. That's been remedied, so please leave a comment when you read this, I'd love to hear from you.

New York New York!

2008-12-11T00:24:00.003+11:00

Hmm, my post titles seem to be taking on a distinctly musical theme. John Denver, Billy Joel, Frank... I'm really not that old, I swear! So after a fairly smooth transition from LAX to our connecting flight to NYC, we arrived at JFK airport. I managed to sleep most of the way here due to the fact that our flight was nearly empty, so I had a whole row to myself. A little traveler's tip. If you're vegetarian, make sure you're awake during the meal. They couldn't find my meal when I asked so they must have given it away. Fortunately they managed to grab something from Business class (which was very nice). Another tick for Qantas customer service!

Even with the sleep I was pretty exhausted when we reached JFK. We knew that a friend of the family had arranged a car to meet us at the airport, which was pretty exciting. You know, you always walk past the people at airports holding signs for other people and think how cool that would be. That was us last night. But it got better. What our friends hadn't told us was that the car they had arranged was a stretch limousine! Talk about luxury. The place we are staying at is called the Phillips Club, which is in Manhattan. It's a very nice apartment in a very nice place just west of Central Park. I'm looking forward to exploring the area. I woke up at 5:30am and had a bit of a walk around, but at that time of day there's not really much I can report. We're seeing the Lion King on Broadway this afternoon, so no doubt my next post will be a whole lot more interesting.

Say Hello/Goodbye to Hollywood

2008-12-10T03:15:00.003+11:00

Well, I've touched down in LA. Hello from yesterday Australia. I have about ten minutes here before I have to get on my connecting flight to New York. The flight went pretty smoothly apart from not getting any sleep (ok, maybe 1 hour tops). So you're not going to get a whole lot of coherent thought out of me right now. Hmm, actually they've just announced boarding for my flight, so I guess you'll hear from me today (tomorrow). Hehe, isn't the International Dateline fun?

Leaving on a Jetplane

2008-12-09T07:56:00.004+11:00

Well, like the John Denver song, shortly I'll be leaving on a Jetplane, though I do know when I'll be back. A month from now will hopefully see a much more relaxed me with a recharged enthusiasm for life. I'm sitting at the airport in Brisbane waiting for our connecting flight to Sydney. For many people this is the least favourite part of a trip. Me, even with all the travel I've done in the last couple of years, I still love the anticipation. The holiday will be great, I'm sure, but right now it has infinite potential. Once I'm actually there it will be cold, wet, and at times unpleasant, but right now its exciting, different.

I also love the view from planes. Clouds are amazing from above. Landscapes unfold below you, giving a unique perspective on how everything fits together, and how we interact with it. Mountains look tiny, but at the same time you can finally get a sense of just how big they really are. Storms are exciting, unpredictable (but hopefully not too rough!). I will admit I'm not looking forward to 23 hours in the air. I don't sleep well on planes, so I will have a lot of time to catch up on reading all those books I left at home...um. Bugger. Ok, so I'm off to buy something from the airport newsagent. Next time you hear from me, hopefully I'll be in New York City.

Change of plan

2008-12-04T22:12:00.002+11:00

Ok, so I'm hijacking my own blog. This was initially an experiment for me that I ran out of time and patience to continue. Birdsearch was going to chronicle my adventures around Australia while birding. Turns out you don't have a lot to write about when your binoculars break and you're too busy with a Masters degree anyway. So for the next month, I'll be hijacking this blog for my trip to the USA. I can't promise a post a day - though I will try. I can't promise lots of pretty pictures on the blog - I may not even have a way of downloading my shots til I get back. I can however promise my semi-literate, probably highly boring prose will keep you informed of my progress across the country. The general running order of the trip (without giving too much away) is:

New York (New York!),
Jacksonville (Florida),
Park City (Utah - come for the skiing stay for the polygamy!),
Phoenix (Arizona),
and Las Vegas (Nevada).

You'll probably all tune out til Las Vegas to see if I do something stupid, I'm sure. I'm not really sure what format this will take. I'm a bit rusty on the whole writing thing, particularly for travel. I'm thinking of tackling it from the point of a travel guide kinda thing - who knows, if I make myself pay attention enough I might even be able to polish it up a bit and shop it to a magazine at the end? Regardless, my time will be pretty crazy, and I will do my best to chronicle my travels, but no promises. If I get distracted by something shiny, you'll just have to do without my scintillating wit til I get back. I bet you miss me already!

The Godwit they call E7

2007-09-13T17:14:00.000+10:00

Some of you may have heard, though many of you probably haven't, of a Bar-tailed Godwit called E7. This bird has made international news not once, but twice this year. She is part of a satellite tracking program aimed at following the remarkable migration that many species of Australian and New Zealand shorebirds undertake, from the southern hemisphere all the way to Siberia and Alaska, and then back again.

The story of the migration is one of the most fascinating that can be found in nature, and I will be adding a section to this website to tell it at some point. For now just understand that these birds are the marathon runners of the animal kingdom, and until recently we had only suspected how true that was.

The story of E7 began in New Zealand. She was trapped and fitted with a satellite tracking device in February at the Firth of Thames in Miranda. This gave her roughly a month to get used to the device in preparation for her long journey north.

On March 17th, she began a flight with a group of other godwits that would last nearly eight days, and covered ten thousand kilometres; 10,219km to be exact - a world record for the longest single migration leg ever recorded. This brought her to Yalu Jiang in China, where she stayed for over a month, refueling for the next stage of her trip.

In comparison to the Australia-China leg, the China-Alaska leg seems almost tame, a mere 6,459km over four days. Her eventual destination was Manokinak in Alaska, where she is believed to have nested, the goal of this massive feat of endurance. Her total journey north was a staggering 17,456kms, but this was not news. We already knew that godwits traveled from New Zealand through China to Alaska. We knew about the distance.

It was the next stage that we were unsure about. It had been suggested that Bar-tailed Godwits might, just maybe, on the return journey fly directly across the Pacific Ocean. The reasoning was that fewer birds were seen on the return journey than on they journey north. The subspecies of Bar-tailed Godwit that visits Alaska and New Zealand, race baueri, is larger and stores more fat than their western cousins, race menzbieri, who visit Western Australia and Siberia. What could this size difference be attributed to? One possibility was a trans-Pacific flight, but there was no way of knowing, because all our other information was gained from catching them on the ground, i.e. after they'd stopped flying. To prove a trans-Pacific route you would have to be with them the whole way, and with satellite technology we finally could be.

And so on the 30th of August, 2007, E7 left Alaska from Cape Avinof and began what would prove to be an eight and a half day flight, covering over eleven thousand kilometres. She crossed the Pacific Ocean without stopping, covering 11,570km in one go. She smashed her previous record by over 1000kms and confirmed an unproven, slightly crazy theory about just how amazing these birds really are. Her total journey was 29,181km.

If you want to see for yourself the path that E7 flew, along with the other birds in the tracking program, this website has a map, and a link to a Google Earth file that maps out the whole journey.

Chris

Cheetham Wetlands and the Orange-bellied Parrot Count

2007-09-11T12:00:00.000+10:00

On Saturday I spent a whole day in the field at a place called Cheetham Wetlands. From about 8:30 through 16:00 I was out walking and driving around one of the best urban wetlands in Australia. The reason I was there was the Orange-bellied Parrot count. OBP's as they are abbreviated to down here, are Australia's most endangered bird. There are known to be less than 200 in the wild, and the real figure could be as low as 130 individuals. There is a captive breeding program going to try and help them, but one of the largest problems is that they are migratory - they breed in Melaleuca in Tasmania's far south-west, and fly to southern Victoria and South Australia for the winter. This split lifestyle makes them very difficult to manage, and their highly specific mainland preference for saltbush (typically considered "rubbish" habitat by landowners) makes things even more difficult.

In a good year, we know the whereabouts of 20 of the 100+ individuals in winter on the mainland. At any one time it's usually considerably less. And that's where the OBP counts come in. There are four rounds of surveys organised during winter, and they run over a whole weekend. The general idea is to cover as much of the available habitat as possible, and report the places you find them (if you're lucky) and the places you don't. This past weekend, my place was Cheetham Wetlands.

While I didn't find any OBPs, I did find some Blue-winged Parrots. They are closely related, they're the same size, shape mostly the same colour (though a different set of shades of green). They're even in the same genus: Neophema. But Blue-winged Parrots are common, sometimes found in large numbers, non-migratory, and much less habitat specific. It was still great to see them - I've only ever seen them once before, as they are mostly restricted to southern Australia.

A little bit about Cheetham Wetlands. They are a conservation reserve managed by Parks Victoria, the local National Parks and Wildlife institution. Cheetham is made up of a series of artificial lagoons and one large natural lagoon, and are right on the coastline. There are two creeks running through the wetlands - Laverton Creek on the eastern boundary, and Skeleton Creek running through the heart of the wetlands. Apart from the lagoons themselves, the main habitat types on the reserve are saltbush and grasslands. They are important because they support internationally significant numbers of seven migratory shorebirds protected by international treaties, and nationally significant numbers of a further two species. They are also potential habitat for Orange-bellied Parrots, though I didn't see any, and they haven't been recorded there in recent times. The main threats to the wetlands are property developments, which are encroaching very close to the boundaries of the reserve, and illegal human use of the area for things like trail bikes, bicycles and dog walking. In an area set aside for wildlife to breed and for migratory birds to rest undisturbed to refuel for a journey to far nothern Siberia, this intrusion from humans is not only unwelcome it's dangerous to the wellbeing of the wildlife.

My day at Cheetham was a wonderful experience. I started in the morning with a quick walk beside what is known as RAAF Lake - it's next to an old airfield run by the airforce, now a strip for recreational planes and gliders. This is the site I found the Blue-winged Parrots at, feeding in the grass beside the road. I also found Pallid Cuckoos and a Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo flying around and being harried by the local birds worried about being cuckolded. A sure sign that spring is nearly here. From RAAF Lake I ventured in to the reserve itself. I had previously met with the parks ranger and received a key when I signed in. To get to my search area I went through three locked gates, and drove a few kilometers in until I reached the ford over Skeleton Creek. On the way I disturbed a Red-capped Plover that was nesting. I know it was nesting because it stood up and pretended to have a broken wing, trying to lead my car away from its nest. Once I was safely past, it rushed back to the nest (a patch of gravel - the eggs were completely invisible from where I was) and sat back down to keep the eggs warm.

From Skeleton Creek I stopped briefly to count the shorebirds on one of the nearby lagoons. There were good numbers of Curlew Sandpipers, Marsh Sandpipers, and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, as well as some other birds like Common Greenshank and Red-necked Stint. All of these are migratory shorebirds - they end up in places like Russia, Siberia, or even Alaska in our winter (the northern summer) where they breed before returning here for our summer. The birds I was seeing were likely just returning from the hard flight south, and indeed some of them still had remnants of breeding plumage. From the lagoon with the shorebirds I proceeded to spend several hours tramping through (as opposed to trampling on) then saltbush flats looking for Orange-bellied Parrots. While I didn't find any, it was great to walk around and get a feel for the area, and I saw some great things, like a pair of Brown Quail that I flushed from the edge of a grassland.

The best was save to last though, because as I was leaving the wetlands in the mid afternoon I reached the creek crossing and stopped. I had seen a rail, one of a group of shy and secretive birds that most birdwatchers love to see. Down here, there are two kinds of rail - the shy but common Buff-banded Rail, and the extremely shy and rare Lewin's Rail. As it turned out I saw a Buff-banded Rail, but as I walked back from investigating that bird, another rail across the other side of the ford ducked back into the fringing plants. I waited for some time, as patiently as I could, until finally I was rewarded with great views of a Lewin's Rail - the first time I have seen this species. It is an amazing bird, and it was especially satisfying because they are so difficult to see, and because I had excellent views and even managed to snap a few photographs.

So all in all my day at Cheethams was a great success. Even though I didn't find what I was looking for, I experienced an amazing and important reserve for birds, and saw some exciting species in the process. I look forward to going back there in summer for some migratory shorebird counts.

Chris

Trin Warren Wetlands: an urban oasis

2007-09-05T16:56:00.000+10:00

Today I took some of my lunchbreak to travel down to a wetland in the heart of Melbourne. Royal Park, and the Melbourne Zoo are part of a green space in the north of Carlton, an inner-northern suburb of the city. Tucked away in Royal Park is a small wetland, restored to almost pristine condition, and surrounded by young revegetation and remnant trees. The wetland is called Trin Warren Wetland, and we were there because yesterday the first Baillon's Crake of the season for Victoria was reported. A pretty amazing record for the heart of Melbourne.

So at midday a group of us trooped off to the tram station and caught a tram up to the Zoo. We actually caught the wrong one, so ended up having to walk longer than we should have. But in the end we arrived at a lovely little wetland. If it had been in the middle of the countryside, you would have said it was an amazing habitat. In the city the birds must have more trouble finding it. Or so you would think. But sure enough, after about twenty minutes, the Baillon's Crake emerged. First one, and then another came out into the open and foraged around for as long as we could afford to keep watching them before heading back.

Baillon's Crake is a tiny, migratory water bird. They are only about 15cm long, are brown with a faint pattern to its wings, and a bright red eye. They winter in northern Australia and perhaps beyond, but return every year to Victoria, sometimes in large numbers. Last year was a bumper year for them, with birds turning up in some unlikely places, and it seems this year is off to a great start with a pair here in the heart of the city.

Chris

August Wrap-up

2007-09-05T16:39:00.001+10:00

And that brings us to the end of August. It was a good month for birds - with the Eyre Peninsula and Eaglehawk Neck trips standing out as great experiences. The birds that were my absolute highlights were Western Yellow Robin, Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren, and Grey Petrel.

The Western Yellow Robin was great because I'd tried a couple of times to track them down before and failed miserably. It actually ended up being quite an effort to find on the time I did see it, too. I spent around three days in the habitat that I could have seen them, and put in quite a few kilometres looking. In the end, I had to give up, and was on my way back to my car to leave for the airport. And there, of course, was the Western Yellow Robin, right near the car. It flew to the other side of the road, and I had to go about fifty metres up the path to track it down again, whereupon it perched out in the open and allowed photographs.

Western Yellow Robins are, in behavior, size and shape, identical to the Eastern Yellow Robin. The only real difference (visually that is) is the amount of yellow in their plumage. The Eastern Yellow Robin has yellow all the way from its belly to its throat. The Western Yellow Robin only had yellow from its belly to mid-chest. Another name for the Western Yellow Robin is Grey-fronted Robin. The other good thing about having seen and photographed this species is that it is only found in southern and western Australia, from about Port Lincoln to Perth. I don't spend a lot of time in that area, so seeing this bird finally was quite satisfying.

Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren was another very satisfying bird for me to find. Fairy-Wrens are the birds I attribute as what got me into bird watching. The Superb Fairy-Wren is still my favorite bird. And when I started getting serious about seeing Australian birds, I mean really traveling around looking for them, I decided that I wanted to see all the Fairy-Wrens in the world. The Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren marked the 10th species (out of 16) that I've seen, and the last of the Australian species. I didn't manage to get a photo - they are a very cryptic species and one of the most difficult of all the fairy-wrens to see and get a good look at (Lovely Fairy-Wren would probably be equally as hard). But just having seen it was a real thrill.

And finally the Grey Petrel. It's rare, it's threatened. You have to go to great lengths to see them, and to be extremely lucky. And I was. There's not really much more to say - they aren't particularly beautiful or charismatic compared to some of our more well known birds (the Lyrebirds spring to mind). We had a good but fleeting look. But there's just that feeling you get, when you know you're one of the privileged few to see something special, and the Grey Petrel that slid by our boat and off into the distance gave me that feeling.

And that's it for August.

Chris

Truganina Wetlands

2007-09-05T16:15:00.001+10:00

I've begun visiting a different local bird spot in Altona, called Truganina Wetlands. It's frustratingly close to Cheetham Wetland - a place people aren't allowed in without a permit (despite the lack of fencing and constant invasion from dog-walkers), but it's a great spot in its own right. I was put onto it in December last year when Mike Weston showed me around Altona. I didn't think too much of it at the time (Mike only showed me the place because it looks out over Cheetham), however a recent report of Pallid Cuckoo there had me think again. Another local birder, Dave Torr, mentioned it could also be good for crakes at the right time of year, and these two pieces of information combined have convinced me to give the place a go. And I'm glad I did, because just last week I hit upon a great run of birds.

It started off pretty well. As I pulled into the carpark I found a Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo calling on the telephone wires overhead. This is a migratory species, and only just freshly back from their wintering grounds in northern Australia. Amid the usual wetland birds (Teal, Ducks and Grebe) there were Little Grassbirds and an Australian Reedwarbler calling. Like the Bronze-Cuckoo, the Reedwarbler is a migratory species, and would only just have arrived in the area.

A walk out to Laverton Creek nearby didn't provide much of interest, but on the return journey along the edge of Cheetham Wetlands I flushed a Crested Shrike-Tit from a knee-high bush while I was tracking down a calling Pallid Cuckoo. Forget the cuckoo for now, the Shrike-Tit is a pretty impressive bird to get in suburbia anywhere. They also typically don't come down to ground level, so to flush one from a bush barely reaching my knee was pretty extraordinary. He (the males are obvious because they have a black bib where the females have a green one) sat in a slightly higher bush for a minute or two before hopping onto a nearby crossbranch to pose nicely for a few photos.

After I'd had my fill of photographing the Shrike-Tit, I tracked down that Pallid Cuckoo that was calling. Initially the bird was very cagey, flying when I got too close to it. Normally I'm pretty good about getting near birds, and if I'm disturbing them I back off. But the cuckoo was flying before I got anywhere near it. In the end I gave up and started walking back. At which point the cuckoo landed in a nearby tree and sat and posed while I got some very satisfying shots.

While I didn't manage to find any rails or crake on this trip, I had a very good run of luck with birds and photographs, and came away with a number of species I'd not seen in Altona before, so it was a very successful day.

Chris

Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania

2007-09-03T14:52:00.000+10:00

Another week another adventure. Earlier in the year I began organising a boat trip out of Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania. This is because the regularly scheduled Victorian "pelagic" trips - boat trips out from the continental shelf, had all been canceled for this year. Since I wanted to make sure I got out into the southern waters while I am living in Melbourne, I decided to make my own opportunity.

And so in mid August I found myself out on a boat off the coast of Tasmania on a freezing cold morning praying my Kwells worked if the wind and waves got too much for us. Why would I do this to myself you might ask? Albatross. Well, Albatross and other seabirds, but mainly the Albatross. You see, going out on a boat off the continental shelf gives you an opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the largest flying birds in the world. With a bit of help from some chicken mince and fish oil. But there's nothing quite like being out on the ocean and watching the first Albatross of the day slide past the boat, effortlessly and gracefully on its enormous wings.

Seabirds, or pelagic birds, are some of the most exciting and hardest to find birds in the world. They live in remote places - many of Australia's pelagic species nest on sub-antarctic islands. They spend most of their lives out at sea, and can go almost a whole year without coming in to land. There are five main types of pelagic birds - Albatross, Petrels, Storm Petrels, Prions, and Shearwaters. There are also some gulls and terns that are typically more common out on the open ocean. One of these, the Sooty Shearwater, is known for making one of the longest single journeys of any animal in the world - over twenty thousand kilometres.

On the weekend that we went out we were very lucky. The weather was perfect, the wind wasn't too strong, but also wasn't too weak. Seabirds need good wind to keep them airborne, and also to carry the scent of the fish oil we use to lure them to the boat. We started with many Shy Albatross, easily the most common bird of the voyages. Over the course of the weekend we saw many types of Albatross - Shy, Black-browed, Yellow-nosed, Wandering, Southern Royal, Buller's and Salvin's Albatross. The Salvin's was the rarest one we saw. As a group, Albatross would have to be one of my favorite birds. They have huge wingspans - the Southern Royal Albatross, with the largest wingspan of any bird in the world, clocks in at 3 to 3.5 metres. This can be pretty awe inspiring when one cruises past the boat, as we had happen on several occasions.

We also came across some pretty great other birds. Great-winged Petrels were common, as expected, but we also found Southern Giant, Northern Giant, White-headed, Cape, Providence and Grey Petrels. The Grey Petrel was easily the rarest bird we saw on our trip. They breed on Macquarie Island, an Australian Territory in the sub-antarctic. Macquarie used to have a huge problem with cats, which was causing in particular the decline of the Grey Petrel. A concerted effort got rid of all the cats, and now the Grey Petrel is recovering. You may have heard, however, that Macquarie faces another challenge. With the removal of cats, the local rabbit population has exploded, and those cute furry bunnies are now stealing the breeding holes of the petrels. And so the government is once again embarking on a program, this time to remove the rabbits from the island. Hopefully this time we can secure the future for the petrels.

Apart from land predators on their breeding grounds, seabirds, particularly albatross, face another challenge. Long-line fishing and trawling combined kill hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of seabirds each year. They do this by not protecting the bait or cleaning their nets before use - the seabirds dive on the hook or net and are dragged underwater and drowned. Unfortunately, the simplest solution is to make sure the birds can't get to the net or hook. This is unfortunate because the fishing industry around the world has for the most part been unwilling to come to that party and have been very resistant to any change that may cost them money, however cheap the solution may be. That said, some groups have willingly trialled methods to reduce the "bycatch" of seabirds, which have been reasonably successful so far. For more information on this, visit the Save the Albatross website.

Also consider not eating tinned tuna or salmon, as these two fish make up the bulk of what the long-liners catch, and there are currently zero controls over the source of fish (and therefore the catch method) going into those tins.

Despite the adversity, and the huge declines in population currently happening, it is still relatively easy to get out and see an albatross in Australia. The Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association (SOSSA) regularly organise trips out of Brisbane (Southport on the Gold Coast), Sydney and Wollongong, and other groups have trips that leave from Newcastle, Port Fairy (Victoria), Albany and Perth (Western Australia), and St Helen's and Eaglehawk Neck (Tasmania). So what are you waiting for? Get out there and experience the magic that is pelagic birding!

Chris

Eyre Peninsula

2007-09-03T13:45:00.001+10:00

Early August brought another work trip for me - this time to the Eyre Peninsula. This trip had been on the cards since February, but for a variety of reasons had been put off until now. Eyre Peninsula is a very interesting area. Situated along the curve of the Great Australian Bight, and isolated from the rest of Australia by deserts and land clearing, it has become an island habitat, a refuge for many species locally extinct in much of South Australia, and a place with many endemic subspecies of birds found elsewhere in the country.

Perhaps the most noticeable of these is the Brown Currawong. This is actually a subspecies of the Grey Currawong, found from Western Australia to New South Wales in woodlands, mallee and heath areas. They are usually shy, and either grey or black in colour. On Eyre Peninsula they are brown, and not shy at all.

Another interesting feature of the peninsula is that is serves as an area that melds the eastern and western dry country birds together. It is the eastern-most point for many "western" species, like Western Yellow Robin and Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren, and is the western-most point for many eastern species like Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo and Yellow-faced Honeyeater.

There are other strange things about the area as well. Because there aren't many freshwater wetlands, and many of the "fresh" springs drain straight into salty environments, the birds that typically use freshwater habitats behave differently on the peninsula. Sandpipers and plovers that typically use freshwater habitats, like Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and Wood Sandpipers, are more commonly seen on beaches.

Port Lincoln is at the tip of the peninsula, and has two national parks close by. Lincoln National Park was probably my favorite of the two, with large amounts of mallee and some great walking tracks to do. Coffin Bay National Park was also wonderful, and here we saw many Pied and Sooty Oystercatchers and Sanderling, birds that occur typically in low numbers elsewhere in the country. Port Lincoln has another interesting thing - a bird subspecies named after it. The Port Lincoln Parrot is now considered a subspecies of the Australian Ringneck - a rosella-like parrot of the drier parts of the country. In fact, of all the subspecies, the Port Lincoln form is the most widespread, occurring through most of Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and into Queensland and New South Wales as well as South Australia.

I had nearly a week to get a handle on all of this, and left feeling like I needed more time. I found the Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren and Western Yellow Robin (both new for me), and heard the Western Whipbird, which is possibly Australia's shyest bird. It calls loudly, but is extremely difficult to see. I also saw interesting birds like Southern Scrub-Robin, Southern Giant Petrel, and Western Gerygone that I didn't really expect to see in the area. I even saw a pair of Hooded Plovers, one of Australia's endangered beach-nesting shorebirds.

All up, an amazing place to visit, with some unique birds and habitats to explore.

Chris

July Wrap-up

2007-09-03T12:47:00.000+10:00

Wow, August just flew by this year. As a result, I'm back-dating some entries for this blog, starting with a wrap-up of milestones for me in July 2007.

July was a pretty amazing month for me. It began in the Burnett-Mary catchment area in Queensland. I was there for Birds Australia, giving workshops on bird identification, and on the rare and threatened species of the area. While I didn't get the opportunity for a lot of birdwatching, we had some really great birds on the workshops, like Tawny Frogmouth, Pale-headed Rosella, and Scarlet Honeyeater (to name but a few). My real highlight for the trip though, was heading back to Brisbane via Inskip Point, where Danica and I had amazing views of a Black-breasted Button-Quail pair feeding.

Black-breasted Button-Quail are both rare and threatened. The occur only in south-east Queensland and a small fraction of north-east New South Wales. They are small and fat, and look like true quail even though they are more closely related to sandpipers. When they feed, they have a funny method which is shared by all button-quail - they spin in a circle. The kick leaf litter out of the way and in the process stir up insects and leave behind a "platelet", a small circular hole in the leaf litter. These platelets are one way to track down a button-quail, which are very shy and typically don't call. This pair of Black-breasted Button-Quail have us great views, reinforcing how great Inskip Point is as a place to find them. This was only my second look at this beautiful species.

But the real landmark event for me was my trip to Cairns and Cape York. I had been planning this trip for nearly 6 months by the time it came around, and it didn't disappoint. All up I saw 17 species of birds I'd never seen before, and photographed many wonderful things. The group I was with saw over 220 species of birds in the two weeks we were travelling, with too many amazing birds to list. My highlights were seeing a Yellow-billed Kingfisher for the first time, and finding Spotted Whistling-Ducks in Weipa. The kingfisher lives on Cape York all year round, but is known for its shyness. The Spotted Whistling-Duck on the other hand, is an Indonesian and Papua New Guinean species which has only recently turned up on Cape York, and is best known for occasionally being at the Mapoon Sewage Ponds. Both of these species were a real thrill, partly because of how rare they are, and partly because they are amazing birds in their own right. Cape York and the Atherton Tablelands, which were the two focii of the trip, are well known for their high numbers of endemic birds. Endemic means found only in that area (something endemic to Australia is found only in Australia). So there are lots of species that can only be found in far north Queensland. In the whole trip, I saw 75 species of birds I hadn't seen yet this year, despite having traveled a great deal already.

I also reached a milestone on the trip. I saw a Trumpet Manucode - interesting in its own right as Australia's only true Bird of Paradise. However the reason it was a milestone was that it was the 600th species I have seen in Australia. While not as lofty as the "700 club", for those birdwatchers who have seen 700 birds in Australia, 600 birds is a pretty good milestone to reach. The Spotted Whistling-Ducks were #601.

The rest of the month passed relatively quietly, bird-wise (the same couldn't be said for work), however August promised to be an exciting month too.

Chris

Welcome to the search

2007-07-26T12:12:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

I am beginning this blog with the express intent of recording my travels around Australia looking for birds. How can such a thing be worthy of a blog you might ask? Well, in the process of looking for birds (which are in and of themselves wonderful things), I have the chance to experience a great deal of Australian culture, history, scenery, and most importantly wildlife. But in the end it all comes back to the birds. There are well over 700 species of birds in Australia, and including the Australian Territories and vagrant birds that have blown in on storms and the like our country's total is approaching 900 species. Australia also has one of the highest rates of endemism - birds found only in Australia, of any country in the world. This is mostly because of our unique position of being both a continent and an island. We have many habitats and climates, and isolation over millions of years has led to a wonderful group of birds being present in our region.

I have already traveled to every state and mainland territory in my search for birds. I will, over the next few months, be posting historic posts from my journals, as well as a small assortment of images to accompany. Eventually I hope to turn this blog into a resource for those wanting to travel looking for birds in Australia - how to do it, where to do it, and perhaps even why.

For now I will leave you with the thought from Aesop, creator of fables: "It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds"