Peter James Fullagar: Broome 2007 part 4

The wide landscape of 80 mile beach at low tide

Twinkling vehicles approaching from the south with plenty of birds
both sides of the nets! A typical scene before the catch on 80 mile beach

Anna Plains Station - 80 mile Beach

Dusk at Anna Plains

Panorama view of Anna Plains Station

16th Meal Team today. First attempt at Anna Plains. South approx 22 km. Catch failure on two small mesh 3-cannon nets set side by side. Used decoys after failing to attract any birds to the front of the nets. Ended up with a catch of 7 - six Red-capped Plover and a Curlew Sandpiper!

Selecting a catch site

A good catch of decoys!

Masses of Oriental Plover on the beach with good numbers of Great Knot and Bar-tailed Godwit and Greater Sandplover and small numbers of Lesser Sandplover and Red-capped Plover. Fewer Terek Sandpiper, Grey-tailed Tattler, Curlew Sandpiper, Eastern Curlew, Little Curlew, Red-necked Stint and Sanderling. So far no Asiatic Dowitcher seen. Talk by Clive Minton on moult in waders.

Fog and cobwebs at Passerine Bore

17th Catching passerine with Roz Jessop and team at the bore from dawn today (0530) until about 0930. Good numbers of Plumed Whistling duck are roosting here during the day.Must be 500 or more. We make a measly catch of 14 birds including Brown Honeyeater (4), Peaceful Dove (3), Singing Honeyeater (2/), Diamond Dove (20 and one each of the Pallid Cuckoo, Rufous Whistler and Rufous-throated Honeyeater.

Passerine Bore after the fog had cleared

Area surrounding the bore

Magnificent seed pod

The paired leaves of "Bauhinia" - Lysiphyllum (Bauhinia) cunninghamii
A typical component species of Pindan

Banding at Passerine Bore

Rufous-throated Honeyeater

Rainbow Bee-eater

Plumed Whistling ducks flighting in to the bore

Pallid Cuckoo

Swirling flocks of waders slipping past during the twinkle. Mostly Great Knot and Oriental Plover but at least one Terek Sandpiper and a Greater Sandplover

Second attempt at about 6 km (I have the GPS) also a failure with only a small catch of 8 birds (3 Grey-tailed Tattler, 3 Great Knot and 2 Bar-tailed Godwit) following the reset of the small mesh 3-cannon net after dragging it away from the incoming tide. Again decoys in place but nets today set apart by about 25 metres. Both days the twinkling brought in many Oriental Plover with sandplovers, mostly Greater Sandplover, as a broad band of loosely associated birds from the tide edge to the upper beach slopes where the sandplovers mostly headed. One Pied Oystercatcher. Talk by David Melville on the NZ to Alaska Bar-tailed Godwit flyway.

Sorting out the processing teams

Banding a Grey-tailed Tattler

Julia Melville with a Grey-tailed Tattler

Juvenile Grey-tailed Tattler

Measuring a Bar-tailed Godwit

Juvenile Bar-tailed Godwit

Female Bar-tailed Godwit

Working teams with no shade because of pleasant on-shore breeze

The activity of Sand Bubbler Crabs, probably Scopimera inflata. Apparently, each ball takes about 1 minute to form as the crab picks up sand and filters out the palatable bits

Shorebirds have been here!

Oriental Plover

More Oriental Plover but also a Greater Sandplover.
I like Oriental Plover!

Alice through the hatchway (apologies LC!)

Clive doing the paperwork

18th Dawn drive with Chris Hassell to the bores south of homestead. Many Oriental Plovers scattered across the plains and flying ahead of our vehicle. Some Australian Pratincole, a few Australian Bustard, Brolga and other plains birds such as Australian Pipit, Singing Bushlark but no Cisticola spotted. Three Sharp-tailed Sandpiper on one bore and 500+ Plumed Whistling Duck quietly resting at the passerine bore.

Gull-billed Tern over the plains

Australian Pratincole

Plumed Whistle Ducks at the Passerine Bore

A few birds of prey noted this morning but all the usual species, Brown Falcon, a Brown Goshawk on the large airstrip, a Wedge-tailed Eagle, a few Whistling Kite and several Black-shouldered Kite but no Letter-winged Kite!

Waders flying past during the twinkle today. Mostly Great Knot but some Red Knot, Oriental Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Greater Sandplover and a Marsh Sandpiper

Crested Terns

Crested Tern and a Whiskered Tern

Oriental Plover and White-winged Black Terns

Today we made a successful catch at about 1km S with two large mesh 4-cannon nets. We netted 353 birds. Both nets were fired and the combined catch was: Great Knot (269/6), Curlew Sandpiper (30/1), Grey-tailed Tattler (21), Red Knot (9), Bar-tailed Godwit (8), Common Greenshank (3), Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (2), Greater Sandplover (2) and a Marsh Sandpiper. We also caught one White-winged Black Tern. Two of the Great Knot were from China and two others from Broome catches. Worked almost up to sunset!
A pair of Red-tailed Black-cockatoo visited homestead area briefly in the late morning.

Cattle on Anna Plains

19th Walk out to the close bore in the cattle yards at 0700 noting that about 500 Plumed Whistling Duck were on the dried grasslands near the end of the airfield. They moved off E, probably to the passerine bore. Morning cleaning and preparing equipment for tomorrow. Loaded some cartridges.

Red-winged Parrot

Photographed some Red-winged Parrot. About 10 of them hang about the homestead area. Leaving at 1300 to catch at the beach after lunch at about 4km with a poor catch of only 77 birds. Maybe we will be out until dark! Late catch was successful and we finished close on darkness! Again we fired a large mesh 4-cannon net and the total was made up from: Common Greenshank (34), Red Knot (17), Marsh Sandpiper (5), Bar-tailed Godwit (4), Sanderling (3) and one Great Knot which was the only retrap for the day! we also caught White-winged Black Tern (11) and a Common Tern.