Twitchathon 2009

Dan and myself wrote ourselves into the history books on the weekend as we competed in our first ever Twitchathon. As many would know, we are not birdos, but we were keen to test our knowledge of feathered friends and maybe gain a few extra lifers in the process.

Kick off was 4pm on Saturday. Who the heck picked that time!!! It might be fine for those travelling hundreds of kilometres, so they could drive to their starting points, but for two guys who were hunting locally the time before the start dragged on. Eventually excitement and impatience got the better of us and we left for our starting point at 3.30pm. At 3.35pm we arrived at Newcastle Baths. After looking at the other birds at the baths we decided to look for feathered ones and start tracking species so that we could find them again at 4pm. Bong! Four o’clock and we were into it. First birds were Common and Crested Terns, Ruddy Turnstone, Red-necked Stint and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (not the dead ones on the beach). Pelis and Sooty Oystercatchers were the last we saw as we headed back to the car and our next destination.

We pointed the car south and were calling sightings along the trip as we neared Belmont, where we planned to tackle the wetlands and the lagoon before nightfall. Rufous Whistler was ticked as we stepped from the car and a little way down the track we got fairly close to the Grey Goshawk lurking in the branches. Scrub-wrens everywhere and Eastern Whipbird were ticked in the wetlands along with a few others. Belmont Lagoon was the next stop and it treated us really well with sightings of bathing Red-browed Finch, Yellow Thornbill, Silvereye, Variegated FW in a mud puddle along the track. A great sighting of a few Southern Emu-wren right beside the track only a couple of metres from us and further on the resident Azure Kingfishers. As the light faded we headed for the car and ticked Dotterel, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and a Striated Heron that we flushed from the canal edge.“Time to go Owling!” was the cry from team Horny Frogmouth as they drove North this time back toward Newcastle. Our goal was to tick Boobook, maybe Powerful (by call), Barn Owl and of course Dan’s Frogmouth family. What did we find??? No Powerful, no Boobook, no Barny. We did find the Frogmouths and a possum though.

Being as we were entered into the Champagne race, we were under strict rules that meant we were to stop birding between 10pm and 5.30am. No need for us to sleep on picnic benches for that amount of time and the fact that we probably couldn’t pick half the calls we would hear during a morning chorus, we headed for Castle Lucky to update the checklist and 5 hours sleep on a couple of camp beds. Total species for day one: 63 species.

Sunday morning.Up at 4am after the Luck household auto wake up system activated (my 9yo son), then hot showers, fresh undies and some breakfast before driving a whole 400 metres to tick off Sacred Kingfisher as the first for day 2. Our whole birding route rotated around the high tide time for Newcastle and more importantly, Stockton Sandspit as this is when you will see the most birds there. Nesting Pied Oystercatcher was the first notable tick for the ‘spit followed by Brown H/E and the cool call of a Mangrove Gerygone. Walking to the beach side we were greeted by Eastern Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwits, over 100 Red Knots and several thousand Red-necked Avocets. Certainly a highlight not only for the Twitchathon, but for my bird photography life was seeing all these birds take flight at once in a sea of dangly legs and beating wings….bloody awesome!!!Dan had to drag me away as the conditions were perfect for photography and heaps of subjects.

Next stop was Walka Water Works at Maitland, with a quick detour via Ash Island for Native Hen and Crakes (No Hen). Walka was another gold mine with all the Grebes and endless ducks like Grey and Chestnut Teal, Shoveller, Pink-eared Duck (tick), Pacific Black, Wood Duck and Musk Duck. Other ticks were Yellow-rumped Thornbill and Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo. In total 24 species were recorded by us at Walka. Back to the car and off to Blue Gum Regional Park at Minmi where we found a few birds. Scarlet H/E, Satin Bowerbird, Mistletoebird and Golden Whistler among them. Time was now getting away and we needed to squeeze in a lunch break so we stopped at Subway for food and also to update the main sheet again.

One more stop at Ash Island (still no Native Hen) then on to the Wetlands Centre where we finally found a Native-hen. Buff-banded Rail and Magpie Goose were the last two significant sightings before handing in our sheets at 4pm.

In total the Horny Frogmouths found 127 species of which most were actually seen, not heard. Biggest miss for the event was the common Sparrow. Rarest bird was Striped Honeyeater (we think it was rare), and the funniest moments were Dan telling me were to look for a certain bird “it’s in that big green thing” aka a tree.

I called a White-necked Heron and a black balloon a raptor, and Dan’s eye shine of a Boobook that was a possum.