Phillip Island is about an hour and a half south of
Melbourne … which raises an interesting thought: I tend to measure travel
distance in hours and minutes these days, rather than kilometres or miles. Hmm,
I still use metres and kilometres for directions to birds though, for instance
“1 km down that road take a left and stop 50 metres past the creek crossing”.
Anyway, Phillip Island was perfect for a Sunday birding trip. The fog lifted,
the sun came out and there was no wind. And all the rain we have had over the
last year or so has changed it so much from when I was last there in ……. ,
heavens, my records say 2006 but surely it hasn’t been that long!
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| Rhyll foreshore at low tide |
Anyway we arrived at Rhyll beach at absolute low tide and
opened the thermos for a cup of tea, as you do. There was not much happening
apart from a couple of Red-capped Plover, a few White-faced Herons and, of
course, the Silver Gulls and people out for a Sunday walk, so we finished our
cuppa and made for the lookout over Rhyll Inlet. This was much better with a
few Eastern Curlew to watch, but sadly no Whimbrels. Then some more wakers
appeared down on the sand-spit so we moved on.
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| Rhyll inlet from the lookout. The trees are slowly blocking the view |
Next stop was the lookout at Conservation Hill Reserve where
we found that the view over the top end of Rhyll Inlet and the swamps in the
reserve had been improved with the unfortunate death of some of the trees at
the lookout.
Then it was on to the cemetery where there is another wetland
and a wooded hill. The best bird there was a Grey Currawong, but on the “cute
meter” the winner was a beautiful Swamp Wallaby and her well-grown joey. The
joey bolted for the bush as soon as we stopped but mum sat around and posed for
photos, for which we thanked her before driving on.
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| Swamp Wallaby beside road to the cemetery |
As it was now nearing lunchtime we pulled into the Swan Lake
car park and wandered out to the hides before we ate. Now this was a major
change. The lake is full and all the mud flats that we used to watch waders on
are well under water. It was a beautiful sight and so wonderful to think that
down here the drought is over, at least for this year.
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| Swan Lake with a Welcome Swallow checking for a nesting site |
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| Swan Lake full of water, for a change |
The Banksia are in bloom and the Little Wattlebirds where
noisy, and everywhere.
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| Little Wattlebird |
As we watched one bird feeding high on the outer edge of the
tree a raptor called from above and the response from the Wattlebird was
instant and very interesting. It “froze” in a twisted pose with all its
feathers fluffed out. I wonder if it was a cryptic pose with the bird trying to
mimic a dry Banksia flower? The
colour of the bird, grey-brown with white flecking, and the shape it assumed
made it look somewhat like one, and maybe just enough like one to fool a
distant raptor?
I
considered the possibility that the bird had just decided to warm itself in the
sun but it didn't move slowly into the pose and shuffle its feathers as a bird
starting to "sun" usually does. At the sound of the raptor cry the
bird "snapped" to the position and froze. After about 3 minutes in
the pose, and with no further raptor calls heard during this time, the bird
flew down and into an adjoining Banksia.
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| Little Wattlebird "frozen" after the raptor called |
From here we drove out to the Penguin colony and tourist
complex at the end of the road and joined the hordes on the boardwalk. The
penguins were nowhere to be seen but way out there was a raft of gulls feeding
on a dead something, with one very large brown bird in the centre of the flock.
After taking a bunch of photo and blowing them up as far as possible we could
see that it was a Southern Giant Petrel, a nice addition to the day’s list. As
we watched a Silver Gull started getting very upset with a passing juvenile
Pacific Gull. It’s just a shame they were so far off because the Silver Gull
was twisting itself into some very intricate poses.
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| Southern Giant Petrel feeding on dead something |
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| Silver Gull in a heated dispute with an immature Pacific Gull |
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| Even in calm weather the waves hitting the rock shelf are spectacular |
All the old houses in the penguin colony area of the
headland have now gone and in their place man-made penguin nesting boxes have
been installed. There was no sign of penguins but the squatters have definitely
moved in.
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| Man-made nesting boxes at an old house site with a "squatter" |
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| Nest site with a view |
With all the regular stops ticked off we turned and headed
for home. We had one last pleasure in store though because beside the
roundabout at the entry to the Penguin Parade building we came across these
gorgeous young things, and they sent the “cute meter” to new levels.
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| Five fluff balls in a puddle |
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| Just so cute with their little bandit masks |
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| The family group |
The Cape Barren Geese appear to have had a good few seasons
as it seemed that every farm dam and every wetland had a resident pair. In fact
all the birds were in good numbers and, without chasing numbers, we saw a total
of 65 species on the island. There was nothing unexpected but the list included
a nice flock of Common Greenfinch, calling and courting Swamp Harriers, Nankeen
Kestrels in bright new plumage and Kelp Gulls along the cliffs.
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| Kelp Gull |
