This time last weekend I was lying flat on my back in a
sunny Perth park watching a very rare visitor to Australia that was drifting
slowly over my head on the thermals.
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| Crested Honey-buzzard |
The adventure started when the local birding websites
started reporting the arrival of two Crested (Oriental) Honey-buzzards at a
suburban park in Perth. These birds are so uncommon in Australia that only
three or four have ever been seen here before, and not all those were seen well
enough to be documented.
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| Crested Honey-buzzard |
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| Showing its long neck and small head |
I looked at an Asian field guide and saw that they are a
really spectacular bird. Then Joy rang me, so that was two of us who wanted to
see it. We sent some emails and by Wednesday night six of use had booked our
seats to Perth and I had booked a large 8 seat family-type wagon. A twitch is
such fun when it is done with friends!
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| Australian Hobby |
We arrived at the lake and there was already a group of
birders standing around chatting. "Have you seen it" we asked?
"Oh yes" they said, "it came over 15 minutes ago and hasn't been
seen since". Aaaargh! Not good news when you have just flown 2,700 km
(1,700 miles) and driven for an hour from the airport. Had the bird flown north
never to be seen in Perth again?
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| Dark morph Little Eagle in heavy moult |
Our luck held and we did see it in the distance about an
hour later. Sigh, the tick was safely in the bag. We then took a break, went
and booked into the motel and then had lunch. Back at the lake there was no
sign of the bird so we decided to drive around the lake looking. Before we got
to the end of the street the call came in that it was about 1/2 a km behind us.
A quick U turn, a fast but short drive, and we piled out of the car.
For the next hour or so we just lay around and watched both
birds circle over us, fly off a bit, come back, circle, fly off, return – they
put on a beautiful show, just for us. Then we noticed the sign; we were right
at the end of Mega Street, how appropriate is that!
In between buzzard visits we had a veritable parade of
raptors with Australian Hobby, Little Eagle, Swamp Harrier and Whistling Kite
all paying a visit.
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| White-browed Scrubwren |
On Sunday we drove north to look for a Western Fieldwren
which two of the group hadn't seen. We had no luck with the fieldwren but we
did end up at Lancelin where we found some Roseate Terns, which also turned out
to be a tick for two of the group.
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| Bottle-nosed Dolphin feeding along the beach at Lancelin |
The plane left Perth at about 5:30 in the afternoon but
because of the time difference and a three and a half hour flight we weren't in
Melbourne until about 11:00 pm. Still, not bad really, a 40 hour twitch with 5
friends, lots of good times, lots of laughs, lots of birds for the year list
and the workers in the group were back at work Monday morning. Now all we do is
have to wait for the next vagrant to turn up ....
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| Straw-necked Ibis |
All text & images © Jenny Spry
