Christmas Island and Cocos-keeling Islands Birding Trip Report Nov-Dec 2011. PART 3 Arriving on Home Island, we walked to the Clunies Ross mansion and as we entered the grounds, three light brown passerines flew off the ground into the nearby trees. We surrounded the trees and had only fleeting glimpses as they flew from tree to tree. Following them was another smaller passerine, possibly a flycatcher. After thirty minutes of frustrating views in the deep foliage, one of the birds finally landed in front of me long enough to identify them as EYE-BROWED THRUSH. Over the next hour we all had good views of the three birds, watching them fly back to the ground and forage amongst the fallen leaves. During the week we found a further four thrush on West Island and another two on Direction Island.
Without delay we moved off to find the smaller bird that we saw earlier with the thrush. We soon spotted it nearby but were only able to obtain one ‘out of focus’ photo and poor views. Despite these difficulties we had enough to confirm we had a flycatcher. This bird was very cryptic and wouldn’t leave the deep foliage of the large trees that dot the mansion grounds.
Over lunch we took the time to regroup andexamine the photo, compiling our views and notes. We eventually decided our bird had to be either a Mugamaki or Narcissus Flycatcher. After lunch the rest of the group visited the banana plantation area where a few people saw WATERCOCK. Damian and I went back to quietly sit under the tree where we first saw the flycatcher and waited. It wasn’t long until we saw it again. A few minutes later and we had the full frontal views we needed of the bird, showing the orange breast of Australia’s first MUGAMAKI FLYCATCHER. Despite repeated attempts to gain photos, this bird remained cryptic in its habits all week and the shots we obtained were generally poor. By Tuesday the tides were right for a trip to South Island but a few rose early and conducted a dawn vigil at the wetlands, where they saw Grey Wagtail, Asian House Martin and Oriental Cuckoo. Once on South Island we saw six SAUNDER’S TERN roosting on the last remaining sand bar yet to be covered by the incoming tide. The terns were sharing the sandbar with several species of wader and amongst these we found a probable LITTLE STINT, which we managed to photograph before the tide finally covered the islandand the birds flew. We finished the afternoon with a swim and lunch on one of the nearby deserted lagoon islands. Our next trip was to Horsburgh Island for the day. The morning started off well whenwe found a dark phase WESTERN REEF EGRET, race schistacea with diagnostic long legs and ‘saber’ shaped bill in a tidal pool near the jetty, whilst waiting for our boat. We departed in our zodiac and half way across the lagoon Tony, Damian, Pat and I all jumped in with a pod of very friendly spinner dolphins who allowed us to swim with them for around 20 minutes. Landing on Horsburgh, we walked the island finding White Tern, Red-tailed Tropicbird and a few Fork-tailed Swifts. With a storm building to the north we decided to do a quick sea watch on the island’s northern beach and were rewarded with a Masked Booby cruising the coastline, finishing off the full suite of Australia’s regular booby, frigatebirds and tropicbirds. After lunch we headed out to the ship wreck in the middle of the lagoon for a snorkel. By Thursday the tropical low had circled around to the south of us and had approached to within 285nm of Cocos. It was now cat 3 Tropical Cyclone Alenga. Despite this, the wind had only increased a small amount and we still had blue skies and an occasional rain front passing over the islands. There was no doubt the consistent northerly winds contributed to the continued arrival of new birds to islands. On Thursday we returned to Home Island in an attempt to get better photos of the Mugamaki Flycatcher. Most in our group were able to gain more conclusive views but it remained imponderably and frustratingly evasive. Also seen on the island was Watercock, Oriental Cuckoo, White-tailed Tropicbird and of course the now familiar three Eye-browed Thrush, which spend their day turning over leaves under the Frangipani Tree near the entrance gate. While we were on Home Island, Helen and Jeff Larsen spent a relaxing day on Direction Island, locating two more Eye-browed Thrush and a small warbler sized passerine which we never had a chance to follow up. Later that afternoon we found an Asian Koel, then near our accommodation on West Island we spotted a large long tailed cuckoo with heavy barring on the tail and flanks diagnostic of LARGE HAWK CUCKOO. Another returnee from last summer. TO BE CONTINUED. Cheers Richard Baxter www.birdingtours.com.au ===============================
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