Yesterday, Monday, we headed for Point Lonsdale and Barwon Heads (Vic). First stop was Woodlands Drive in Ocean Grove to look for Scaly-breasted Lorikeets. Scaly-breasted Lorikeets are not common in Vic but Woodlands Drive is a known hotspot for them, but it takes some searching, not because lorikeets are hard to find but because on Woodlands Drive crossbreeding of lorikeets is rampant and the colour variations so created are startling. We found Scaly x Rainbow x Little x Purple-crowned x and a few we could not immediately recognise. If you ever want to see multiple variations upon a lorikeet theme head for Woodlands Drive. How strange it is that this apparently orgiastic cross breeding of lorikeets occurs in Woodlands Drive but I don’t see it in other areas of Victoria. We did end up seeing one Scaly-breasted that looked as though it had not been crossed with anything so all was well.
Next stop was Point Lonsdale for some coast watching. There was not as much wind as we had hoped for so the waves were small, and to make things uncomfortable the occasional shower of light rain drifted through cutting the visibility down and misting the scope lenses. Apart from the ever reliable Shy and Black-browed Albatross the birding was quiet until the tide went down and reefs came out from below the gentle ocean swell. We then had Black-faced Cormorants, Crested Terns, Silver Gulls and Pacific Gulls arrayed in front of us.
One particular Pacific Gull put on a wonderful show for us. He/she would fly out to a partially submerged reef and collect a large periwinkle, then carry it back to shore, rise up on the wind, then drop it to smash on the rock platform below. He/she did this about six times and there was a distinct pattern that ran; collect periwinkle, fly to shore and drop it on rock platform, eat contents, wash bill in shallow rock pool, return to reef for another periwinkle.
With lunch in mind we headed for the Barwon River boat ramp at Barwon Heads. The sandbanks in the river had the normal ibis, herons, egrets, pelicans and cormorants as well as a few Red-capped Plover, Red-necked Stints and one Double-banded Plover. We then had a wonderful view of a darter that surfaced with a very large fish maybe 30 cm long, probably a mullet. The darter then tried to fly off but the fish was way too heavy. And a second problem for the darter was that it had impaled the fish just in front of the tail, so it wasn’t even really holding it. The result was first a staggering, tail slapping run across the surface of the river as it tried to get airborne, then the bird’s head falling forward and the fish sliding off. Finally the darter threw its head back in disgust and screamed before it finally flew away up stream. Joy got very nice photos of the event and I have put them on my blog.
I am sure the scream was in frustration that it had lost the biggest fish it had ever caught, the ultimate fishing story! The boys on the sandbank will never believe this darter’s story about the one that got away; it will hold its wings this [ ] far apart and they will all look, smile, shake their heads, and go, “oh right!, go on, tell us another one” and go back to their beers (smile).
cheers
Jenny http://jenniferspryausbirding.blogspot.com.au/ ===============================
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