Hello all, Below is the trip report from our Christmas Island and Cocos-keeling Islands birding trip in March 2011. A version with photographs will be on our websit soon. www.birdingtours.com.au Cheers Richard Baxter Birding Tours Australia Trip report Cocos-keeling Islands and Christmas Island March 2011. With Birding Tours Australia. Guide- Richard Baxter In Nov/Dec 2010 we last visited Australia’s two remote Indian Ocean territories and located an unprecedented array of South East Asian vagrants, which included four species never previously recorded in Australia. Incredibly, most of these species stayed throughout our summer and subsequently twelve very keen birders gathered at Perth Airport on Sat 5 March 2011 for our second trip of summer 2010-11. Soon after arriving on Christmas Island we headed down to the casino and quickly saw both Striated Heron and YELLOW BITTERN, flushing both from the long grass near the entrance gates. Oriental Honey Buzzard had been photographed near our accommodation only two days previously and as we cruised between morning birding locations we were all on constant netrack in search of Malayan Night Heron, soon flushing one from the track. Biggles and I crept along the track relocating the bird and within a few minutes we all had good views of a sub-adult MALAYAN NIGHT HERON. The next day whilst driving home along the Casino Road we saw both male and female WATERCOCK in an open area on north east point. The following hour and an half was spent on an unsuccessful ‘buzzard watch’, finishing the day with a male ASIAN KOEL in a Paw Paw tree near the cemetery. The following day was spent searching for the buzzard and seeing most of the islands endemics. These included Island Thrush, Linchi Swiftlet, CI White-eye, Variable Goshawk and Christmas Island Imperial Pigeon. During the day we located a total of three Watercock and had better views of Yellow Bittern with some nice photos taken. In addition to the island’s endemics our group had close views of all three frigatebirds, both Red and White-tailed Tropicbirds as well as Red-footed Booby. We located two Abbott’s Booby high in the rainforest canopy and Brown Booby were abundant on the island’s coastal terraces. We spent each morning scanning the skies above Settlement for the elusive raptor and were finally rewarded on Tuesday morning when Biggles spotted a soaring ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD being harassed by frigatebirds above Silver City. A 6am search of the area near our accommodation resulted in eleven Java Sparrow and over twenty Tree Sparrows. Later in the day we were rewarded with great views of the Oriental Honey Buzzard when it landed in a tree at the back of VQ3. The following day whilst driving through the national park we briefly stopped to photograph the long staying Malayan Night Heron and an ORIENTAL CUCKOO flew over our heads in pursuit of an Emerald Dove. Our next vagrant was a new bird for Christmas Island. Searching the mine sites near LB4, Sheryl Keates spotted a small raptor sitting in a dead tree. It flushed and we identified it as JAPANESE SPARROWHAWK. Over the next two days we had progressively better views of what turned out to be a rufous breasted adult male. A brief visit to the casino early on the second last morning in search of ORIENTAL REED WARBLER was successful with a brief sighting of the long staying bird at the same site we had seen Yellow Bittern during the week. Our rarity list at the end of week one was: Yellow Bittern (1), Malayan Night Heron (2), Watercock (4), Oriental Cuckoo (1), Oriental Honey Buzzard (1), Asian Koel (3), Oriental Reed Warbler (1), Japanese Sparrowhawk (1). Our first morning on Cocos was spent on South Island where we had exceptional views of 16 SAUNDERS TERN feeding and resting on the last few remaining sandbars ahead of the incoming tide. After looking at 200+ nearby waders we lunched on a deserted island and swam in the clear lagoon waters prior to returning to West Island for a full afternoon of birding. Dollarbird was seen near the island’s main wetlands where we all saw the long staying EURASIAN TEAL, which we first located in December. Over the following six days the teal was seen at several locations on West Island. Also in the wetlands was Yellow Bittern and Striated Heron. Green Junglefowl and WHITE-BREASTED WATERHEN were abundant on West Island and WESTERN REEF EGRET was easily seen in the inner lagoon. An ORIENTAL CUCKOO was photographed in the trees near the airport runway and Watercock was seen several times on the runway verge. A late afternoon search of the northern end of the runway produced 20+ PIN-TAILED SNIPE and numerous Eastern Reef Egrets. Our first day on Home Island revealed Asian Koel in the banana plantation and several White Terns overhead. In the grounds of the Clunies-Ross mansion we had frustrating glimpses of a possible cuckoo which eluded us all day. The highlight of the day was a Japanese Sparrowhawk which cruised overhead just after lunch ahead of a cooling tropical downpour. There has been some debate in recent months over the identification of two Cattle Egrets on the West Island runway. They’ve been there all summer and in late March were beginning to show signs of breeding plumage with traces of buff indicating Eastern Cattle Egret. On our next visit to Home Island we had flight views of LARGE HAWK CUCKOO, which we flushed several times. Back on West Island we walked out on the sand flats at the southern end of the island and located the CHINESE POND HERON, which has been there for several weeks. Our last full day was the most spectacular of the trip. We caught the morning ferry to Home Island with the intention of photographing the Large Hawk Cuckoo and were immediately rewarded with the bird sitting quietly in a tree within the mansion grounds. We enjoyed great views through the scope and those of us with cameras approached to within 30m obtaining some nice pics. With 20min remaining till the 11.30am ferry departed we decided to do a last sweep through the mansion grounds. Stopping in front of the cuckoo’s favourite tree I pished for a few seconds and incredibly an adult male BLUE AND WHITE FLYCATCHER flew out. After a quick jog to the ferry terminal to alert the others that had already left for the ferry we all spent the remainder of the afternoon photographing and filming this amazing little passerine. Another excellent trip with a total of sixteen vagrants seen on both islands
Richard Baxter www.birdingtours.com.au ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================