Trip report – Darwin in the wet

Except it wasn’t all that wet. We had just a couple of light showers apart from a bucketing on the Arnhem Highway. Very hot and steamy of course.

It seems a lot of birds make themselves scarce at this time of year. We saw 2 Radjah Shelduck up a tree but no other ducks at all. Honeyeaters were down in numbers and diversity from July. Only Browns, Friarbirds and Rufous banded in any numbers, a few White-chinned and White-gaped. Little Friarbirds abounded and a few Silver-crowned. Lots of Forest Kingfishers, Flycatchers and Bee Eaters. We had been hoping for Pratincoles and Little Curlew but they disperse to the floodplains once it rains and we saw none. Pheasant Coucals presented themselves and were apparently in numbers.

Even though numbers of species and individual birds were down from Winter we saw many good birds but we did have to work for them. Rainbow Pitta, Pheasant Coucal, Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, Black Butcherbird, Beach Stone Curlew and Koel were birds I was very glad to get. Sites that had been prolific in July yielded little. Holmes Jungle was half flooded and birdless. Howard Springs was very quiet. We heard a few Pitas there but saw none. Various lagoons had little on them apart from hordes of Magpie Geese. Chestnut Rail once again refused to come out to play, although it teased us with a few calls.

We found the best sites were along the coast and the adjacent mangroves. Lee Point, Casuarina Coastal Reserve and Buffalo Creek were good, (as was Fogg Dam.) Shorebirds were only seen in dribs and drabs until we saw a high tide roost at Lee Point on the 13th Jan with thousands of birds, many of them Great Knots.

Biggest issue for us was heat and humidity. Made walking any distance a trial. This was exacerbated by the presence of a soil borne deadly bacteria prevalent in mud at the Top End in the wet. Hoped for sandals were replaced with shoes and socks. Bities were defeated by DEET, no doubt to the long term detriment of our health.

In all we saw around 100 species in 8 days. A big unexpected bonus was a vagrant northern Hemisphere gull (Tentatively a Caspian Gull). Many thanks to local Peter Kyne who took some time to chat to us and suggest a few locations for us to search, which we successfully did.