A few days after the weekend described in my last blog post I was booked in for surgery to repair an inguinal hernia (yuk!).
Advised by the surgeon to avoid heavy lifting and strenuous exercise of those muscles for 6 weeks, I have been unable to do any of my usual weekend cycling. Instead, during my post-op convalescence my local birding continues to be much more frequent than most previous years. My first forays into the field — still slightly uncomfortable to walk — were up to some local sites just north of the city, a collection of wetlands created in the 1980s as an environmentally friendly way to manage storm-water that drains past the (now defunct) salt-fields, and into the mangroves of Barker Inlet.
At various times over the years I have visited Magazine Rd Wetlands, Whites Rd Wetlands, Barker Inlet, though not a lot recently other than as convenient twitchathon stopovers. But since the areas is close to home — about a 20min drive — and with some birds needed for my year list, I decided to pay a few short weekend visits. Mag Rd has almost dried up and largely devoid of birds, but did yield a long-staying Pectoral Sandpiper.
Barker Inlet has been signposted as a birding spot ever since we moved to Adelaide in 2012. But access has been problematic, almost always gated off, and the only birding I did there was way back in 2013 photographing some Whiskered Terns (and a 2016 twitchathon stopover that yielded Banded Stilts and Baillon’s Crake). Sadly those latter two birds are now scarce/absent at the site, but finally, now that the North-South Expressway has been competed, it has been opened up and it’s possible to walk around. Nothing special there, and certainly not the hoped-for Intermediate Egret, but the bigger and littler cousins were there, Great Egret and Little Egret:
At Dry Creek I scanned up and down the channel, finding only White-faced Herons and a Great Egret (which momentarily I tried to string to myself as Intermediate), but the stay was made worthwhile when a gorgeous White-winged Fairywren popped up in a mangrove right next to where I’d parked to eat my takeaway burger for lunch.
Another late afternoon trip took me out to Whicker Rd Wetland for the first time. None of these places is a particularly scenic place to bird, either next to a highway, defunct saltfields, rubbish tip or industrial estate (or many of the above). Whicker Rd is no exception, and this was my first ever visit. I was there because of a report of Glossy Ibis, which after walking around the entire set of ponds twice I finally managed to find. ebird list here.
As fitness has started to return I’ve ventured further afield, hoping to catch the gulf waders as they colour-up into summer plumage before their incredible 10,000km migration up the east-asian flyway in March/April.
I joined Edward Smith up at Clinton Conservation Park at the far north tip of the Gulf of St Vincent one Saturday morning. Hide tide was a mere 1.6m so by the time we arrived just after high tide birds were already spread out on the mudflats, meaning photographic opportunities were limited, but we enjoyed a spectacular morning birding. The usual suspects were there: hundreds of Red-necked Stints, a few Sharpies, 60 Red-capped Plovers, more than 40 Grey Plover, 6 Bar-tailed Godwits, 13 Far-eastern Curlew, a few each of Red Knots (5), Great Knots (3) and Greenshank (5) and a single Curlew Sandpiper. We were also fortunate to find two (maybe 3) Terek Sandpipers strutting about distantly on the mudflats, new for the year and only my second observation in SA (and 3rd worldwide). In amongst the terns (mainly Caspian and Crested) we found several Fairy Terns and I was able to scope an adult Little Tern, and we also found both variants of Gull-billed Tern: the asian race affinis which migrates from Asia (only one of these, slightly smaller build, more symmetric/conical and smaller bill, winter-plumaged bird), and 15 of the the Australian species, Australian Tern or Australian Gull-billed Tern (a recent split, Gelochelidon macrotarsa) with a more robust dagger bill that has a slight down-curved appearance because the lower mandible is flatter. As we were leaving we found 3 Greater Sandplover and then a fourth bird that got us excited — the obvious signs of summer plumage made this bird stand out, and its bill appeared less robust than the other nearby GSPs. But analysis of the one distant photo I managed when we returned to base confirmed this as a female Greater Sandplover, not the hoped-for Lesser Sandplover. ebird list here.
The following week Paul Coddington suggested I join him on a follow-up wader quest. He was mobile again having replaced the Forester that his son managed to write-off in a bizarre low-speed “incident”, and keen to catch the waders as they colour-up pre-migration. We headed to Bald Hill Beach, just south of Port Wakefield. We immediately spotted one of the most regular sightings at Bald Hill, Paul Taylor, who had arrived a few minutes before us for his 2-or-3-times-a-week survey. It was a still morning, but clouds had rolled over meaning the light was not ideal. High tide was earlier but also much higher than the previous week and there was initially not much about. But as the tide rolled out waders started to arrive in good numbers to feed on the newly exposed mudflats, and occasionally the sun peeked through markedly improving the light.
By the time we left 2 hours later we’d observed 8 Ruddy Turnstones, 8 Grey Plover, 80 Bar-tailed Godwits (biggest flock I have ever seen), 200 Red Knot, 16 Great Knot and 6 Curlew Sandpipers. The Godwits did not arrive until the tide had gone out a long way, so were too distant for photos, which is a shame because there were some colouring up in their spectacular brick-red plumage. Likewise many of the Red Knots were sporting various degrees of red (some were clearly the piersmai race, a deeper red and slightly smaller bird, pointed out by Paul T and easily seen to be different from the commoner rogersi, once noted), and a few of the Curlew Sandpiper were beginning to look very smart as they donned their best outfits like kids at a formal, hoping to attract a mate in a month or so. ebird list here.
For best photo ops, you have to get down!
On the way back from Bald Hill, Paul and I called in to Port Gawler hoping for some Slender-billed Thornbills. We were out of luck on that front, but I did add Great-crested Grebe, Inland Thornbill and Spotted Scrubwren to my year list. In amongst the GCGs were more Musk Duck (8) than I have seen in one place in SA before.
The signage at Port Gawler could do with some help. Here’s my contribution:
So… as of mid-March I am on 242 species for the year in SA, including the split Scrubwren species (Spotted and Striated), split Gull-billed Terns, and the recently determined taxonomy that fuliginosa “Golden” Whistlers should be lumped with Western Whistler, while youngi remain with Golden — I’ve seen both in SA this year. That’s already my second highest total for SA for a year, and only 19 off my previous best!
