2013 - Year In Review

Geez, a new year already??

Where did October through to December go?

It's been some time since I posted about anything more recent than mid-September, so I figured while I'm doing a catch-up post for the second half of the year, I might as well make it the whole year.

By the way - this is going to be a text wall, simply because blogger is slow and I can't be bothered uploading photos! :D

Please have a go at reading it anyway though :P

This year has been a big one for me - all my life so far, I've been home-educated. 2013 marked the last year of my fairly secluded life, as in 2014 I will be attending year 11 (College, as we call years 11 and 12 in Canberra) at an actual school!!

With that in mind, I wanted to spend the year doing as much birding as possible! I had my parent's sympathy, and through them and the generosity of numerous friends, I was able to travel extensively through Australia.

My big goal for 2013 was to hit the big number: 400 Australian Life-list. As planning for the year progressed, I felt sure I would make it - so sure, in fact, that I made it even more challenging, and upped my goal to getting to 400 species for my Australian Year-list!!

I got off to a fairly slow start, but that didn't last long! In early January, I went to visit Simon in Sydney, in fact our first face-to-face meeting. Birding with him and Ashwin Rudder, another of our Young Birders Group, was entertaining as well as productive. On the first evening I was with Simon, we went out to twitch a Barking Owl that had turned up at Warriewood Wetlands, and had been seen by Ashwin the day before. We saw the owl, and a few mornings later I finally added a few waders to my list, including Whimbrel, Eastern Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone and Red-necked Stints. 

I returned home, and for a while my year-ticks almost dropped off entirely - with the exception of some excitement in late January, when I got my 100th Year-tick with the spectacular arrival of an Australian Painted Snipe pair at a wetland not far from home!

However that all changed when I had a conversation with a friend who lives in Alice Springs - he suggested I might like to do work experience at the Alice Springs Desert Park, where he works, when I turned 15. 

I'm a keen aviculturist as well as a birdwatcher, so I jumped at the chance not only for the birding opportunities, but also for the chance to learn something of zoo-style birdkeeping! On the day of my 15th birthday in late February, I boarded the plane to Alice.

During two weeks of massive (for a Canberra boy) heat and awesome fun, I got a taste of birding inland. After my daily work shift at the Desert Park and on the weekends, Jim and I birded quite extensively in the Alice area. Out of 103 species, I got more than 30 lifers!! Highlights for that trip were Dusky Grasswren, Spinifexbird, Crimson and Orange chats, Spinifex Pigeons virtually feeding from the hand, Golden-backed Honeyeater and Ground Cuckoo-shrike. 

Repeated visits to the Alice Springs Water-treatment Plant also gave me what was essentially my first insight into the trying world of wader identification - a skill that proved very useful during 2013, and is sure to remain useful for... well, forever!

Trips to Charcoal Tank Nature Reserve in western NSW with the bird-banding crew piled on the species, including Shining Bronze-cuckoo, Shy Heathwren, Black Honeyeater and Western Gerygone, although my nemeses Australian Owlet Nightjar and Painted Button Quail did, and still continue, to elude me!

Another visit to Simon in April, and another spate of year and life ticks. We tried spotlighting for Sooty Owls, but ended up dipping. Some nice shots of Tawny Frogmouth to compensate!

My next major trip was to Brisbane in the first week of July, where I had been invited to give a talk at the monthly meeting of the Queensland Finch Society. With Gary and Cheryl from the QFS, I added a lot more year ticks, as well as obtaining my first ever views of Red-backed Fairy Wren, with good shots to boot!

Ashwin and Nathan Ruser came to stay for a weekend, intending to join one of the Charcoal Tank banding trips - which was then cancelled almost as soon as they got off the bus. Disappointed, we decided to go camping in the Namadgi National Park, which was nice, even without mist nets! Spotted Quail-thrush near camp was a particularly good moment.

On the 25th of August, I set out for Wollongong for my first ever pelagic trip. Being my first, almost everything was a life tick, which is a thoroughly enjoyable feeling! Smooth waters were nice for my first go, and I wasn't sick (much to my relief), but it also meant no Pterodroma petrels. After the trip, my Life-list sat on 305, having ticked onto 300 with a truly majestic species - the Northern Royal Albatross. Along with the Royal, some of the best species we saw on that trip for me were Fairy Prion, Wandering Albatross, Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross, Northern Giant Petrel, and both Fluttering and Hutton's Shearwaters.

And then, on the 27th of August, I set out on my biggest ever trip. The three-week adventure into the Kimberley and Top-end, and I think anyone who reads this blog will know all about that by now!!!
Highlights for the Top-end trip were Gouldian Finch, Yellow-rumped Mannikin, Hooded Parrot, Northern Rosella, Varied Lorikeet, Bar-breasted Honeyeater, Brolga.... the list goes on, and on, and on!

Top-end was really my last proper trip for 2013, and by the end of it my Life-list was on the way to 400! It looked as though my goal would be attained!

Since that trip, my time has been primarily occupied with small-time twitches around home, and bird-banding. A second pelagic trip off the coast of Eden NSW turned up some exceptional birds, only this time the water was too rough to get to the continental shelf to see the Pterodroma Petrels! Grey-backed Storm Petrel, White-faced Storm Petrel, Common Diving Petrel, lots of Fairy Prions and plenty of Short-tailed Shearwaters made a brilliant day. I also saw the last of the Australian Cormorants for 2013, the Black-faced.
The day after the pelagic, I was able to do some birding around Eden and Bega, which was great, and I saw a few interesting birds including Brush Bronzewing, Curlew Sandpiper and White-fronted Chat.

A trip to Moruya in October caught me up on some of the coastal species such as Little Lorikeet, White-headed Pigeon, White-cheeked Honeyeater, and I finally got Noisy Friarbird. This common species had eluded me in the summer, and I was getting worried! I'd never hear the end of it if I missed that bird... so thank god I didn't!!

During this latter part of the year, the inland birds decided to invade Canberra. White-browed and Masked Woodswallows and White-winged Trillers hung around Campbell Park. I went out there early one morning and saw over 300 Woodswallows!

When the Black Honeyeaters turned up at a small urban pond only 20 minutes away from home on the bike, I shot off to see them, despite them being 'not even a year-tick'! 

On the November banding trip to Charcoal, we were all shock-and-awed by the capture of an adult Black-eared Cuckoo, a first banding on the site! Excitement was further raised with the sighting of a second, immature, bird hanging around the area. Southern Whiteface was also caught on that trip, the first since 2006, and Diamond Doves were present - another inland anomaly.

Another Painted Snipe, another successful twitch! Painted Snipes are starting to become my favourite wader… 

In the last week of November, I was lucky enough to do another week of zoo work-experience, this time at the beautiful Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria. More year ticks, more good times! Working with the endangered Helmeted Honeyeater was truly an experience, and Glen Holland took me out to Werribee Treatment Plant on my last day!
Crested Shrike-tit, Pectoral Sandpiper, Blue-billed Duck and Eurasian Tree Sparrow were some of my favourite birds from that trip.

The last banding trip of the year attracted the attention of a birder and photographer friend of mine, Stanley Tang from Townsville. He flew all the way down to come banding with us, as he wanted to acquire more experience for his own PhD-related banding endeavours. We visited the usual Canberra sites, and once at Charcoal we started to get the good stuff!

Black-eared Cuckoos were once again present - this time with THREE individual birds caught, including the adult and juvenile from the November trip. Hopefully they stick around until the January trip, when Stanley and Nathan Ruser will be around.

The other major highlights of that trip were my first sightings of Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, and first-for-site-for-me catches of Diamond Firetail and Horsfield's Bronze Cuckoo.

We arrived home, and I looked up eremaea. The first words on the page for Birdline ACT were "Purple-crowned Lorikeets"!!!!

We raced out to the site as quickly as possible, and after several infuriating minutes of tense searching, got great views of a pair of Purple-crowns (the first ACT record since 1986), and some Musk Lorikeets. Suddenly, everything was lining up for me to be able to see all 7 Lorikeet species in one year!!

By this time, it had become clear that my goal of 400 for the year of 2013 would be impossible. I was gutted, and had only myself to blame for not trying hard enough at some of the places I'd been!! However, I still had the goal of 400 Life-list to aim for...

Christmas passed. With a great sense of excitement, on the 29th of December I hit the road for the last time, in a last-ditch effort to reach my goal. And who better to do it with than my host for my first trip of the year?

Simon picked me up at the Broadmeadow train-station in mid-NSW, and, joined by Nick Weigner, a young birder from Newcastle, we drove to Hexham Swamp.

Hexham was just the beginning. After ticking Black-tailed Godwit at Stockton Sandspit, we drove up to Simon's holiday home in Hawk's Nest, near Port Stephens, where I would be staying until a few days into the New Year.

Frantic birding got me ever closer to the magic number. Ospreys nesting on top of a telecom tower. Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, my last Australian lorikeet, seen and photographed. Common Tern on the beach. I finally got a look at a White-throated Needletail.

We ran into David Stowe, master photographer and birdwatcher, on the beach in Hawk's Nest on the morning of New Year's Eve. We arranged to go spotlighting that night, in the Myall Lakes National Park....

... And we were successful! For me, the view of Masked Owl was brief and only barely tickable. But a Masked Owl it was, with no doubt at all. Simon even got a look down the binoculars before it flew off.

Masked Owl was to be my last lifer, and my last year tick, for 2013. When we got back, around 11pm, I did the list tally.

Year list: 370.

Life list: 

Three hundred.

And Ninety.

Eight.

*sigh*

While I suppose my little attempt at a big year was pretty insignificant really, I was still devastated to have missed out by just TWO species. 

In all honesty though, I don't really care. Two Thousand and Thirteen was easily the best birding year, and possibly even the best all-round year of my entire life. I travelled more and experienced more in 2013 than in the past 5 years combined, and I had a hell of a fantastic time doing so!

So with that, I'd like to extent the biggest thanks of ALL TIME to Mark and Simon Gorta, Sharon Zwi, Ashwin Rudder, Jim Oatley, Gary Fitt, Cheryl Mares, Anthony Overs, Mark Clayton, Richard Jackson, Matt Mullaney, The crew and passengers of the 'Sandra K ' on August 25th, The crew and passengers of the Eden pelagic, Harvey Perkins, Glen Holland, Stanley Tang, David Stowe, and of course my wonderful parents!!!!!

I'd also like to say thanks to everyone who has helped me with bird IDs, camera tech support and a myriad of other issues during 2013 - the members of the facebook group Australian Birds and the bird-photography forum Feathers and Photos rate special mention!

Happy New Year, everyone, even if it is a bit late. I'll make a post about the 2014 part of my Hawk's Nest trip soon, but for now that's it! Happy birding this year!

Julian.