Cattle Egret in breeding plumage The Birds Australia annual fund-raising Twitchathon takes place on the last weekend of October each year. It's a bird watching competition in which teams are sponsored to see as many birds as they can in 24 hours. The money raised goes towards a bird conservation project. The Hunter Bird Observers Club has been very successful in the past, taking out both 1st and 2nd in 2008.
The twitchers were to report at the Hunter Wetlands so Maureen and I went out for the day, to check out the early arriving egrets for the breeding season and hear the reports. Counts have yet to be ratified, but it seems that HBOCers did very well again, perhaps setting a new record.
Some teams covered hundreds of kilometres to get their sightings, though I believe the excessive all-nighters of past years are now prohibited. Still it might be interesting to follow the lead of the Bigby birders and have a carbon-neutral section in the competition - where once you commence the count you remain entirely self-propelled until concluding the count.
Bird list:
Magpie Goose
Black Swan
Pacific Black Duck
Grey Teal
Chestnut Teal
Australasian Grebe
Pied Cormorant
Little Black Cormorant
Australian Pelican
White faced Heron
Great Egret
Intermediate Egret
Cattle Egret
Australian White Ibis
Royal Spoonbill
Whistling Kite
Swamp Harrier
Buff-banded Rail
Purple Swamphen
Dusky Moorhen
Black-tailed Native Hen
Eurasian Coot
Crested Pigeon
Rainbow Lorikeet
Musk Lorikeet
Eastern Rosella
Fan tailed Cuckoo
Channel billed Cuckoo
Laughing Kookaburra
Superb Fairywren
White-browed Scrubwren
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
Yellow Thornbill
Red Wattlebird
Noisy Miner
White-cheeked Honeyeater
Brown Honeyeater
Golden Whistler
Magpie-lark
Grey Fantail
Willie Wagtail
Spangled Drongo
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Figbird
Grey Butcherbird
Australian Magpie
Pied Currawong
Australian Raven
Red-browed Finch
Welcome Swallow
Australian Reed-warbler
Golden headed Cisticola
Common Starling
Common Myna
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