Tuggerah Wetlands

Red-kneed Dotterel

The Central Coast Group of Birding NSW  visited McPherson Road Swamp and Pioneer Dairy yesterday. Arriving at the swamp there were Dollar Birds perched on the wires and two Whipbirds wresting on the ground under dense shrubs. Golden-headed Cisticolas and Tawny Grassbirds called from the reeds, and Superb Fairywrens scolded from the bushes along the track.

Tawny Grassbird

A resident in one of the houses overlooking the water had a bird feeder on the fence, which had attracted numbers of Chestnut-breasted Manikin and Red-browed Finch.

Chestnut-breasted Manikin

Cattle Egret,  Eastern Great Egret and an Intermediate Egret fished along the shore. Amongst the more common ducks was a Hardhead, but sign of the Pink-eared Duck sighted there recently.

Hardhead

We flushed three Brown Quail, and watched two Latham's Snipe take off from nearby for safer locations on the far side of the water. Several Black-fronted Dotterel were content to stay put.

Latham's Snipe

Black-fronted Dotterel

At Pioneer Dairy there were good numbers of ibis, spoonbills, egrets, moorhens, swamp hens and ducks. Channel-billed Cuckoos and Figbirds flew to and from the giant fig trees. Raptors included Australian Kestrel and White-bellied Sea Eagle. A lone Australian Pipit his in the grass. Perhaps the 'bird of the day' was a substantial flock of Plumed Whistling Duck.

Stockton Channel

As the full moon high tide came in the Grey-tailed Tattlers jockeyed for position on the wreck rusting at the edge of the Hunter River, just upstream from the river mouth.

Soldiers Point

Gave myself an hour down at Soldier’s Point today to check on the waders. Some are starting to develop their breeding plumage, it will only be a matter of weeks before they begin their long journey back to the breeding grounds in the Northern hemisphere. I’ll have to schedule more regular visits over the next month.

Soldiers Point

Big seas had forced the birds to the front of the rock shelf where there was little cover, so it was impossible for me to get close in the hour I had given myself. But there were good numbers of birds, including the first Double Banded Plover I’ve seen this summer. No sign of the Wandering Tattlers that have been reported up and down this part of the coast but from the top Grey-tailed Tattler, Pacific Golden Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone, Red-necked Stint.

Soldiers Point

#1 Pacific Golden Plover
 
#2 Curlew Sandpipers

#3 Ruddy Turnstones

#4 Grey-tailed Tattler
#5 Bar-tailed Godwit 
#6 Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
#7 Red-necked Stint

Roebuck Bay

The workshop came to a close with a critique session where we all contributed three images from the workshop, and discussed them. The three that I put forward were the two sharp-tailed sandpiper taken while lying on my stomach, the massed flock coming into land, and this grey-tailed tattler displaced from his rock by the incoming tide.

Photo tips from Craig Ingram, our instructor.

• Use a tripod, to maximise sharpness.
• Use aperture priority mode, to give maximum shutter speed for the situation.
• Use AI servo mode, to keep a moving subject in focus.
• Expose to the right of the histogram, to maximise quality.
• Use auto white balance and adjust in post-processing.
• Remember that the quality of the light is the life blood of the image.
• The frame boundaries are the primary tool in composition, be decisive about what is in and what is out.

One Tree

Next day the high tide was a little later in the morning, so we went to One Tree to look for birds in the mangroves and get images of individual waders feeding on the mud flats.

First bird of the day was a broad-billed flycatcher, moving between three favoured perches to sing in the early morning light, followed by a mangrove grey fantail who proved more of a challenge to capture as he constantly flittered through the mangroves. White-breasted wood-swallows perched in the dead trees on the other side of Crab Creek, and yellow white-eyes were in abundance.

 

In George Swan’s guide to birding the area, he recommends birding the Big Crab Creek trail close to a neap tide as you need to cross Little Crab Creek and you will get stranded on a higher tide. He also gives specific instructions on where to cross Little Crab Creek to avoid the deepest mud. We crossed in plenty of time, and for the most part we stayed out of the mud. We were given specific instructions to be back at the creek crossing within 30 minutes, and divided up into ones and twos to creep up on individual birds feeding. It was a successful morning, with the valuable lesson learned that “40 minutes” isn’t really close enough to “30 minutes”. We had to go further upstream to cross Little Crab Creek and ended up knee deep in mud and thigh deep in water, ferrying cameras and tripods over our head. My shoes stuck in an underwater mud bank, and I left them there.

But using our newly learned birding and photography techniques, we did capture some great images of the waders.

Red-necked Stint   Great Knot

Ruddy Turnstone

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

Black-tailed Godwit

Campsite Beach



The photography workshop had been timed so that we had the high tides that forced the birds off the mudflats where they fed, onto the beaches in massed groups, while the sun was low in the sky providing a perfect light for the birds. From then it was a matter of picking a beach and hoping it was the same one the the birds would pick, taking up a position tucked behind a rock and waiting for the birds to come.

I happened to choose well and was rewarded with some images of the huge number of waders that spend the summer on the shores of Roebuck bay.

Some of the birds are still showing their breeding colours. After a period of watching them closely they started to develop distinct personalities. The terek sandpipers are busy birds, even when others are closing their eyes they are still pottering about. The greenshanks are nervy, first to scatter as a white-breasted sea eagle, brahminy kite, or whistling kite flew overhead. 

Cable Beach

A walk along Cable Beach after breakfast provided some relief from the heat. There were half a dozen different species of wader in groups of twos and threes amongst the rocks, which provided a less than truly comfortable perch to sit and wait for them to come within camera distance.

The stints kept chasing each other, the red-capped plovers darting along the sand chasing something unseen, the pacific golden plovers washined their tit-bits in the rock pools before eating, and the sandplovers went about their foraging in an orderly manner.

Broome Settlement Ponds

We'd heard that the water corporation had closed access to the sewage ponds, and the birds could now only be viewed from behind the eight foot fence - which wasn't much good for photography - but we thought we'd drive out for a look. When we arrived, the gate was open and noone was around so we ambled in and set oursevles up on the edge of the first pond.

There were literally hundreds of plumed whistling ducks, plus good numbers of pacific black duck and grey teal, and australian pelican. There were around twenty white-headed stilt, included three very young babies at the waters edge at our feet, which was probably why the stilt were chasing any black kite that came too close to the ponds.

Whiskered tern flew across the surface of the water, and common sandpiper foraged at the waters edge.

We were just  settling in for a couple of hours of productive photography, when a voice asked "Do you have permission to be in here?" We confessed, and were told we had to seek permission at the water corp office, though it was highly unlikely that permission would be given. Sure enough, all our rational explanations and emotional pleadings counted for little. Access was denied on the grounds of OHS concerns. This is one of my (many) gripes - the misuse of "occupational health and safety". We don't work there so how can OHS be an issue - if you mean public liability then say so. The end result however was that any future birding at the ponds would be done through the chain link fence.