What started out to be a day searching for Neophema parrots at Jack Smith Lake turned out to be something else, sure we did see 7 Blue-winged Parrots, but we also got another 56 species of bird, mammal, and orchid to make up the 57 varieties. We started the day with the long trek along the northern edge of the reserve with my left knee grumbling and promising to make things difficult for me during the day. We normally find this stretch of salt marsh very productive, but not yesterday, and it wasn’t until we were halfway back to the vehicle that we flushed three Blue-wings from a raised tussock area where they’d been sheltering from the breeze. The reserve had dried out during the dry August, but a pair of Red-capped Dotterels were still on on a damp mud flat.
After a well earned spell and coffee we drove on to the permanent water which was still at a good level, but remarkably free of birds. A lone Musk Duck a few Chestnut Teal, and a pair of Black Swans the only ones on the water. The piles and nest boxes were perches for the usual Crested Terns, one Great Cormorant, and, a Pied Cormorant, the first I’ve seen there. Little Pieds are common in our neck of the woods, but a Pied is quite unusual. After jumping the outlet channel we set off along the water for our next search, White-fronted Chats were numerous, but no parrots showed up in their favourite spot. We’d been hoping to see some migratory waders along the shore, but again nothing, just another solitary pair of resident Red-caps. Peter was doing his meticulous list keeping, and the number of common bird species was steadily rising when we turned the corner and headed in the direction of “The Roller”, a one time pelican breeding location. Things started to get interesting then with two Stubble Quail flushing, and then when I was cutting through some tussocks a Calamanthus popped up from my feet. I had a look for a nest without success, earlier I’d been telling Peter about the neat little nest of the White-fronted Chat, and then, thirty metres further on a female chat also flew up from my feet, and right under my nose was her nest with three eggs, tucked into the base of a tussock. Peter quickly got a photo with the little female watching from the fence wire, and we moved on to let her return.
We got four more Blue-wings along this stretch, again in raised areas with food plants and tussocks for shelter, and they were the last we saw for the day. We usually make a bee line back to the vehicle through private property that extends into the reserve, normally not so good for birds, but it wasn’t long before we saw a flock of Yellow-rumped Thornbills and a pair of Pallid Cuckoos. Woodswallows are a host for the cuckoos, and soon after we walked on to a small flock of Dusky Woodswallows, a little bit distant for a photo, but this one didn’t turn out too badly.
As it turned out the fun was just beginning, because as we walked across the last paddock before reaching the water again, three Latham’s Snipe flushed, another first for our JSL list. Then Peter notice three waders wheel in and settle on the far shore, and a look through the bins revealed three Pacific Golden Plovers, one still with some breeding plumage. Two beautiful Caspian Terns dropped in too, and two adult Pacific Gulls soared past on the updraught from the dunes as we got our lunch boxes out.
There’s a lot more parrot habitat at Lake Lamb and across at the Blue Hole, which was another outlet to the ocean in earlier wetter times. With the reserve so dry we drove, following tracks made by duck hunters in previous seasons, and when we reached the channel leading into the Blue Hole saw a pair of Mountain Ducks, with fourteen little ones in tow. Red-capped Dotterels and chats in numbers were along the edge, and then we spotted three Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, some Red-necked Stints, and a dawdling Double-banded Plover, in full breeding plumage. So, halfway through September the first of the migratory waders had arrived, and the Double-banded was topping up its reserves before taking off for New Zealand.
Something happened then that astounded me, Peter was checking the surrounding area while I was scanning the shore looking for the Hooded Plovers we saw on our last visit. As I looked across the water a dark shape appeared briefly on the surface, then submerged again, what was it, not a cormorant, didn’t lift its head. I continued scanning the water and after a few minutes there it was again, coming briefly to the surface and submerging again, and this time I’m sure I saw the shape of a platypus bill. But how could one be there in that very brackish environment? My only guess is that it came in via one of the creeks in time of flood and became landlocked, one thing is certain, we’ll have to spend some time there to try and get better sightings, because when Peter rejoined me we watched for quite some time without seeing it again.
We’d seen five species of raptor during the day, Wedge-tailed and Sea Eagles, Brown Goshawk, Brown Falcon, and Nankeen Kestrel, and we were thankful that the little Mounties had escaped predation while we were there, unlike the baby swans on the Latrobe. With the afternoon well advanced we left JSL and headed back to the Giffard Flora Reserve to check on the orchids. Waxlips were just starting to flower, but more interesting to us was a colony of Tall Greenhoods, Pterostylis melagramma, formerly confused according to the good book with P. longifolia, as we previously knew them. Orchids have undergone a lot of revision over the last few years and I need to do a lot of homework to catch up.
With our day just about over we drove on through the reserve towards the highway, but had one last stop when we reached the deer farm. A black and white bird flew in front of and to the rear of the vehicle, we pulled up and were soon looking at an uncommon spring migrant from the north, a White-winged Triller, a great way to finish an interesting day. I’m still not sure though whether Peter believes me about the platypus. 