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| Little Curlew |
This
week I headed out to Atkinsons Dam in the hope that a flock of six
Little Curlew that turned up there in October was still about. It
was a depressing sight. The main dam was empty, littered with turtle
carcasses being feasted on by Whistling Kites and Torresian Crows. A
single live Long-necked Turtle wandered across the sun-backed mud. It
was the same throughout the Lockyer and Brisbane valleys: Lockyer
Creek is dry; the Brisbane River is
a
series of pools below Somerset Dam; almost all the wetlands are
empty; the landscape is parched and tinder-dry.
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| Long-necked Turtle |
I'd
been unable to look for the curlews earlier because of our road trip
to Tasmania. I walked around the edge of the dry main storage,
checking out the area where they had been hanging about, without
success. Then as I left I ran into Tyde Bands, the last person to see
them, on December 6. Tyde relocated three birds exactly where he'd
seen them several
times.
They were further back from the lake edge than I'd expected. There's
nothing special about this spot; the birds
keep returning to it even after flying off. (See ebird for Tyde's GPS
coordinates). Little Curlew is a very rare visitor to South-East
Queensland. In the 1970s we would see them regularly at Archerfield
Aerodrome near Brisbane but they've rarely been reported there in
recent years.
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| Little Curlew |
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| Little Curlew |
I
then checked out Banool Road nearby where several Australian
Pratincoles have been present for several weeks. This
is another very rare visitor to South-East Queensland. Five
birds were quickly located, a couple not far from the road.
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| Australian Pratincole |
Banded
Lapwings were in the distance here, a regular hotspot for this
species. Then a flock of 23 lapwings flew from the dry paddocks to a
roadside
dam to drink, before returning to the paddocks.
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| Banded Lapwing |
For
the rest of that day and the next morning I visited favoured birding
localities but birdlife was subdued in
the dry conditons.
A Wedge-tailed Eagle pair in the early morning light at (the empty)
Peacheys Lagoon and
a pair of Cockatiel nearby were
nice. Lake
Apex at Gatton was also
dry
and the locals are putting out seed and dishes of water for the
swamphens and other waterbirds that continue to hang about. A single
(introduced in South-East Queensland) Long-billed Corella was feeding among hundreds of
Little Corella here.
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| Cockatiel |
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| Long-billed Corella & Little Corella |
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| Wedge-tailed Eagle |
I
found that Lake Dyer was at least half-empty and there appeared to be
good numbers of birds on it, so
I walked around the lake. Among the hundreds of Grey Teal and
Hardhead were two Freckled Duck; they were distant and I managed just
poor record images. Three Hoary-headed Grebes were also distant. At
the lake's western end I flushed three Red-chested Buttonquail from
long grass and weeds, habitat that was relatively sparse for this
species. The
ducks were being harassed by a trio (two adults and an immature) of
White-bellied Sea-eagles. Large
numbers of Red-necked Avocet were on the lake. Elist.
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| Freckled Duck (distant, centre) |
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| Hardhead |
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| Red-necked Avocet & Grey Teal |
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| White-bellied Sea-Eagle |
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