2018 Sunshine Coast Birds Big Year

#303 Pale-vented Bush-hen

Every now and then I think it's good to take up a challenge: set oneself a goal and go for it. It may take a while to reach your target. It was many years before I finally attained my goal of seeing all 234 bird families in the world; that milestone was notched up in Panama in 2015 with the sighting of Sapayoa.

2018 Zone of Happiness

Birders often embrace a Big Year as a worthy goal. The idea is to see as many species as possible within a period of 12 months. A Big Year might be nation-wide or international, but I thought the Sunshine Coast region would do nicely for 2018. That wasn't the plan initially. Ken Cross, the leader of BirdLife Australia Sunshine Coast, had for a few years been running a competition for local birders to see who could photograph the most birds in a calendar year. Part of the goal was to encourage up and coming birders to improve their skills by identifying images posted on a Facebook page created each year for what was dubbed The Game.

#1 Brush Cuckoo

I thought initially that I'd join The Game in 2018 for a hoot, but that soon morphed into a full-on Big Year. I set a goal of photographing 300 species in the region in the calendar year.

#30 Eastern Grass Owl

The area covered for The Game is the so-called Zone of Happiness. The zone extends beyond the boundaries of the Sunshine Coast and Noosa councils: north to Inskip Point, south to Bribie Island and west to beyond Kilcoy and Amamoor, with an outlier in the Sheepstation Conservation Park south of Caboolture. My first photograph for The Game was a Russet-tailed Thrush behind Yandina. Although identifiable, I thought the image unworthy so discarded it; another seven months went by before I managed another photograph of this species! 

#31 Grey Ternlet

As it transpired, quantity not quality is the order of The Game for photographs. So long as an image is identifiable by someone in the group, that's adequate for it to pass muster; quite a few photographs on the page, including some of mine, are not as sharp as one might wish. That's fine: it's a birding indulgence first and foremost, not a photographic contest.

The winning total for The Game in 2017 was 256 species photographed by Carolyn Scott. I thought then that was an impressive effort. I've seen a total of 348 species in the Zone of Happiness, with observations stretching back to the early-1970s. Two species – Eastern Bristlebird and Emu – are now extinct in the area. Many others are vagrants or rare visitors, especially seabirds. (Birds seen on pelagic trips offshore are counted for The Game.)

#158 Shining Flycatcher

Most species in the region are common and widespread so are not difficult to photograph – the so-called low-hanging fruit. Others are numerous enough but can take a bit of work to nail down: Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove and Russet-tailed Thrush are good examples. Yet others are skulking, elusive and difficult to see, let alone photograph. Rails and owls feature prominently in the latter group.

#200 Brolga

As the early months of 2018 went by, I worked out a plan to boost the prospects of snaring the maximum possible number of birds before December 31. I had some advantages. I'd done a good deal of guiding over the years so knew of reliable sites for cryptic species such as Pale-vented Bush-hen and Black-breasted Buttonquail. I organise the Mooloolaba pelagic trips so was able to amass a reasonable collection of seabirds. On the other hand, I was going to be away from home for more than three months of 2018, so some visiting birds would inevitably be missed (as transpired with the likes of White-browed Woodswallow and Freckled Duck).

#221 Australian Owlet-Nightjar

For many targets, it was a matter of studying ebird records, Google Earth and Google Maps to gather information on distribution, habitat and access. I figured that the dry woodlands north of Gympie, for instance, might work for species that hadn't been recorded in previous years of The Game, like Speckled Warbler and Weebill. Or the paddocks and lightly wooded country around Kilcoy or west of Amamoor might harbour local rarities like Yellow-rumped Thornbill and Black-chinned Honeyeater.

#225 Pectoral Sandpiper

As the year marched on, various pieces of what I imagined to be a big jigsaw puzzle gradually fell into place. Pelagic trips offshore ensured that both summer-visiting seabirds (like Short-tailed Shearwater and Tahiti Petrel) and winter visitors (like Antarctic Prion and Providence Petrel) were in the bag. The odd rarity, notably Grey Ternlet, didn't go astray. Six pelagic trips were undertaken during the year.

#246 Red-browed Treecreeper

I managed to photograph all the region's nocturnal birds: Australian Owlet-Nightjar; two nightjars (Large-tailed and White-throated); two frogmouths (Marbled and Tawny) and six owls (Eastern Grass, Barn, Masked, Powerful, Barking and Southern Boobook). Some of the trickier waterbirds snapped included Spotless Crake, Baillon's Crake, Pale-vented Bush-hen, Australian Little Bittern and Lewin's Rail.

#247 Masked Owl 

I put in some serious driving time. I travelled twice to Bribie Island in one day because I learned after I got home from the first visit that a Radjah Shelduck had turned up at Sandstone Point, just 1km from where I was. I got the shelduck, and it didn't stay around, but I saw the species later in the year anyway at Tin Can Bay.

#250 Powerful Owl

Participating in The Game meant that I disclosed a fair number of sites held close to my chest for many years. But I learned through other participants of sites I'd not known of.

#274 Black-bellied Storm-Petrel

It helped that I went on 10 campouts of 1-3 nights in the region during the year - Charlie Moreland Park, Kenilworth Bluff, Conondale National Park, Amamoor, Yandilla, Brooyar State Forest, Rainbow Beach, Tin Can Bay, Cooloola and Noosa North Shore – as well as overnight stays on Bribie Island and in Kilcoy and Tiaro (the latter outside the zone, but to access the northern woodlands).

#285 Regent Honeyeater

I had just a single shot at quite a few birds - that is they were seen (and photographed) just once during the year: Eastern Grass Owl, Grey Ternlet, Streaked Shearwater, Marbled Frogmouth, Brush Bronzewing, Oriental Cuckoo, Baillon's Crake, Brolga, Fluttering Shearwater, Plum-headed Finch, Superb Fruit-Dove, Pectoral Sandpiper, Barn Owl, Large-tailed Nightjar, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Masked Owl, Sooty Owl, Black-breasted Buttonquail, Red-footed Booby, Red-browed Treecreeper, Shy Albatross, Yellow Thornbill, Barking Owl, Weebill, Green Pygmy-Goose, Regent Honeyeater, Lesser Crested Tern, Grey Plover, Southern Emu-wren, Sanderling, Pacific Swift, Black Bittern. As the year drew to an end, the pickings became few and far between.

#286 Lesser Crested Tern

The vagaries of birding are well illustrated by the very last bird for 2018 – Red-winged Parrot, seen on December 31. One had been seen on the outskirts of Gunalda a few days earlier. I was at the site at the crack of dawn and searched the area diligently without success for two hours. I returned mid-afternoon and there was the bird.

#293 Radjah Shelduck

As for my favourite bird of the year, I can think of a few. Photographing Southern Emu-wren and Brush Bronzewing at Cooloola was uplifting. They weren't great images but I'd not seen the emu-wren in Queensland since the 1970s, and the bronzewing just a couple of times since then. I photographed Eastern Ground Parrot a few times before eventually managing a half-decent image. Pectoral Sandpiper near Toorbul was nice, as were Masked Owl near Yandilla and Eastern Grass Owl at Bli Bli. The Regent Honeyeater at Carlos Pt was an extraordinary out-of-range record.

#300 Black Bittern

I was very happy to bag a Red-browed Treecreeper, in the southern Conondales. This species was once regularly encountered in the Conondale and Blackall ranges but numbers appear to have crashed; in the almost 10 years since I moved to the Sunshine Coast, I'd seen it just once previously. I believe it is one of a number of birds in the region to be impacted by climate change. Probably top of the pops was Black Bittern at Tin Can Bay. I've seen the species occasionally but regularly in the region, though hadn't managed to photograph it before. It was also the 300th species for the year.

#302 Lewin's Rail

I ended up with 310 species photographed in 2018. The Zone of Happiness in 2019 will be quite different from 2018 because its boundaries extend well westward, netting a suite of extra birds, so comparing 2018 with 2019 will not be comparing apples with apples. I spotted but failed to photograph three species – Black-tailed Native-hen, Swift Parrot, Budgerigar - so saw a total of 313 species for 2018 in the Sunshine Coast region. Now it's 2019, and time to move on. Let's see now. Getting my world lifelist up from 7920 to 8000 would be nice.

#310 Red-winged Parrot