sunshinecoastbirds: February 2025

Monday, 17 February 2025

COCOS & KEELING ISLANDS 2025

White Tern

6 February-11 February, 2025. Following our visit to Christmas Island we flew to West Island in the Cocos-Keeling group for a 5-day stay. This was reduced from the planned 7 days due to our flight from Christmas Island being delayed as a consequence of cyclonic weather. We enjoyed our stay at The Breakers and driving around the island, but like Christmas, the dearth of vagrants from south-east Asia was disappointing.

West Island beach

West Island main road

Several including Javan Pond-Heron, Watercock, Common Redshank, Pallas’s Grasshopper-Warbler and Black-backed Swamphen - which had been reliable for some time at regular hotspots - were nowhere in sight. Again, it’s not known whether this was because our visit was too late in the season, or if the relentlessly wild weather in the Indian Ocean over two weeks had pushed birds north. The weather also ruled out motorised canoe searches for Saunders’ Tern and Tibetan Sand-Plover.

Becher Besar

The highlights were the two vagrant ducks at the Becher Besar wetland. Two Eurasian Wigeons had been there for several weeks and were seen twice from the hide distantly. The Northern Pintail female which has been around for many months was seen once, while the offspring from its interbreeding with a Pacific Black Duck were occasionally present.

Northern Pintail-Pacific Black Duck crosses

Northern Pintail

I saw at least three Western Reef-Egrets among the more numerous Eastern Reef-Egrets. One was a distant pied morph. The other two were dark birds readily distinguished by their long bills and tibia, and more extensive white throat patch, though this was often not obvious when the bird was feeding. One bird was regular on the mud off the northern end of the airport runway.

Western Reef-Egret

On the runway itself were between one and four Medium Egrets at any given time. This is now a split from our Plumed Egret, so another for the Australian list. Nankeen Night-Heron was common with juveniles accounting for numerous pond-heron false alarms.

Medium Egret

Nankeen Night-Heron

Also on the runway were a nice pair of Oriental Pratincoles.

Oriental Pratincole

White Terns are always a delight and their constant presence helped atone a little for the paucity of rarities. They nested in trees around the town area on West Island.

White Tern

We visited Home Island for a day, thoroughly checking out Oceania House and the surrounding vegetation, but this rarity hotspot failed to reveal a single land bird. Furious winds throughout the day did not help and we were fortunate that the ferry back was not cancelled.

Home Island locals

West Island south end

The introduced Green Junglefowl occurs in Australia only at Cocos and they are abundant on West Island.

Green Junglefowl

Almost as abundant is White-breasted Waterhen. I don’t understand why this bird is so cryptic and shy on Christmas Island, while on West Island, they are all over the place.

White-breasted Waterhen

A Green Turtle turned up on the beach one day.

BIRDS

Green Junglefowl, White-breasted Waterhen,

White Tern, Brown Noddy, Lesser Frigatebird,

Red-footed Booby, Masked Booby, White-tailed Tropicbird,

Medium Egret, Western Reef-Egret, Eastern Reef-Egret,

Little Egret, Striated Heron, Nankeen Night-Heron,

Pacific Black Duck, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Pintail.. 17spp, 4 Oz ticks, 4 pic ticks

Sunday, 16 February 2025

CHRISTMAS ISLAND 2025

Christmas Island Boobook

28 January-6 February, 2025. I was last on Christmas Island as a working journalist in 2007 in May – the wrong time of year for summer vagrants from south-east Asia, as well as the endemic Christmas Island Boobook. So with a bit of unfinished business, Glenn and I opted to have a week on Christmas Island followed by a week in the Cocos-Keeling islands. We stayed at the Sunset Hotel on Christmas, aptly named for great sunsets. But only for the first two nights, as rough and often violent weather was the norm for the rest of the stay, courtesy of two cyclones and assorted lows circling the Indian Ocean to the south.

Sunset at Sunset Hotel

Our first foray took us to the delightful Tai Jin House near Flying Fish Cove. Here the endemics Christmas Island Imperial-Pigeon, Christmas Island White-eye and Christmas Island Thrush were all easy to see in numbers.

Christmas Island Thrush

Christmas Island White-eye

Christmas Island Imperial-Pigeon

We ventured to South Point and the railway ruins on our first full day out, spotting a couple of Barn Swallows. Vagrants proved to be frustratingly scarce. Whether this was due to the appalling weather for most of our time on the island, or if we were too late in the season – difficult to know. What we did see however was a Malayan Night-Heron along a creek in The Dales.

Island Coastline - The Blowholes

Travelling back east we had plenty of views of the magnificent Abbott’s Booby. Later with Steve Reynolds, who kindly showed me about the island, we had a beautiful juvenile booby near ground level on North-West Road. More were seen nicely in flight on another occasion off Margaret Knoll Lookout, where superb views of the golden race fulvus of White-tailed Tropicbird (known locally as the golden bosun) were also enjoyed. Images below of Abbott's Booby.

Steve and I were fortunate to flush at adult male Shrenck’s Bittern in wet grassland at the southern end of North South Baseline Road. This may have been the same bird which was seen a couple of times recently about the Settlement area. We flushed half a dozen Pin-tailed Snipe, with the usual distant images but trailing legs and distinctive call noted.

Pin-tailed Snipe

Good spots around the settlement included the Recreation Area (we got a hostile reception from the manager at the nearby rubbish tip - hitherto a major island hotspot), the Golf Course road, North-East Point and Territory Day Park. Great views of Christmas Island Flying-fox (below) were enjoyed during the late afternoon at the day park.

Seabirds were everywhere. Christmas Island Frigatebird was abundant, with fewer numbers of Great and even fewer Lesser. The “golden bosun” tropicbird was plentiful, and quite a few Red-tailed Tropicbirds were about. Red-footed Booby and Brown Booby were common.

White-tailed Tropicbird (Golden Bosun)

Red-footed Booby

Christmas Island Frigatebird

White-breasted Waterhen was common by voice but shy and seldom seen. The recently split Asian Emerald Dove was reasonably common roadside.

Asian Emerald Dove

Christmas Island Swiftlet was abundant but difficult to photograph.

Christmas Island Swiftlet

Eurasian Tree Sparrow was abundant and a handful of Java Sparrows – a species in decline on the island - were spotted near the hotel.

Java Sparrow

A couple of Christmas island Goshawks were seen.

Christmas Island Goshawk

We ended up having 9 instead of 7 days on the island as our flight out to Cocos was postponed due to the weather.

The silver lining to this cloud is that the night our flight was cancelled, the weather improved somewhat, allowing for a decent search for Christmas Island Boobook, which I had failed to find a couple of times earlier that week. That paid off nicely with a bird seen well on Phosphate Hill Road.

Of course the crabs are a big attraction on Christmas Island. The famous red crab summer spawning migration was underway but well beyond its peak. There were far fewer on the roads than during my last visit in May. Still, some roads were closed and careful driving was in order. Robber crabs were, as usual, ever present.