Southern Emu-wren at Deen Maar

Another Port Fairy Folk Festival meant another trip to Deen Maar. This is a gorgeous coastal wetland area centred on the Eumeralla River and Yambuk Lakes. It is an Indigenous Protected Area which means that permission must be gained before entry. This is currently arranged through the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust.

It is cited as a spot to see bittern so I am always hopeful but have remained disappointed in this regard! However I have found it a reliable spot to see Southern Emu-wren (see, but not photograph)! These birds give just distant glimpses and seem to spend most of their time in the middle of, or on the other side of a bush!

Here are the few shots I managed that at least show some identifiable features!

GOTCHA! Heard something that sounded a little like Superb fairy-wren and after a minute saw lilac/brown instead of black/blue! 

Southern emu-wren, Deen Maar, Yambuk, Vic

Another distant view of a pair of birds just showing the tail's six long "emu feather" plumes

 As in previous visits to Deen Maar the cisticola provide some great poses ….

Golden-headed cicticola, Deen Maar, Yambuk

White-browed scrubwren

Willie wagtail

"Ummm… Whaddaya say we add bird watching to the list?"

Eumeralla River looking west

Eumeralla River looking East (downstream towards Yambuk Lake and the estuary)

I heard what might be an Emu-wren somewhere in there! 

The Codrington Wind Farm turbine provides a constant backdrop. A cisticola and silvereye are perching on the shrub. 

Bird on!

Cisticola, Fairy-wrens & other Woolamai smalls

If these birds had hung around together a little longer then I may have made a better fist of capturing their moment together. These Golden-headed cisticola and Super fairy-wren shared the same patch of coastal heath when I visited Cape Woolamai recently.

Golden-headed cisticola and Superb fairy-wren, Cape Woolamai

Superb fairy-wren

Superb fairy-wren (female)

Golden-headed cisticola

There are few clues to the correct pronunciation of the name cisticola! It is one of those bird names that has to be heard before an attempt should be made. Sean Dooley does an excellent job in his book "From Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola":

Nothing gives a beginner away more quickly than mispronouncing the names of birds. It shouldn’t matter, but it does, and when I hear an experienced old-timer pronounce ‘plover’ so that it rhymes with ‘clover’ (it should rhyme with ‘lover’), I can’t help but give a misplaced smirk of superiority.
So for the record, if you want to avoid the sniggers of other birders, cisticola should be pronounced ‘sis-tick-er-la’ with the last syllables running together so that it sounds as though you are saying you have tickled your sister, not as if it was the latest flavour of Coke. And certainly try and avoid, as one friend used to say, ‘cisticular’. Particularly with the Zitting before it; people will think you are suffering from a medical condition. 'Sean was a healthy young man until he went to Darwin and picked up Zitting Cisticulars. Now it hurts when he pees.'

In my mind this male Golden-headed cisticola appears distracted by the flight of his love...

A few more Woolamai "smalls"....

Willie wagtail, Cape Woolamai (A "Woolie wagtail" perhaps?)

White-fronted chat

The scene where these shots were taken. Cape Woolamai, Phillip Island. The cape is at the eastern  most point of the island. Here is the view looking west across the rest of the island.

Bird on!

Birds of Port Fairy 2013

Don't get excited  - no pellagics here!

Birding endeavours during my recent trip to Port Fairy were seriously truncated by illness (temporary!) but here's a selection of shots from the weekend trip away for the folk festival.

Golden-headed cisticola

From the boardwalk at Pea Soup beach a wealth of gulls and terns beckoned further investigation but I really wasn't up to it!

This unbanded Hooded plover was protecting a fenced and signed nesting site at Pea Soup Beach, Port Fairy. 

Black-shouldered kite with freshly caught mouse .... Yum!

Down the hatch - whole!

Does my stomach look full?

We walked past a wetland at Russell Clark Reserve daily which afforded good views of Great egret, Chestnut teal and other ducks, Buff-banded rail, Hoary-headed grebe, Purple swamphen and Dusky moorhen. There was a small group of around a dozen Black-tailed native hen.

Bird on!

Emu-wren, Cisticola and Fieldwrens

We are at Deen Maar Indigenous Protected Area where I enjoyed another memorable morning last Saturday. Within minutes I had seen one of my "target" species - Southern emu-wren. Spent some time in the marshes with many Golden-headed cisticola and Striated fieldwren.

Although it never actually happened I had a feeling the whole morning that I was about to see something unique (I was thinking bittern etc). A great way to spend a morning!

Southern emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus)

Striated fieldwren (Calamanthus fuliginosus) 

Golden-headed cisticola (Cisticola exilis)

I was enjoying a nice view of this cisticola when a
fieldwren came and joined in (below)

(You know you must be small when
you can make a fieldwren look big!)

Black-shouldered kite (Elanus axillaris)

Swamp harrier (Circus approximans)

Mob of emu in the distance (about 15 of them)

Black swan 

Great egret

Here is 30 seconds of low-res compact still-camera video showing Deen Maar. Beyond the rise is the surf beach of Bass Strait. During the video some black swan take off (barely visible). In the last 4-5 seconds the "white noise" you can hear is the constant noise of the turbines (if you have good ears & listen carefully!).

My Deen Maar specials

Well they may be easy fodder for the more serious & experienced birder but Deen Maar introduced me to some species I hadn't had much to do with.

Firstly I was introduced to the Southern Emu-wren. I didn't go there looking for them & had not seen them before nor read much about them.
So embarrassingly I...

• didn't notice the emu feather tail until checking photos later on!
• thought I must have two lifers, having seen the tincy dark brown female (was quite disappointed to realise they were the same bird - please correct me if I'm wrong!)

The second bird had me rifling through the hitherto largely untouched pages 164-197 of my 2001 Pizzey. Oh my God - I had ignored those pages for good reason! When I saw this bird (actually a pair) I thought "Great, easy tick!" Some 45 minutes of exploring various resources later I realised - not so easy! Comparing my photos with various descriptions and other images I have nervously (Pizzey "uncommon regular migrant to to s. Australia") but confidently concluded that this is a Wood sandpiper:

Finally I also enjoyed first decent photographs of what I believe to be Golden-headed cisticola and Striated fieldwren.

As I mentioned on the previous Deen Maar post, I believe I was the only person out there. This is just as well as anyone following me would have seen a lot of this:

Post-Wood sandpiper perfect take-off

Go on click on it, you know you want to!

And I see that the Buff Budgies are just making up bird names now - or at least seeing things I don't believe exist. Congratulations Richard on Red-browed pardalote. Is that bird 206 for the year?

Spell check doesn't like pardalote. Look it did it again.... pardalote, pardalote, pardalote.

Peter (RTs - now on 144 glorious Victorian birds)