Birding Binalong Bay, Tasmania

Back in April our family enjoyed an hour or so exploring the rocky shores and beaches of Binalong Bay, Tasmania.  We all had our cameras out trying to capture the late afternoon Autumn sun playing on the rocks. This township is at the southern end of the Bay of Fires, the whole area noted for the bright orange lichen covering the granite boulders (amongst other things)!

My lens was focussed on our feathered friends as usual ....

Little pied cormorant with some Bay of Fires colour

Australian pelican are just awesome! 

Such a wing-span!

Crested tern landing 

Crested tern on some of the yellower lichen-encrusted granite 

Silvereye wins the berry through sheer perseverance

Superb-fairy wren also contemplates a meal (or a drink)

Black-headed honeyeater recently identified to me by a guide who pointed out a useful ID feature in the black "epaulettes" 

Sharing with Wild Bird Wednesday

Bird on!

Black-faced - a handsome cormorant, Birds of Phillip Island

'Traveled with Richard and nephew Moses to Cat Bay at the weekend which is reportedly a haunt for Black-faced cormorant. Unlike the other cormorants we see in Australia this fellow sticks to the coast and offshore islands of southern Australia. As a result, it is a cormorant that one has to go and look for rather than encounter incidentally. Having said that it is my experience that they are extremely sedentary - returning to a previous black-faced haunt is generally successful.

Black-faced cormorant Phalacrocorax fuscescens

This particular haunt is Flynn's Beach at Phillip Island's Cat Bay. It is easy to see the remains of an old jetty looking NE from the Cat Bay car park and on it there are often cormorants. I understand the jetty was built to unload passengers visiting a Phillip Island resort lodge in the days before the large bridge at San Remo. Guests would stay at the lodge and be taken to see the nightly arrival of a colony of Little penguin Eudyptula minor. This event is now promoted internationally as the famed Penguin Parade.

With binoculars check from the car park for the presence of cormorants and then enjoy the beach walk. The old jetty pylons may be approached from the Cat Bay or Flynn's Beach car parks. There is also an unmarked management track that leads from the main road opposite the Penguin Parade buildings. This is hard to find but leads straight to the pylons.

Black-faced cormorant, Flynn's Beach, Phillip Island

One of those iphone panorama shots (markedly exaggerating the curve of the bay)

Seven Black-faced cormorants - also a Great cormorant (top right) and a Little pied cormorant (middle right)

Comparison view Black-faced and Great cormorant

Little pied coromorant

On this occasion we did approach from the dune lending this initial view of the scene:

The birds were quite relaxed with our presence, only the Great cormorant flew off. I have found another reliable place for Black-faced cormorant is the Port Fairy's Moyne River rocky breakwater. Again the bird tolerated very close inspection:

Black-faced cormorant, Port Fairy

Perhaps not so endearing close-up but generally the striking pied look with brilliant white and no other colour makes for a generally handsome cormorant ("no other colour" except for that piercing green-blue eye)!

Also likeable 'cos they enjoy a good laugh!

Sharing with Wild Bird Wednesday

Bird on!

Shearwater Estate's ugly ducklings

It's OK. I'm talking swans and grebes!

The idea that a cygnet could be mistaken for an ugly duckling entertained Hans Christian Anderson. In a similar vein I remember being fascinated to discover that those funny-looking little ducklings that never grew bigger were actually things called grebes!

Whatever can be said about island developers they have certainly been successful in creating what is currently a bird-attracting wetland at Shearwater Estate.

Many other species also frequent the wetland (Ereamea list - 59 species) ..... including actual ducks!

Hoary-headed grebe (Poliocephalus poliocephalus)
Immature bird (similar to non-breeding winter adult plumage)

I think we are seeing here the grebe's nictitating membrane
which is said to serve as a contact lens when diving.

Like water off a grebe's back!

By way of comparison - adult breeding plumage
Fishers Wetland, Phillip Island, 5/1/2009
(all other photos Shearwater estate)

Black swan (Cygnus atratus)

Can reach to scratch anywhere on it's back
and see the spot as well!

Hardhead or White-eyed duck (Aythya australis)

Little pied cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos)

Welcome swallows (Hirundo neoxena)
& Fairy martins (Petrochelidon ariel)

Blackie Lake disappointment

A pair of Sacred kingfisher have been hanging around the lake over summer. A fellow birder (thanks Trevor) had shown me where they had nested in previous years and they seemed to be hanging around the exact same nesting hollow.

Sacred kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus)
Blackburn Lake Sanctuary, 2 Feb 2012

When wandering around the lake yesterday I passed said nesting hollow and heard the sound of young birds. With much anticipation I found myself a "perch" at a respectable distance and waited. I must confess to being disappointed when this fellow stuck his head out!

Rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus)

I never saw the kingfishers actually enter any nesting hollow but I have just read that some astute observers reported nesting and young birds at the lake in November.

That makes me feel better!

A few other locals follow. I don't see Black-faced cuckoo-shrike frequently at the lake so I enjoyed seeing this bird yesterday.

Black-faced cuckoo-shrike 

Always obliging
Little pied cormorant 

Duck Yoga 

These guys have been hanging around a bit lately
lowering the tone of the neighbourhood.
Australian white ibis

Wha...what happened? What's that?
Maybe 20th wedding anniversaries
do weird things to a bloke

P.S. - I enjoyed creating my new blog background which is a photoshopped variation of a shot taken at one of my favourite spots, Deen Maar in Southwestern Victoria. The original can be seen in one of last year's Deen Maar posts.