Wandering Dutchman meets Australian Owlet-Nightjar during the day

The morning after the gannet-fest saw us in the You Yangs, north of Geelong. We went on a couple of walks and turned up some life ticks.

I kept saying to Robert as we walked past every tree with dead branches and hollows that it was ideal territory for an Australian Owlet-nightjar. My reasoning was that the Complete Compact Edition of Morcombe says, "especially in the arid interior ... even the smallest stand of trees seems to have its resident Owlet-nightjars." How could I lose? Well, we flushed one from a hollow and it allowed close-isn examination for five minutes or more. I think we were privileged to see one out in the open during the day. Robert -- lifetick.

This Common Bronzewing was nice. They are a very wary bird, usually zooting off at the first hint of trouble. This is a male.

Speckled Warbler [lifetick x 2] was next bird to be seen. He sat up very nicely for a photo-opportunity.

Right next to the Speckled Warbler was a Buff-rumped Thornbill. The buff rump is not obvious in the photo but we did see it fly a few times to view the "buff rump" and the colouring and white eye clinch the identification. Lifelike x 2.

Galahs are always a delight to see and this quintet contrasting against the greys of the eucs were lovely.

Next stop Werribee. The world-famous, "it has to be on my trip list" Western Treatment Plant.

Wandering Dutchman meets Cape Gannet

Parks Victoria do an "Open Day" into the gannet colony at Point Danger once a year for anyone to go but especially for the Portland locals to see the only gannet colony on mainland Australia. Just a few kilometres to the south is the Lawrence Rocks Conservation Reserve where many thousands of Australian Gannets call home. About 4-500 gannets live on the mainland on the top of the cliff overlooking Bass Strait and Lawrence Rocks.

The mainland gannet colony with Lawrence Rocks in the distance

A small crowd of about 25 gathered at the end of the road by the fence. This is the first line of defence for the colony.

We walked about 100 metres to the very edge of the colony separated from us by an electrified fence whose main aim is to deter foxes. You could almost touch them.

Melissa gave us an excellent talk about the gannets. She is highly experienced with them and has spent time with Cape Gannet colonies in South Africa. Over there they have just a few Australasian Gannets in the colonies and over here we have, in the mainland population, just one breeding pair of Cape Gannets. They have a well grown chick which may be big enough to fledge. I recall it takes 100 days before fledging. Last year's Cape chick failed to fledge. Whilst we were there, a single adult Cape raucously landed [their calls are different] thus there are at least 3 Cape Gannets in this population of Australian Gannets.

These birds are just beautiful with lovely clean lines of black and white plus the grey beaks and "buff-washed head" Pizzey & Knight.

The differences between the two species are obvious but hard to spot when there are hundreds of heads moving every which way or resting tucked in or preening. The Australian Gannet has a dark iris. The iris of the Cape Gannet is much lighter, almost the colour of the orbital ring of pale china-blue.

The bird at the back left is the Cape with the pale china-blue eye
whilst the other two have the dark iris.

The bird sitting to the right is the Cape Gannet.

The other difference is the length of the black gular [throat] stripe. The Aussie has a short stripe and the Cape has a strip extending a fair way down the ventral surface of the neck.

Australasian Gannet

Cape Gannet

Cape Gannet

Whichever species you are looking at, these birds are just superb flyers. Once they have fledged they spend the first five years of their life flying around the lower southern latitudes of the earth before ending up back at their birthplace - mostly. I guess the occasional one becomes disoriented and finishes in the wrong spot. Hence our Capes are here and not in South Africa.

Earlier in the day Robert and I went for a walk before breakfast down to the Portland pier. This Masked Lapwing must think he is the missing Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.

Two koalas were spotted plus a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo with breakfast and a small flock of Musk Lorikeets amongst the plethora of Rainbow Lorikeets.

At the gannet-fest, we heard that a Nankeen Kestrel has a favourite perch in the town itself overlooking the bay.

Wandering Dutchman meets Long-billed Corella

My step-son, Heath, spent a year in The Netherlands after completing year 12. He stayed with the one  host family, the Middelvelds, for the entire year. His host-brother, Robert, is just a year older and Heath's host-sister, Anneke, is a year younger. The relationship between the families has remained strong over the subsequent 12 or so years. Heath has visited them often [international traveller that he is] and Elaine and I spent two separate weeks with Albert and Gertje in 2010 at their house in North Holland. Robert is a very keen birdwatcher. He could almost be called a twitcher. He is presently in Australia on a road trip from Melbourne to Cairns with Heath.

I was asked along on the road trip to supplement Heath's diminished bird watching enthusiasm! I picked Robert up from Tulla on Saturday 23 January and we headed straight for Portland to check out the Australasian Gannet colony at Point Danger where they were having an "open" day the next day Sunday. After a stop at Colac to ease Robert back into Aussie birdwatching over Lake Colac, we were stopped by several hundred Long-billed Corellas Cacatua tenuirostris on the drive into Warrnambool through the industrial and mega-shops estate to the east of the town. One of the last posts from the Ben Cruachan blog was about the arrival of a Long-billed Corella in Maffra. Let me say there are hundreds of the things in the west of Victoria and you could be wondering why they haven't arrived in Gippsland earlier.

So Robert was on the lookout for a flock of white birds in the air but it was the mob on the ground, hoeing into the kikuyu on the roadside that were unmistakable and unpassable. They were right by the Princes Highway, unperturbed by trucks and semis and B-doubles and cars zooming past. Once we were close, it became obvious that they moved away from you as you approached thus only showing their backs and rears to the camera. We soon had that figured out with Robert going around behind them and quietly "driving" them towards the camera and the setting sun. A lifer for both of us. A pretty good start to the trip.