9
January 05
Dear friends and family,
I think this is a record late
Christmas letter for us, but it was a very busy fall and before we knew it we
had to get ready for our end of the year trip. Eileen and I
doing well, with no major news to report. Eileen is still volunteering
with the Nature Conservancy (in her sixth year there) and also has started up a
second volunteer position at Young Audiences of Rochester, a local non-profit
organization that provides numerous resources for incorporating the arts into
education. Examples of the types of services provided include workshops,
consulting, and study guides for educators and students; and
presentations/performances by writers, musicians, dramatists, dancers, etc.
I led a large research project
on medical image quality in 2004, but my responsibilities are up in the air for
2005 after a massive reorganization of research. The situation at Kodak
continues to deteriorate and is pretty discouraging. On the brighter side, the
ISO standard I wrote is generating quite a bit of interest and is about to be
published, and a paper on medical image quality I gave early in 2004 at a
prestigious conference was very well received. Over the past few months I have
taken some training time to learn a new programming language, C++, which has
been fun.
Eileen keeps a list of the books
she reads each year, and reports that she waded through 69 titles in 2004. Some
of her recommendations this year are "The Fox and the Whirlwind" by
Peter Aleshire, a dual biography of Gen. Crook and Geronimo;
"The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson, on the
Civil War; "Funny Cide" by the Funny Cide Team with Sally Jenkins, the remarkable story of a
recent thoroughbred horse; and "Gerald Durrell,
The Authorized Biography" by Douglas Botting, an
account of this famous naturalist and conservationist. Brian suggests
"Swimming to Antarctica" by Lynne Cox, describing her distance
swimming exploits, and "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson, a
humorous account of travels in Australia.
We both continued to learn more
about classical music this year, with a combination of courses on tape and
attending performances of our local philharmonic orchestra. Dvorak has become a
particular favorite of Brian's, ranking right up there with Tchaikovsky and
Beethoven. For Christmas this year, we got a an MP3
player, which is a cigarette box-sized hard drive on which digital music files
can be stored. Our model (Dell DJ20) has enough capacity to hold about 300 CDs
worth of music and we have transferred all our CDs to it. We also have started
downloading digital music tracks from the internet, which costs about a buck
per single track or $10 per album. The MP3 player can be used during vigorous
exercise without any skips or other interruptions, so it is great for running.
With accessories to hook it up to our home and car music systems, and with its
very low power requirements, we can conveniently take all our music with us
anywhere. We also bought noise-canceling headphones, which do a good job of
suppressing many types of ambient sounds; they are commonly used for airplane
travel to reduce all the flight noises. They can be used without music, just
for quiet; or with music, with the noise canceling on or off; in the latter
case, they just work like normal headphones. Bose Corporation developed the
original noise-canceling headphones, but they were very expensive ($300); we
got a new Sony model for only $60 and they seem to work quite well.
We have continued to enjoy the
camper immensely. According to our log book, since we bought the camper in July
2002, we've spent 213 nights in it, sleeping in 23 different states and
provinces. In our most ambitious upgrade to date, we decided to replace the
propane refrigerator, which gave us a lot of trouble, with a super-efficient
electrical model that we used in Australia and which performed
admirably. The claim to fame of this unit from Engel, which is the top-selling
brand in both Africa and Australia,
is its swing compressor, which contains only a single moving part that is
self-lubricating, a neat piece of technology. This was a major project,
involving electrical, gas, and a lot of carpentry work; it took about 40 hours
to complete, but seems to have come out nicely.
Our first trip of the year
(actually in December, 2003) was to southern Florida for a canoeing holiday, and we
enjoyed the trip so much that we did a similar trip again this year. The
tourist season in Florida
does not start until later in the winter, when northerners become increasingly
disgruntled with the weather, so it is a nice time to visit. The weather is
gorgeous and the bugs are typically not too bad, although we encountered some
problematical areas on the second trip. Both years we drove the camper down,
which takes about 25 hours one-way, and each year we detoured a bit in one
direction to stop in Charlottesville
to see my mother and brother Chris. In 2004, we began the trip with a dawn
snorkeling trip to Homosassa Springs to swim with manatees. This was a
thrilling experience; the animals were everywhere and they would swim right up
to investigate if you avoided rapid movements. Although they are wild animals,
they do like to be scratched, and languorously twist in a spiral motion as they
swim by, so you really get to see them up close and in detail. They are
beautiful animals with sad faces. Formerly their populations were quite
depressed, in part from injuries from boat props, but with increased protection
the Florida
population is now around 3500 individuals.
Subsequently we did full-day
paddling trips from Koreshan and Collier-Seminole
State Parks out to the Gulf of Mexico, and then set up base at Flamingo, in Everglades National Park, where we did 5 day
paddles through a variety of habitats: mangroves swamps, spikerush
marshes, sawgrass prairies, tidal bays, etc. Some of
our more memorable sightings were of crocodiles (we were able to paddle right
up to them; they are very rare in the US); short-tailed hawks (an uncommon
species specializing in hunting from the air, just above the treetops of subtropical
woodlands, of which we saw 6); small sharks hunting in shallows; several
species of fish, including sheepshead, gar, and
mullets (which repeatedly jump clear out of the water); a lesser black-backed
gull in Snake Bight (an uncommon species in North America, breeding in Europe);
and all the expected wading birds (including numbers of roseate spoonbills,
wood storks, great white herons, yellow-crowned night herons, and reddish
egrets, particularly in Snake Bight). On one trip, to the aptly named Alligator
Creek, we counted 32 alligators and 3 crocodiles in just a couple of miles of
paddling, and at the narrows where the creek empties into a bay, the water
around us was filled with them. That day we ate lunch
sitting in the canoe at the edge of a mudflat, as there was nowhere to land,
and while we ate quietly, a huge feeding flock of avocets, stilts, and other
shorebirds enveloped us, some birds so close we could nearly reach out and
touch them. The subtropical plants were very enjoyable; we saw many airplants in the genus Tillandsia
and a few orchids, adorning the branches of buttonwood and red mangrove trees;
several palm species including the very restricted paurotis
palm, found only in the Everglades; and a
variety of shrubs, including the particularly attractive cocoplum.
After leaving the Everglades, we
took a glass-bottomed boat trip out in Biscayne National Park.
We were followed for many minutes by playful bottle-nosed dolphins, which
afforded great looks. We then spent several days in the keys, paddling to Lignumvitae Key, where a ranger gave a great botanical walk
through the beautiful wooded areas of the island; and circumnavigating Big
Torch Key, which featured unusual jellyfish. On the way home we spent a few
hours in Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. In 2004, we started at
Loxahatchee and again used Flamingo as one base camp, repeating favorite trips
from the previous year and trying a few new ones as well. Interestingly, we
found what was probably the same lesser black-backed gull in
the same place as last year, Snake Bight. This is the best spot in the US for
flamingos, and although we saw two here about five years ago, we didn't find
any on either of these trips. However, the birding from a canoe is superb here;
we ate lunch on a sandbar here with a continuously wheeling and calling flock
of 800 black skimmers, and big flocks of white pelicans circle lazily overhead.
One day we were eating lunch in the canoe in Whitewater Bay
when we heard an explosive sort of noise nearby and looked to see a substantial
wake from an underwater creature approaching the side of the boat. Momentarily,
on the other side of the boat, a bottlenose dolphin surfaced and exhaled, and
was soon joined by a second!
We spent the second half of the
trip based out of Big Cypress National Preserve, which adjoins Everglades National Park on the north side. From
here we did spectacular day paddles on the East River in Fakahatchee State
Park and the Turner
River and other sites in
the preserve. We saw several cottonmouths on roads, and a nighttime drive
yielded long looks at a hunting barred owl plus several opossums. This year we
racked up 7 short-tailed hawks, and unlike last year, encountered white-crowned
pigeons three times, obtaining excellent looks at them. We had seen this
species only once before, about 15 years ago, and not especially well. They are
quite hard to find in winter, when most birds move to Caribbean
islands.
In January, I presented a paper
and a short course in San Jose,
Calif., and Eileen came along and
we turned the trip into a short vacation. We hiked on the Sunset Trail in Big
Basin one day, and visited the tide-pools and Pigeon Point and the elephant
seal breeding colony at Ano Nuevo another day. I had
attended this conference once before and these excursions were repeats for me,
but new for Eileen. We spent a long day hiking in oak savannah habitat in Henry Coe
State Park, identifying
about 35 species of plants, including spectacular displays of flowering bigberry manzanita, and the
largest bay laurels I had ever seen. Golden-crowned sparrows were common here.
We also spent a day hiking the perimeter of scenic Point
Lobos State
Park, where we had great looks at California sea lion, harbor seal, sea otter,
bottlenose dolphin, and chestnut-backed chickadee. Finally, we took a great
pelagic trip out of Monterey,
which gave us our best views ever of Pacific white-sided dolphin, as well as
good looks at flesh-footed shearwater, ancient murrelet,
rhinoceros auklet, harlequin duck, and black-footed albatross.
In early April, we spent a 4-day
weekend camped in Algonquin
Provincial Park.
Mammals were surprisingly evident in the snow and ice, with the most exciting
being a brief view of a wolf on a frozen lake, as they are so hard to see in
forested areas. Traditionally, North American wolves have been placed in two
species, gray (timber) and the smaller red (eastern), the latter restricted to
the southeast US, and now nearly extinct except for reintroduced populations.
But DNA research published 5 years ago supports a reinterpretation, in which
all the wolves from southern Manitoba south to
coastal Texas and east to Quebec were red wolves, but those in the
northeast US were rapidly extirpated with the arrival of Caucasians, leaving a
huge gap in the distribution. Thus, in this view, the wolves we have
encountered in Algonquin are actually red wolves. Other species seen on this
trip were beaver, moose, river otter, red fox, spruce grouse, black-backed
woodpecker, boreal chickadee, common redpoll, and snow bunting.
New national parks continue to
be designated at a rate of one every few years, so our goal to visit all the
national parks in the US
has a moving target. One recent addition is Cuyahoga
Valley National
Park, south of Cleveland,
OH. We made two trips there, one
in late April and one in late May. The park was formerly a recreational area
and still has a strong recreational emphasis, with more development and less
pristine land than found in most of the longer established national parks. The
first trip yielded some nice spring ephemeral flowers such as white trout lily
and spring cress (probably the best displays we have ever seen). This area is
good for fox squirrels, and we even saw a few black phase
ones. The later trip was intended as a birding trip at the height of spring
migration, as the riparian woodlands along the Cuyahoga River
are supposed to be excellent for songbirds. We arrived to find the park largely
flooded and most of the trails closed. There were very few migrants in the
areas we could reach, so it was a disappointing visit, but a few nice plants
consoled us: Miami mist was in bloom (this is a member of one of our favorite
genera, Phacelia), and without knowing they were in
the area, we recognized our first black maples, which resemble the abundant
sugar maple but have drooping leaf margins. We have now visited all but 10 of
the 53 national parks, with half the remainder being at remote sites in Alaska.
In early May we visited Eileen's
parents and brother Paul in El
Paso and her brother Tommy and her sister Kathleen's family
(husband Patrick and children Corey, Claire, and Thomas) in Albuquerque. It was great to see everyone
again. Corey (who has visited us in Rochester a couple of times) and I got out
for a day of birding along the Rio Grande and up on the Sandia
Crest, where we had good numbers of Virginia's warblers and plumbeous
vireos, as well as a tassel-eared squirrel. We visited Big
Bend for a few days with Eileen's parents. Highlights included an
elf owl calling and attacking a mockingbird in plain sight well after dawn at
Government Springs; and a gray hawk and a pair of brown-crested flycatchers at
nests in Cottonwood Campground, both of which are good records for Texas. One day Eileen and I hiked to Boot Springs to see Colima warblers, which breed nowhere else in the US but in the Chisos Mts. This hike is favorite
of ours, although it has quite a reputation for difficulty among birders, being
about 10 miles round trip with 1800 feet elevation gain on rough trails. We had
our first Colima warbler of 21 at only 6200 feet
elevation on the Laguna Meadows Trail shortly after dawn; they may have bred a
bit lower than usual because of the wet spring. Other species of note were
whippoorwill, poorwill, and black-chinned sparrow on
the way up, painted redstart, blue-throated hummingbird and Arizona cypress at the spring, and
zone-tailed hawk on the Pinnacle Trail on the way down.
Later in the trip I was pleased
to be able to meet up for a morning with John Parmeter,
whom I had not seen since a trip to Costa Rica, and his parents Mike and Sally,
who we saw in 2003 in California. We birded together at Rattlesnake Springs, a
terrific migrant trap in southeast New Mexico,
where we saw two vagrants from the east, chestnut-sided warbler and
rose-breasted grosbeak, plus juvenile eastern bluebird (this might be the only
breeding site in New Mexico)
and bronzed cowbird. But the most exciting sightings for me were of mammals;
there were a number of Mexican ground squirrels (which I'd seen only once
before) in the area, and Mike pointed out a bat roost under a building
overhang, which contained one pallid bat (a life species for me) among the
Mexican free-tailed bats. That afternoon I hiked in McKittrick Canyon
in Guadalupe Mts. National Park,
seeing hepatic tanager and chinquapin oak (Quercus muhlenbergii), the latter interesting as it is found in
very different habitats in the east (but still usually on limestone).
In late May we started an 11-day
trip to the Delmarva Peninsula and Outer
Banks. We spent the first morning at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware, which had a
good assortment of shorebirds. That afternoon we met up with John Bazuin, a great birding buddy of mine while I was at the University of Virginia. We had stayed in touch but had
not managed to get together in the intervening 24 years, so it was a treat to
see him again and for Eileen to meet him. We hooked up at Trap
Pond State
Park in Delaware,
where we camped for a couple of nights. After setting up camp, catching up a
bit on old times, and having a bite to eat, we set off for Elliott I., a small
fishing village reached by a narrow road that passes through superb Chesapeake Bay marsh habitat. Along this road we easily
found Eileen's first saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrows
with seaside sparrows in nice evening light. Starting after dark, and going
until a little after midnight, we listened for black rails in suitable habitat.
Black rails are small, dark, nocturnal birds that live in tall marsh vegetation
and so are exceptionally difficult to see. My only encounters with the species
had been catching one with Rich Rowlett in 1976, seeing one in 1980 (both along
the Elliott I. road), and hearing one with Eileen while camped at Finney Lake
in California in 1986. Black rails are very particular about their habitat, and
so are of rather local occurrence, and they have been declining seriously in
recent years. That first night, which was clear and cold, but mercifully
bug-free, we heard poorly a single black rail call, but did see an opossum and
a baby red fox, and heard a couple barn owls, a chuck-will's-widow, and many
Virginia rails calling. John and I debated the identity of the clapper and/or
king rails we were hearing, but it was largely a moot point as they supposedly
hybridize in this area anyway, and I'm not even convinced that they are
different species, based on the near continuum of characteristics when
subspecies found along the Gulf Coast, in Mexico, and in the southwest are
included. We also enjoyed hearing choruses of green treefrog
and occasional eastern narrow-mouthed toads.
The next day we paddled Nassawango Creek through lovely cypress swamps, drier
hardwood forests, and more open marshes from Red Hill to the Pocomoke River
a bit south of Snow Hill, MD. Prothonotary
warblers were abundant here, as expected, but blue grosbeaks and white-eyed
vireos were a surprise; usually these species are found in drier, less treed
areas. Swamp azalea was in bloom and there were nice willow and water oaks
along the route. Portions of this area are protected by a Nature Conservancy
preserve, which Eileen and I visited from land later in the trip. We then
headed for Elliott I. again, spending until 3:15 a.m. in the marshes. We again
heard a single black rail call, close to the same area as the previous night,
but this time the call was very clear, and was a life vocalization for John. We
slept late in the morning (what was left of it), and were treated to a
vocalizing but unlocatable southern gray (Cope's) treefrog in the campsite.
After visiting a bit, we had to split up, John to return to the DC area and us
to continue south. We next visited the North Pocomoke
Swamp, continuing our
itinerary emphasizing my favorite birding haunts while I lived at Chincoteague
during my last year of high school and first summer after freshman year at
college. This is a great songbird location that had nesting Swainson's
warblers when I lived at Chincoteague, but they have since been driven out by
excessive use of tape recordings of their songs by birders trying to see them
(this being, at the time, the northernmost accessible breeding location). Now
the same thing is happening in Virginia's
Great Dismal Swamp, the next breeding site to the south. It being a rainy
afternoon we had few birds but did enjoy a particularly magnificent example of
swamp chestnut oak. Late in the day we headed for Deal
I., another Chesapeake Bay marsh area, and then
camped at Milburn Landing State Park, MD, on the Pocomoke
River.
In the morning, while we were
eating at a picnic table after taking showers, a tufted titmouse flew in and
landed on Eileen's head, and proceeded to remove a few strands of her long hair
for nesting material! We hiked in the park, seeing worm-eating warbler nicely, then visited the Nassawango Nature
Conservancy Preserve, hiking the lovely Paul Leifer
Nature Trail, and observing the purple-stemmed cliffbrake
ferns growing on the mortar of the old brick smelter chimney, this being a
notably isolated occurrence of the species. That night we camped on the other
bank of the Pocomoke
River at Shad Landing,
and in the morning paddled on Corker's Creek. We then drove to Chincoteague by
way of the Sinneckson road, which goes to the
Virginia Atlantic coast just south of the Maryland state line. This road has a superb
hardwood forest, and when I was in high school, there was an active bald eagle
nest here, and one of the tulip trees was said to be among the largest outside
the Great Smokies. We saw a red fox family cavorting
in an overgrown field near the end of the road, right about where I saw my
first summer tanager ever. Once at Chincoteague, we toured the refuge and took
the tram up to the wash flats, where we saw the famous Chincoteague ponies
cavorting in saltwater marshes. We found several Delmarva fox squirrels, a
distinct, endangered, steel-gray race of the eastern fox squirrel, which was
new for Eileen. In the late afternoon we located the house where my family
lived in Chincoteague, and then got a good seafood dinner. We finished the day
with 105 species of birds, including white-rumped
sandpiper and gull-billed tern. Two species we saw at Chincoteague National
Wildlife Refuge, blue grosbeak and black vulture, simply did not occur when I
lived at Chincoteague in the mid-1970s; the grosbeak occurred in former pine
forests devastated by a bark beetle, and the vulture has just generally
expanded its range.
Heading south to the Outer Banks
the next day, June 3, we birded on the islands of the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge
Tunnel, finding juvenile American oystercatchers with adults on two islands and
a territorial pair of adults on a third island, indicating local breeding. A
big surprise on this late date was a very worn purple
sandpiper, normally just a winter visitor to the rocky islands. We took two
pelagic trips with Brian Patteson, one from Manteo
and one from Hatteras. The former yielded a life
bird, Fea's petrel, and great looks at all three
expected storm petrels, Wilson's, band-rumped, and
Leach's. On the latter trip, we saw Atlantic spotted dolphin well, which was
essentially a lifer; we saw what was presumably this species once before, but
could not conclusively eliminate a similar species. I had the satisfaction of
spotting a juvenile masked booby, a species difficult to find in the US except at the Dry Tortugas, 75 miles west of Key West, and also
correctly distinguished a Manx shearwater (only my third ever) from the
expected, similar Audubon's shearwaters, just before it was called out by
leaders. The most unusual event of the day was watching a huge mako shark eating a swordfish. One of the crew hooked the
dead swordfish and brought it right in to the side of the boat so we could look
directly down on the shark; the views were awesome! We stopped in Charlottesville for half
a day on the way home to help my mother look for an apartment, and had a tour
of Wood's Edge Apartments, a seniors' complex into which she eventually moved
in August.
In mid-June, we took 9-day trip
to the Green Mts.,
VT and the White Mts., NH. On the first day we hiked to
the summit of Camel's Hump, the third-highest peak in VT, which has the second
largest alpine area in the state. Braun's holly fern was a nice find on the way
up, and there was an extensive occurrence of Bigelow sedge on the summit, where
we finally had some views, breaking free from the fog just in the last hundred
feet or so of elevation. That evening we visited my Dad in South
Burlington and had a great dinner. The next day, Father's Day, the
three of us drove up the highest peak in the state, Mt. Mansfield,
which has an extensive alpine area and super views. Dad said he used to ski on
this mountain when he lived not too far away, as a young man. Here we saw the
rare black sedge, which in VT grows only on this one mountain, as well as a
patch of the quintessential alpine plant, diapensia.
Eileen and I next headed for the White Mts., where over the course of a few
days we visited Franconia, Crawford, and
Jefferson Notches and did a number of short to moderate hikes. On one, to Arethusa
Falls, we saw dozens of
white stemless lady's slippers, a species that
normally is pink. In our drives we saw both black bear and moose.
The highlight of the trip was a
long but exhilarating day hike for alpine plants on Mt. Washington,
the highest peak in the northeast. We took the first hiker's shuttle to the
summit, where it was 45 Fahrenheit with 50 m.p.h.
winds, pretty typical conditions. We hiked down to the Lake
of the Clouds and stopped at the hikers' hut there for hot chocolate and to
browse their natural history books. From there we took the Bigelow Cutoff Trail
to the Alpine Gardens Trail, and this back to the paved road. The alpine
flowers were not as good as in a typical year because the season was earlier
than usual, but then a late killing frost occurred. Nonetheless, we identified
40 species of plants in the alpine zone, compared to exactly 5 species of birds
(junco, white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped
warbler, raven, and water pipit). Some of the more interesting high elevation
plants were alpine goldenrod, Boott's rattlesnakeroot, Lapland rosebay, arctic rush, deer's-hair
bulrush, bearberry willow, purple mountain heather, a rare avens
(Geum peckii), and an
unusual willow (Salix planifolia). After walking
about 3 miles down the road, a bus driver picked us up on the last run of the
day, which gave us an unexpected break. On the way home, we went by Whiteface Mt.
in the Adirondacks for a comparison to some New York alpine habitat. There we found
mountain pyrola, a species that has long eluded us,
and a Milbert's tortoiseshell, a lovely butterfly.
Our major trip of the year was
to Australia
in July and August; it is described separately at the end of this letter. Most
other weekends of the summer and fall were spent canoeing in both new locations
(Oswegatchie River, Cranberry Lake, Clyde River) and
at old favorite sites: Algonquin (where a black bear swam in front of us on
Grand Lake), Fish Creek, Oak Orchard Creek (where we heard a young beaver
calling from inside its lodge), Cedar River Flow (on our traditional tamarack
weekend), Little Indian Lake (where we had an immature golden eagle, a species
rare in the east), and Deer Creek Marsh. We bought our new canoe, christened
"Headwind," just a year and a half ago, but since then have paddled
751 miles in it over 70 days, so we have seen a lot of country in it.
Eileen's folks visited for a
little over a week at Thanksgiving, which was very enjoyable. In addition to a
number of good games of anagrams, we saw The Nutcracker Ballet performed by our
local ballet and orchestra. With our Christmas trip to Florida already described, that brings us to
the end of the year. So far, the only trip we have scheduled next year is an
11-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in April, which we'll extend to
include visits to Zion, Bryce, Paria Canyon,
and Toroweap on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
We hope that you and your
families are well, and wish you a happy new year!
Australia Trip (21 July - 12
August 2004)
Eileen
L. Keelan
Our trip to Australia, planned
and organized by our friends Jim and Ellen Strauss from Caltech, was divided
into three parts, separated by internal flights: first, Sydney to Wollongong,
in New South Wales, along the southeastern coast; second, Brisbane to Lamington
National Park, in Queensland, near the mid-eastern coast; and third, Cairns,
Queensland to Darwin, Northern Territory, from the northeastern coast through
the outback to the north-central peninsula called the Top End. Our adventure
started in Sydney,
where our flight arrived first thing in the morning. We went through customs
and got a rental car and then headed out for a day of birding in the Epping
area.
Our first stop was Whale Rock
Trail in Lane Cove National Park.
Our prime target bird was powerful owl, which Brian spotted perched in a tree,
holding a common brush-tailed possum in its claws. We also saw cockatoos,
galahs (pink and gray!), and crimson rosellas. We ate
a picnic lunch with a kookaburra perched nearby for company. By the end of the
day, we had seen about 44 new species in 14 new bird families. (It is exciting to
see a new species, but even more thrilling when it is in a new family, and
therefore is likely to be very different from any species encountered
previously). August is winter in Australia and dark came early, but
after the long flight and exciting day, we were ready to take a break.
The next day we visited Royal National
Park. Starting at dawn, on Lady Carrington Drive, we again found our
target bird, superb lyrebird. We had long, close views of it running around and
foraging. We also saw a black wallaby. It was a brief view but our first one of
a macropod (kangaroos and related groups). We spent
the rest of the day hiking the Karloo Track, looking
for origma, a songbird recently reported from the
area, which we did not find. We did see the uncommon and closely related pilotbird, however, and had very good looks at mistletoe
birds, spinebills, and gray fantails. That evening,
we drove to Wollengong, about an hour south of Sydney.
In the morning, we set off for
the Barren Grounds Preserve in Jamboroo, driving
along a winding road up onto the escarpment. While we were packing for the hike
on the Griffiths Trail, our first fairy wren appeared; these small, very cute
birds, with long blue tails, were among the birds we most looked forward to
seeing after studying illustrations in books. The trail was a scenic 8km loop,
with views of eucalyptus trees in the distance and stretches lined with huge
ferns in thick stands. We did not see many birds today. Our most exciting
sightings were large flocks of yellow-tailed black cockatoos (about 60) and
topknot pigeons (about 250). We also saw hopping tracks of a macropod in the sandy trail. After briefly visiting Carrington Falls
in Budderoo
National Park, we
returned to Wollengong, looking forward to a pelagic
trip the next day.
The alarm clock went off very
early. We ate breakfast, packed a lunch and drove to the harbor where we
boarded the Sondra K. The trip was led by Lindsay Smith, the president of the
Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association. It was a windy (and occasionally
rainy) day with rough seas that left Brian miserably seasick. Nineteen species
of birds (17 new for the trip) helped make up for the discomfort. The highlight
of the day for local birders was the rarely seen white phase of southern giant
petrel. We also had large numbers of yellow-nosed, black-browed (2 subspecies),
shy, and wandering albatrosses. There were quite a few common dolphins. Once
off the boat, we drove to Sydney to be ready for
the flight to Brisbane
for the second section of the trip.
Jim and Ellen had highly
recommended a visit to O'Reilly's Guesthouse, located in Lamington National
Park, about two hours south of Brisbane and an hour and half west of
Australia's Gold Coast (and 3000 feet above sea level). The park is known for
its wildlife, including pademelons (a small macropod), several species of possums, and, of course,
birds. After we checked in, we joined the "Birders' Break" group and
attended a slide-show introduction to the local birds by Tim O'Reilly, who
would be our guide for several days. Tim then led us along the Wishing Tree
Trail through the rainforest and down to eucalyptus forests. We recorded about
39 species today, adding 14 new ones for the trip. We also had our first good
looks at an Australian land mammal, a red-necked pademelon
in broad daylight. We would see many more over the next few days.
Brian and I saw lots of pre-dawn
pademelons the next morning, before joining the rest
of the Birders' Break group on a pre-breakfast walk around the guesthouse
grounds and a bit of trail through the woods. After eating, we walked the
Python Rock Trail, which had a fine scenic view at the end. Along the way, we
saw an Albert's lyrebird and had good views of a logrunner scratching in the
leaf litter, as well as a male whipbird. The whipbird's cracking call became quite familiar to us during
our stay at O'Reilly's. During a break for lunch at the guesthouse, we had
superb looks at a male superb fairy wren; we followed him to a shrub where he
and his mate sat side by side and groomed each other. Definately
a favorite bird of the trip!
In the afternoon, we birded
along Duck Creek Road
and had good views of spotted quail-thrush, including the white tail tip when
it fanned out as the bird flew. At dinner in the restaurant, we had ring-side
seats by the viewing window and watched mountain brush-tailed possums feed on
the fruit put out for them. Later, outside, we also located a common ringed
possum, a little smaller than the brush-tailed. Then Tim took us to his special
location down the Duck Creek Road
where he showed us two marbled frogmouths, which were also life birds for Jim
and Ellen. We could see the barred bristles at the birds' bill and see the bill
clap together in a loud "click" at the end of its call. We also had
excellent looks at a boobook, a fairly small owl, and
the bright spots of thousands of glow-worms, forming sinusoidal patterns on a
creek bank.
A high wind and blowing mist
kept us from a pre-dawn walk the next morning, but it eventually cleared and we
had a beautiful warm day. With Tim at the wheel of the van, we birded our way
down the mountain and into the drier Kerry
Valley. Some highlights
of the day were the glossy black cockatoos, including one holding a casuarina seed pod and eating the seeds; terrific views of
both red-backed and variegated fairy-wrens, male and female; a brief view of a
beautiful male rose robin and a good view of a female rose robin with a light
blush of rose on her undercarriage; nice looks at the uncommon speckled
warbler; red-necked wallabies; and a jabiru that flew
over during our lunch stop. We birded through a beautiful sunset and drove home
in the dark, finishing the day with 101 bird species, about half of which were
new on the trip, bringing our trip total to about 150 species, with 22 new bird
families.
We spent the next morning with
Tim, adding tawny frogmouth and fan-tailed cuckoo to our bird list. Also had
excellent views of yellow robins and a male whipbird
along the Booyong Trail. We finally had to quit
birding and get ready for departure. We had one last session of feeding some of
the tame feathered friends who gather around the guesthouse. Crimson rosellas and king parrots would land on outstretched hands
to eat birdseed (conveniently available in the gift shop). It was not unusual
to see people with a bright green or red bird perched on their heads and
shoulders, as well as both hands. We also fed raisins to regent bower birds and
brush turkeys. It was really marvelous to be so close to these birds! Then it
was time to return to Brisbane
for a flight out the next day.
The third section of the trip
began in Cairns,
where we arrived late in the evening. Farther north, and closer to the equator,
it was much warmer than the Sydney and Brisbane areas. First thing in the
morning, Brian, Jim, and Ellen went to pick up the rented camper vehicle we
would use for the drive from Cairns to Darwin. Basically, the
vehicle was a pickup truck with front and back seats and storage area,
including refrigerator. Two platforms on the roof could be unfolded to erect
the two tents, which were reached by ladders. The whole arrangement was
collapsible, zipped inside heavy duty covers for travel.
We birded at the Centenary Gardens
and Esplanade at Cairns, stopped to stock up on
groceries, and drove to Kingfisher
Park, where we arrived
after dark. Having "a bit of a wander", as Tim O'Reilly had called
it, a few hours before dawn, Brian saw three marsupials (green ring-tail
possum, northern brown bandicoot, and yellow-footed antechinus)
as well as eerily calling stone curlews. We spent the day birding along the Mt. Lewis
road and checking at bridges to look for (but not find platypus). We did see
lots of Atherton scrub-wrens, some bustards, and a pheasant coucal.
The following day, Brian and I
took a boat trip on the Mossman
River. We were able to
get only two reservations so Jim and Ellen graciously remained behind. During
the one and a half hour river trip, we saw both little and azure kingfishers,
male and female shining flycatchers, and heard lots of bar-shouldered doves
cooing. We did a little birding locally after disembarking and got to see a
really snazzy little sunbird. The four of us drove to Emerald Creek
Falls after lunch to look
for a reported rufous owl. We did not see one but I
impressed myself by finding a flock of double-barred finches and two brush
stone curlews, which got me caught up with the group on bird families.
First thing in the morning, we
had a great look at Papuan frogmouth, and, finally, a platypus. Jim and Ellen
had gotten their life views of the rare red-headed crake the evening before
(Brian had seen the bird our first morning there). Even though I missed it, we
finished up at Kingfisher
Park happy and satisfied.
We then began the drive to Darwin, making a stop at Mareeba Wetlands, where we saw a crested grebe and both
green and cotton pygmy-goose. Once in the "outback", the paved road
was reduced to only one lane with wide dirt shoulders. When approaching
on-coming traffic, both vehicles pull half off the road in order to pass,
unless the on-coming vehicle is an enormous road-train (linked tractor trailers
reaching 160 feet in length), in which case he gets the entire road.
The 2000-mile trip across the
outback to Darwin
took about ten days, including driving time and birding stops. We had some
beautiful "bush" camps, remote spots somewhere off the main road,
with gorgeous scenery to look at, a little geology scattered around, plant life
to wonder about, many birds, and the occasional herd of cattle strolling
through. At night, with no city lights to compete with, the stars were
spectacular, and we enjoyed the chance to gaze heavenward at the Southern Cross
(or, as Brian calls it, the Austral Kite). Once or
twice we stayed in actual campgrounds, the kind with shower facilities.
Some of the highlights of this
leg of the journey: stopping to watch an emu, which
Jim spotted from the car window the first afternoon; camping near a pond with
many plumed whistling ducks on it and apostle birds nearby; a flock of galahs
flying over, banking and showing "a thrill of pink" Brian said; pratincoles in full breeding plumage; hiking a boardwalk
through mangroves at Kurumba and collecting seashells
along the way; following the hike with a boat trip on the Norman River during
which we saw white-bellied whistler, Brahminy kite,
white-bellied sea eagle and red-headed finch, and were served coffee and scones
prepared by the captain himself; seeing our first red kangaroos near Burke and
Wills Roadhouse; diamond doves at Clem Walton Dam; a dawn search through spinifex for scrub-wren, and, though we missed it, locating
crested bellbird and hearing its namesake song, and flushing a spotted
nightjar; seeing flock bronzewings, an enormous,
well, flock of them, at a bore late one afternoon; spicing up a long day of driving
with good views of double-barred, zebra, and long-tailed finches at bores along
the way; getting rooms one night at the Daly Waters Motel, which might more
accurately be called the Daly Waters hallway, where we indulged in showers and
participated in the "beef and barrimundi"
night at the pub next door; and a hike through a large maternity colony of
little red flying foxes (a species of bat) in Elsey
National Park at Mataranka, on the way to a lovely
thermal pool.
By now we had reached Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, where we added a dose of
culture to the birding and camping theme of the trip: we got to see one of the
locations where "Crocodile Dundee" was filmed. But seriously, we did
marvel at the beautiful aboriginal pictographs on the cliff faces and overhangs
in the Nourlanji Rock area. After we got set up in
the campground, we heard a barking owl (this bird is well named!), and Brian
called it in. We saw it swoop through the darkness and land just overhead in a
tree. We had terrific looks at it in the flashlight.
We spent much of the next day
hiking on the escarpment above UDP
Falls, looking for
white-throated grass-wren without success. We did find sandstone shrike-thrush
and had very brief views of a chestnut-quilled rock
pigeon; both of these are specialties of the area. In the afternoon, Brian and
Jim added banded fruit dove to their life lists. The total trip list now stood
at 297.
The ultimate wilderness
experience, according to Kakadu's Yellow Water
Cruises, is when "canopied boats steer you safely through tranquil
waters" and you "witness a land barely touched by mankind where
nature is raw, crocodiles rule, and a prehistoric landscape is enlivened by
sightings of jabirus, sea eagles, and whistling kites across the floodplain".
They weren't far wrong, as we saw thousands of waterfowl including both plumed
and wandering whistling ducks, a pair of brolgas
(cranes) dancing and displaying to each other, and several crocodiles. We also
visited Mardugal Billibong,
which was excellent for songbirds.
From Kakadu
we continued toward Darwin,
stopping at Fogg Dam. We hiked the Woodlands to Water
Lilies Trail through rainforest. We had a close view of a large monitor lizard
and heard imperial pigeon and rosy fruit dove, then ate lunch in the shade at
the edge of the parking lot.
We reached Darwin and made a stop at Buffalo Creek
before looking for a motel, which proved almost as unsuccessful as the hunt for
a pitta at Fogg Dam.
However, we eventually located a place to roost for the night, where we took
showers and reintroduced ourselves to clean clothes. Next, we had to wedge a
month's worth of birding gear, clothes, and camping equipment back into
suitcases for the plane flights home. The final trip totals were, birds -- 313
species, mammals -- 13 species; and new bird families -- 32. About 94% of bird
species and all the mammals were lifers for Brian and Eileen, indicating how
little overlap the was between the Australian fauna
and that of other places we have visited. We had a wonderful time! Thank you,
Jim and Ellen!