An Antipodean Connection (Victoria)

Getting to see a monotreme was one of the absolute highlights of my trip. "But Wyatt, that's not a bird," you're thinking. No, its a mammal with a cloaca! Or so I'm told, I figured it would be rude to ask. I unfortunately only had my 400mm lens when we had this encounter, so the perspective of the photo is a little odd.

Short-beaked Echidna

Port Phillip Island, Victoria, AU

Mar. 8, 2020

Prologue

The 13.5 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean, including both Tropics and the Equator was surprisingly agreeable. Despite the nagging specter of a Covid-19 epidemic that was simmering in the US state of Washington, I was looking forward to a month spent birding and exploring various corners of Australia. After clearing Australian Customs (and hearing my first "No worries, Mate") I stepped out into the humid Sydney air. I had expected my first Antipodean bird to be a Welcome Swallow or House Sparrow. I was pleasantly surprised when my first avian encounter ended up being with a gaggle of Silver Gulls. Hopefully this was a good omen.

My decision to go on this adventure was uncharacteristically impulsive. The beginning of 2020 was not quite what I had expected. Looking back across a distance of three and a half months and the start of a global pandemic, my feelings at the start of the year seem a little trivial. Nevertheless I was frustrated by an apparent stagnation of my intended career progress. I was reeling from the abrupt and unexpected end of a 2.5 year relationship when my partner decided she'd found better support and companionship elsewhere (though in my defense, people typically end things before they go elsewhere, right?) In light of this frustration, confusion, and deceit I needed to shake things up. To loosely quote Miranda Lambert, if love was going to give me lemons, I'd just have to mix them in my drink. I now found myself in a position with few pressing responsibilities or financial obligations until the summer field season. In a greater sense, I was free.

On the last afternoon of January I found myself sitting on my friend Roger Clark's couch, nursing a general sense of despondency and lamenting my romantic failings. "You're young Wyatt, why don't you go somewhere." Roger suggested firmly. "There are still a few birds I need on the West Coast," I half-heartedly mused. I had been planning for several months to take a trip through the Gulf Coast and the Dry Tortugas in April. My goal was to find something to focus on in the intervening months. I could spend March on the West Coast and swing into my Florida trip by April. I mentioned this aloud, mentally wincing. My vehicle was beginning to approach 200k miles and imagining the added trek out West caused me a twang of anxiety (if you don't know me well, worrying is something of a motif for me).

"Well that's fine, but why don't you get away," Roger said.

Away

Slowly, I started to truly grasp the reality of my situation. I could go anywhere. I had secretly wanted to break 1000 life birds before my 24th birthday and here was the perfect opportunity. I wanted to go somewhere with lots of birds, preferably English speaking (as I have little faith in my communication skills in any other language), and with ample eBirders and published field and bird finding guides (so I could do things on my own). The answer was pretty clear.
"I'll do Australia."

Landing Down Under

After a month of frenetic study and logistical planning I found myself in a Sydney hotel room midmorning of March 7. After a quick shower I sat down to check email, having every intention of walking around and looking for local birds before I flew to Melbourne to rendezvous with a friend the next day. Next thing I know I'm waking up at 10:00pm. My experience with jetlag on my way to Moscow last summer had been almost nonexistent compared to this. I was suddenly worried I wouldn't be able to sleep the rest of the night. I was wrong there too, I slept right through until my alarm at 4:00am.

Aside from the inconvenience of leaving my cell phone on the shuttle from the hotel to the airport, the flight went well. By 8:30am I found myself at the doorstep of shorebird colleague and friend Lindall and her husband Danny. After receiving the approval of their endearingly quirky dog Huxley and catching up over lunch we made our way to Port Phillip Island to look for Penguins and whatever else we could find. We quickly discovered that the resident Cape Barren Geese were frighteningly tame. The main draw of Port Phillip for me was looking for Little Penguins. The Sphenisciformes are one of those charismatic groups that even non-birders can recognize. Being a resident of the Northern Hemisphere, Penguins seem to take on an even greater allure. We made our way to the Penguin Parade on Port Phillip Island and briefly inquired with the folks at the front desk of the visitors center what the best course of action was. We weren't particularly keen on hanging around until the evening "parade" back to the burrows, but were told (just as Lindall had guessed) that checking the burrows might yield some that hadn't gone out to sea (i.e. molting adults or young birds). We hit the boardwalk and I was soon distracted by another quintessential facet of Australian fauna, a Swamp Wallaby. 

Swamp Wallaby

Port Phillip Island, Vicotria, AU

Mar. 8, 2020

Shortly after my first marsupial encounter I was similarly distracted by a boisterous male Superb Fairywren. I had expected this showy group of passerines to be retiring and difficult to see for some reason. I was very happy to be wrong and despite not having my camera ready in time, the close approach of this bird after some pishing was greatly appreciated. Fortunately for me, Lindall was not distracted and soon mentioned she had found a Little Penguin roosting in its burrow. Sometime before this and the Wallaby I saw a Pacific Gull which ended up being my 800th life bird.

After our success with the penguins we decided to check a section of beach that had hosted a pair of Hooded Plovers recently. eBird hadn't been particularly helpful in this regard, but fortunately Lindall was able to make some inquiries and we had the benefit of more current and up-to-date information. Much like the Piping Plovers breeding on the East Coast of the United States, Hooded Plovers are in decline largely due to disturbance to their dune-system nesting habitat. At many sites across their breeding range, Hooded Plovers are now monitored. Many sites receive symbolic fencing and small structures to prevent people from disturbing the breeding sites and for the chicks to shelter under to avoid overheating (and hide from untethered canines). The particular beach we were visiting had not fledged any young for several years due to disturbance.

Things were looking up pretty much immediately after we parked. Not 20 meters from the parking area, nuzzled next to the path was one of the most characteristic representatives of Australia's mammalian fauna. An Echidna. A student of wildlife biology (admittedly not just birds) I have desperately wanted to see a monotreme, and quite honestly the opportunity to do so was as much a factor in my decision to visit Australia as the birds were. I had expected a much more fleeting encounter, so to see one close enough to touch left me more or less speechless. In fact, it may have partly been the jetlag, but if I remember correctly my words were "Holy s**t, its a f**king Echidna." I feel entirely justified in my reaction considering Lindall and Danny had a similar reception to our new Tachyglossid friend. Even they had never seen such a tame Echidna.

My reaction a half an hour later when we found two adult Hooded Plovers and a nearly fledged juvenile was slightly less obscene, but no less enthusiastic. The age of the juvenile implied it would make it, which is great news for this section of beach.

The Little Penguin colony at Summerlands is purportedly the largest colony in "mainland" Australia.

Port Phillip Island, Victoria, AU

Mar. 8, 2020

The next day Lindall and I made a sojourn to the Western Treatment Plant (Werribee Wetlands). Between reading about this place in preparation for the trip and my penchant for observing waders, I was sufficiently hyped to visit this famed Australian birding site. According to Lindall the shorebird abundance was somewhat disappointing compared to other times (evidently the timing of our visit wasn't ideal with respect to high tides), but we were able to find a Double-banded Plover, recently returned from its breeding grounds in New Zealand. While we were inexplicably unable to find any Red-capped Plovers, I was very happy to find this Double-banded as this was the only time during my visit that I could reasonably hope to connect with one. It was interesting to consider this species' migratory strategy compared to the more "conventional" arctic-breeding strategy of the Red-necked Stints and Bar-tailed Godwits with which it was roosting. These strategies further juxtaposed with the numerous and boisterous Masked Lapwings (or invisible Red-capped Plovers) which may make seasonal trips inland to take advantage of water bodies made available after heavy rains, but presumably will never move even a fraction of the distance covered by a Bar-tailed Godwit in its lifetime. These vast differences in life history strategies are part of what makes studying shorebirds so fascinating (though this could probably be said of many groups of birds). Despite the relatively low number of waders present, I was still more than satisfied with our visit. Picking up Whiskered and White-winged Tern was particularly satisfying for me as I had made an attempt for these species last year near Moscow, RU with no luck. Also exciting were the numerous White-fronted Chats and Golden-headed Cisticola singing, calling, and cavorting in the extensive reedbeds.

After getting our fill of marsh birds (at least temporarily), we made an unsuccessful attempt to find Banded Lapwing at what is usually a reliable pasture nearby. In hindsight, I should have recommended checking the Avalon Airport, but I had missed that note in my bird-finding guide until I happened to read it while in Queensland a week later. Nevertheless, we made our way to Serendip Nature Reserve to look for more brush species. This ended up being fruitful, producing my only Tawny Frogmouths of the trip. As someone who is also partial to caprimulgiformes, this was a definite highlight.

As Lindall so politely put it, these Tawny Frogmouths were probably young birds owing to their poor hiding skills. Well, she may not have phrased it quite that way, but between her comment and my excitement at seeing this species in the wild, we certainly had a good laugh.

Serendip Nature Reserve, Victoria, AU

Mar. 9, 2020

Our last birding stop for the day was Avalon Beach where we managed to find a couple dozen roosting Red-necked Avocets and the real prize, several hundred Banded Stilts bobbing in a lagoon. This was a particularly curious phenomenon for me as I am used to American Avocets swimming, but have never seen a Black-necked Stilt do this. Granted, this is an imperfect comparison considering Banded Stilt is not in the same genus as Black-necked and Pied Stilts, but still. It actually initially threw us for a loop until we broke out the spotting scopes. The hundred or so Silver Gulls also bobbing around closer to our vantage point further confused things. Nevertheless we got recombobulated and were able to enjoy this dignified endemic addition to Australia's wader diversity.

Speaking of waders, my last day in Melbourne was slated to join Lindall in helping the Victoria Wader Study Group catch roosting Red-necked Stints and Curlew Sandpipers. Up until this point, virtually all of my experience working with shorebirds has been on the arctic breeding grounds. Ringing shorebirds as I knew it entailed catching a single bird on its nest and was usually done singly or as a duo. Cannon nets, holding pens, ringing teams and warm (dare I say "sweltering") weather were all alien concepts for me. I was quite familiar with the type of work that goes on in the wintering and staging areas of waders, but getting to actually partake in some of this work was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

It took a few hours to set up the canon-nets and get situated. By noon most of us were hunkered down in what little shade was available and talking about what else but birds and contemplating the simmering Covid-19 epidemic. A few folks were also kind enough to humor a few unanswered questions I had regarding various aspects of Aussie politics and culture. The main goal of this capture was to retrieve and deploy as many geolocators as possible (from Red-necked Stints) and collect samples to determine viral loads in both species. Waders worldwide are burdened with a diverse suite of parasites and viruses. The highly migratory nature of many species make them ideal vectors of various avian influenzas and coincidentally, coronaviruses (though not necessarily the same group responsible for SARS and Covid-19). By about 4:00pm our prospects for catching any waders seemed slim. The tide was once again receding and the flocks of shorebirds weren't concentrating where we needed them to, despite the valiant efforts of the twinkling team. Then, about 4:30 the call was made to fire the net and upon racing over to begin the extraction, our qualms about only catching a few birds were thoroughly rebuked. I am not sure what the official count was but there were well over 100 Red-necked Stints and probably about 75 Curlew Sandpipers. Despite a number of Double-banded Plovers also cavorting on the beach all day, we didn't catch any with the net.

Next began a three hour marathon of banding unlike anything I've been privy to prior. Working in groups of three, we were able to process the birds relatively quickly, but it still took us until a little after 8:00pm (eventually working with headlamps) to finish processing all of the birds that had been caught. I can certainly understand the appeal for those who enjoy this type of shorebird banding. The shear volume of birds handled is engaging in it of itself, and as someone who enjoys generating a lot of data, banding 100 stints in a single session brings a certain sense of accomplishment. Having feeling in my fingers while handling birds was also a somewhat novel experience. And even the mozzies weren't as bad as some of the pestilent hordes I've suffered at higher latitudes (maybe its the difference in nomenclature). I wouldn't trade working in the arctic for the world, but I can definitely see myself working in a setting like this again.

Holding a stint on a beach in southern Australia with a sunset burning on the western horizon and a warm gentle breeze made me appreciate even more the remarkable feats these birds undertake over the course of their lives in both distance and environmental extremes. Their annual sojourns to the arctic have become even more unfathomable in my mind. I think its pretty standard for any researcher to think of the birds within a study area as "their birds," but for migratory species, conservation can't occur in a bubble. Not only do these birds experience the frigid wind of the arctic tundra and torrid mudflats of Australia, but they also run the gauntlet in the Yellow Sea. I may not make it back to Barrow on my own mechanically-aided migration this summer, but I like the thought that one of the Red-necked Stints that arrives there in mid-June was one that I saw somewhere during my brief visit to Oz this March.

This Red-necked Stint was encountered on a late night in June 2018 in the loose company of a Little Stint (but that's a different story for a different time). Many of the Red-necked Stints I encountered in Australia were clearly in the middle of their prealternate molt. While none were this bright, the pop of fresh ruddy-gold coloration on the scapulars and head/throat were an exciting indication that their migration northward would be commencing shortly.

Utqiagvik, Alaska, USA

June 18, 2018