Christmas Island - Part One
Landing on Christmas Island, we were greeted with a brief little tropical shower. Richard was there to meet us with three cars and we rolled out pretty quickly after making sure everyone had their bags. Driving from the airport down to Settlement I think I got about 5 ticks! Everyone piled out of the vehicles and unpacked their kit before we reconvened for a little shopping trip to the supermarket. I was ready to go almost immediately so I sat out the front of the VQ3 Lodge and watched the Frigates drifting overhead. The supermarket was, amazingly, very well stocked with stuff that I liked! I grabbed a few 100+ and some other odds and ends and then sat around waiting for the others in a semi-agitated state. There were MEGA’s waiting…
After offloading the shopping back at the accom, we headed up the hill to the plateau to look for the putative Brown Shrike in the twilight. We cruised up the track very slowly with all three cars scanning every dead stick and twig with no results. Soon we parked near the end of the runway where it had been seen a few days prior but had no luck there either… there was a fair bit of chatting and milling around so I headed up the road a bit for a poke around and quickly found the monster in a little gully. Louise had tagged along with me; I left her in place to keep an eye on it and sprinted down to get the others. After getting up there, everyone had good views of the charismatic little critter in the failing light. We were off to a good start! We drove back down to Settlement replete and content. I felt like I was finally on the IOTs for real, dodging crabs and finding lifers. ‘Twas a good feeling. We walked down to the picnic shelter for a nice BBQ dinner (thanks for the veggie burgers Lisa!) and a briefing from Richard. Everyone introduced themselves and seemed nice. I could hear Ninox natalis hooting from the jungle behind us while we ate. I went to sleep happy that night.
The next morning I was up pre-dawn, still on mainland time. Lurking around under red light I tried not to wake Bill. Eventually dawn broke and I headed out the front again to have a little look around. There were crabs everywhere! The little blighters were creeping about looking for leaves to eat. There’s almost no leaf litter in the forests of the island thanks to the crabbies; it looks very odd at first. After inspecting the crabbies I noticed a small pale butterfly and got it in the bins – wow! Striped Albatross! My first leplifer of the trip. It was too dark for the camera still so I tried to creep up on it with my phone with no success. I thought I would see more, but it ended up being the only one of the trip! Bugger. Christmas Swallowtail floated overhead soon after and I followed it to someone’s lime tree. A very pretty butterfly, but hard to photograph. The others emerged from their rooms, primed to look for Java Sparrow. We trooped off along the seafront path heading towards the graveyards. I saw a few more leps on the way – blues mainly, and nothing new for me.
Richard knew exactly where the spuggies would be but had warned us beforehand that they could be difficult; the previous crew had only seen them on the second last day on Christmas. Thankfully we didn’t have that problem and nailed a flock of about 15 almost straight away. A very pretty bird that is declining in its proper home, just like other sparrow species, they’ve been on Christmas for about 100 years now. The Java Sparrows seemed to be attracted to the chicken coop in someone’s backyard, along with dozens of Tree Sparrows. Someone had seen a Rosy Starling at this coop recently so we staked it out for an hour or so. I wandered around Settlement looking for it but didn’t have much luck. I bumped into Geoff and Pam, who were on the island for the first time and had a bit of a chinwag. Back at the coop everyone had dispersed and retired to the accom for brekky. I was too frothed to go home just yet so went for another lap of the town.
Walking past the kindy in the rain a big grey cuckoo flew overhead and I was quickly on to a pair of Asian Koel. Awesome! They perched up nicely for me and sat around for the next hour or so drying out – I managed to round up the troops eventually and everyone came for a look. After a quick brekky I headed out for a drive with Glen. We checked out some of the tracks that weren’t closed and poked around the Poon San / Silver City area for a bit (no vagues) before heading back down the hill for an epic lunch at the Noodle Bar. Most punters then retired for a nap. Bill and I walked up to Tai Jin House in the heat and had a little look around. Not much vertebrate action up there, but I did get another of the endemic leps – Christmas Island Emperor. We made our way back home and had a little rest in the aircon before hopping in the cars.
We headed up to LB3 in convoy and went on Snipe patrol. Despite the spread of the Panama Berry / Japanese Cherry (Muntingia calabura) into the grassy fields, we managed to flush two Pin-tailed Snipe. I had my recorder going to get the flight calls, which worked nicely, and I got some record shots of the beasts also. Crazy toe projection! We moved on to some jungle tracks that the Malay Night Heron liked. This was weird birding – I knew the MEGA was close and that it was only a matter of time. For some reason the critter liked to walk the tracks – maybe eating young crabs? Suddenly Richard was on the radio: “it’s on the left hand side of the track 100m up”. I nosed around Richard’s car and got the bins on it as it slowly crept into the grass on the side of the track. Very sneaky! We crept forwards and it moved out onto the track again before flying up into a tree. It was crippling – the forest skulker, a dream bird, was about two meters away from me. Its large goggling eyes stared into mine as I slowly lifted the camera… things have never been the same.
Once everyone had their fill of the ULTRA we reversed out of the area slowly and then turned to head back to Settlement via the Pink House. Around the reptile cages I got my first Christmas Emerald Doves and stopped to have a look. A mid-sized robber cruised past too, which was cool. The other cars had stopped up the road, provoking a feeling of panic. Had they seen Von Schrenk’s or smth? No – just a Goshawk that had murked a nestling. Cool. After an average dinner at the Bosun we visited with Lynda and her friend the Boobook. He was tiny and very very cute. An awesome day on the island. In the last two days I had seen 18 new birds. Madness!
The next day I awoke to pouring rain. We had been planning to go for the Stonechat but that was put on hold due to the weather. We cruised around in the cars for the morning and visited the Chinese Temple in the mist and rain. Pretty intriguing photos on the walls of firewalking etc. Coming back home for lunch Richard spotted a Yellow Bittern in the long grass by the roadside. Well-trained vagrant spotting eyes! We hit the noodle bar for lunch again and I gobbled up some Mi Goreng and a 100 Plus. Refuelled and reinvigorated Bill and I walked up the road to the Chinese cemetery. I took some photos of Swiftlets in the rain and then headed back to the VQ3 for a little rest. On the way back through town we rumbled the basic-plumaged (and therefore unidentifiable) Pond Heron hanging out in someone’s garden.
That arvo we went for a quick look at the Pondy before driving out to Swift Alley. Such a famous place! The wind wasn’t blowing while we were there, but I could feel the ghosts of MEGAs past… just down the road we had cracking views of the prehistoric-looking Abbott’s Booby on a nest. Such a unique bird. By seeing it I completed my Australian Booby set! 
I headed out spotlighting that night without any luck.
The weather looked better the next day and so Richard pulled the trigger on the Stonechat hunt. A small contingent of vagrant hunters marched off along an overgrown track past the detention centre and some big mysterious radar “balloons”. We were walking through old mine fields – not the exploding kind, thankfully, but the leftovers of phosphate mining on the island. Weeds and feral grasses dominated these areas and the seeds got stuck in my shoelaces and socks. The ever-present Japanese Cherries provided some yummy snacks along the way. Eventually we got to the site where the Stonechat had been seen and split up to go hunting. Glen and I headed back the way we had come, but over the hill into the pinnacle field instead of back along the track. It was a hard climb up to the ‘plateau’ and as we poked our heads over the top of the cliff we flushed a big female Peregrine Falcon. The calidus seemed pretty inquisitive, circling us at close range multiple times before heading off to perch in a tree. Unfortunately, the light was horrific at the time so the photo below is about the best I managed.
Any hope that I had of finding the Stonechat evaporated after seeing the Peregrine, but who knows what else may have been hiding in the talus field. I slowly picked my way through the limestone nooks and crannies while Glen sat on watch. It had been fairly gloomy all day and a squall we had seen on the horizon eventually caught us. I hoped it would pass over quickly but it set in and after about five minutes of trying to shelter in the lee of a limestone crag, the camera went into the dry bag and the raincoat went on. The rain got heavier and heavier and by the time I got back to the others everyone looked fairly bedraggled.
After examining three Kestrels and a Goshawk sitting around in the pinnacle field where the Stonechat was first seen we departed, taking about an hour to get back to the cars. It had been nice to find the calidus and I had also seen an orchid up on the hill that (in Australia at least) only occurs on Christmas Island – Ceraia saaronica. It was quite cool walking in the rain so it wasn’t a bad little sojourn in the end Once back at the VQ3 I had a quick shower and changed into some dry clothes before heading out in search of a legit Red Junglefowl. The afternoon wasn’t too productive on that front, but I did find some BIG Robber Crabs.
That evening we headed up to Poon San for dinner at Lucky Ho – a culinary highlight of the trip! This place is awesome. There were heaps of vegetarian items on the menu so I was pretty excited to get stuck in. That first night I had a jackfruit smoothie as an entrée and then gobbled up about a kilogram of the best fried rice I’d had in years (RIP Thai on High). The rice was unreal, and was made even better by the smoky chilli sauce that I managed to snaffle from the waiter. Sue and I shared an (egg?) tofu dish and some green veggies as well. I was full as a goog and drove back down the hill with a big grin on my face and a swollen tummy.
It’s taking me a bit longer than I thought to put these posts together (bloody full-time job!) so I’ll leave this as Part One of the Christmas Island adventure. Part Two will cover some exciting vagues and will possibly take us through to the end of the week on Christmas – stay tuned!
