The Indian Ocean Territories (IOT) of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands atoll and the incredible tropical jungle that is Christmas Island hold a special place in the minds of Australian birders. These islands, largely thanks to the dedicated efforts of some of Australia’s most hardcore twitchers, have welcomed more ‘new’ birds onto the Australian list in recent decades than anywhere else in the country.
This was my third attempt at harvesting lifers in the IOT. My first go was thwarted by Cov-SARS-2; my second was one of the most consistently exciting birding trips of my life. What would this trip have in store for me? Accompanying me this time were two of my best mates, both IOT first-timers and both fantastic field naturalists. We had been talking about it for literally years and so the anticipation was at fever pitch as we gathered in Perth aeroport on the morning of our flight to Cocos. This was to be our most ambitious adventure to date – and ultimately, a tragic one.
After meeting up with several of the usual suspects at the departure area, we eventually boarded the aeroplane. And then we sat there on the tarmac, without taxiing, for about an hour. Once the word wheel was sorted, I looked up and out of the window, bemused, as the ground crew unpacked and then repacked the hold several times. A large surfboard seemed to be causing severe gripes. Then the captain got on the intercom – “Ah yeah sorry for the delay, there seems to be a slight problem with the luggage”. The ground crew eventually dispersed to parts unknown and we heard the doors click closed. Then the captain was back: “Ah yeah sorry but the plane has no phalange-y. The head office wants to send an engineer to have a look”. This was an inauspicious start, to say the least… after sitting on the plane for another half an hour or so it was “please disembark” followed shortly thereafter in the terminal by “yeah nah come back tomorrow and we’ll try again”.
Well. We managed to secure rooms in the Hilton (see above) on the Qantas dime, along with the rest of our crew, but spirits were low. After foraging locally, the three of us jumped in an Uber and zipped off to look for some critters at a nearby dam. This has been a perk of these trips for me so far – I’ve not done a ‘proper’ trip to Western Australia yet so I try to pick up little bits and pieces of the western Avilist before and after the IOT trips. With the help of George and Gus I returned to the Hilton a few hours later with a couple of new birds: Western Wattlebird and Western Yellow Robin. This put a happy spin on the day for me, as did the fantastic burnt butter gnocchi and vanilla panettone I scoffed down for dinna / dessert at the hotel.
The next day we did it all again – aeroport, departures, boarded the plane… and then, horrified, watched them repack the hold for the second time! Despite severe worries we were in the air shortly thereafter (an hour late) and had a relatively smooth trip to the first zone of interest – the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. For George and Gus, the lifers came thick and fast out of the plane windows as we cruised into the terminal. Green Junglefowl, Medium Egret and White-breasted Waterhen were all seen well and were to become good friends over the next week. After ensuring that our bags had actually made it, we met up with Richard and Damian and dropped off our kit before dispersing to make the most of the half an hour or so of light we had left. We headed straight to Bechat Besar to see if the long-staying Northern Pintail was present – sadly, we only found her hybrid swarm of offspring. Richard suspects that she may have passed away sometime in the last year 🙁
We had about ten minutes left so we stuck our snouts into the farm and were almost instantly greeted by an Asian Koel. Nice! It was then back to Tropicana for a ($$$) chew and Richard’s customary briefing. We were pleased to find that we would be sent hunting most days but less pleased to hear that the islands were quiet at the moment – the delayed arrival of the monsoon did not bode well for our hopes and dreams.
Over the next week we thrashed the place, looking high and low for vagues with limited success. The most exciting item that we found was a crake – almost certainly Ruddy-breasted – but none of our party ever managed to get a tickable view of the chocolate brown crippler (despite several extended and meticulously planned campaigns). A brief glimpse of what was ‘probably’ an Eyebrowed Thrush in the big house gardens on Home Island also caused great consternation – again, several people in the larger group had brief views but nothing diagnostic, and no photos were captured… intriguingly, Gus also heard the beast giving some subsong at one stage. Sadly though, the late monsoon had apparently suppressed the arrival of flycatchers, Watercock and even the ‘regular’ vagrant raptors and shorebirds … we were in the doldrums. Most of the long-staying ‘resident’ vagues were also absent and had perhaps died since my last visit. No Purple Heron stalked the lagoon, no Common Kingfisher hid in a remote bay, and no Northern Pintail graced the freshwater lens of Bechat Besar.
But this just meant that my motivation remained ultra-high! I spent a lot of time zenbirding on Home (see above) and carbirding on West – the hunt continued all week. It was fun to show Gus and George around the place too, though I did feel a bit bad as the trip so far was clearly not what they had been expecting. Reading the old trip reports it seems like vagrants are just falling out of the sky everywhere all the time – the truth is that birding on the islands can be tough, and finding the vagues can be hard work. The lack of the long-stayers was also a problem as it meant there were limited ‘easy wins’ around the traps. But it wasn’t all bad, by any means. We had nailed Pin-tailed Snipe on the first day, there was a Red-necked Phalarope hanging about the bottle dump who we checked in with from time to time and there was always the ‘tern trip’ to South Island to look forward to.
The South Island trip needs a good tide and is a real adventure – a boat ride to start off with (in ‘motorised canoes’) and then a walk through the coconut jungle to a massive bay saturated in pure-white mud. This is where the shorebirds who end up in the wrong place gather, and is also the only place in Australia where you can see Saunders’s Terns (which are the main reason for the boat trip). I took Sue Taylor with me as we were probably the lightest pair and she didn’t want to drive a canoe. George and Gus travelled together (though had to return to shore to swap canoes after their engine packed it in). Once we had all assembled, we got all of our gear out of the dry bags and saddled up to head out onto the flats. The tide comes in fast here and so we moved as quickly as we could towards the sandspit where the Saunders’s hang out – but they weren’t there. A small group of 20-odd terns were on a distant sandbar though and so we headed further out… slowly. I had already seen the terns last time and so I was getting a bit agitated as I wanted to split off and grill the shorebirds down the other end of the mudflats for Tibetan Sandplover… as the main group headed ever further out Rusell, Noel and I bailed and started the long walk to the other side of the bay. Soon after, and when my pals were about 150 m away, a Saunders’s flew past to check us out. I was hollering to the boys, but they couldn’t hear me – great pain! I anxiously kept an eye on them and eventually they were sharing a scope and high fiving, back slapping etc – so we kept going.
Tibetan Sandplover is a recent split and a recent addition to the Auslist – it presents a fairly fearsome ID challenge, especially in the field, due to its similarity to the closely related Siberian Sandplover. Additionally, Richard and Jenny had been telling us about a subspecies of Greater Sandplover that had recently been detected on Cocos. Complete with a short, thin bill and an overall more slender build this was another potential confusion species! We only had limited time to pin a Tibetan down – if one was even there – as the tide races in through the atoll and it was already starting to rise. After hoofing it over there and setting up the scope I had a suspicious looking bird almost immediately, and almost immediately started second guessing myself. Was the bill short enough? What about the nail? Were the legs the ‘right’ colour!? Eventually I was happy enough to move closer and try to get some pics, after Russell and Noel had a look at it in the scope as well. We crept in a bit and got some pics, and then the birds all started moving about. I was feverishly checking over my shoulder to see where George and Gus were at – they had left the Saunders’s and were also walking over. Eventually they got there, after schlepping through the ever-deepening water, and I pointed them in the direction of the beast(s). We all got satisfactory views of the suspect birds (I had figured out that there were two, maybe three TISPs) and I snapped some insurance shots of the flock just in case. We then split up briefly – I headed over to let some others know that there were good looking birds present and George and Gus went further into the bay, hunting for more rares. I met up with Richard and we had a quick look at some interesting stints – one in particular looked ok for Little – before we had to bail and started back towards the sandspit and safety from the rising tide.
The boat trip on the way back was ‘interesting’ with one, then two canoes capsizing and sending their participants (temporarily at least) down to Davy Jones… sadly, Alan’s camera did not make it. Once back on terra firma, we hopped in the cards and headed back to the accom to wash off the salt and mud. Then the ID papers came out and we started looking through photographs – happily, we had managed to get photos of at least two Tibetans. We sent some off to various boffins for confirmation and Gus and I celebrated with some coconut waters, choccies etc. For the next few days, I focused on Home Island in the hopes of connecting with something in the big house gardens or in the farm. Another pair of Asian Koels were kicking around in there, and I had a really brief view of the suspected Eyebrowed Thrush flying over a wall, but in the end, there was not much reward for the amount of time invested. At least the mozzies weren’t as bad as last time. We attended the traditional Malay dinner on Home one night, and I was VERY excited to scoff some pumpkin curry and see some ‘green things’ appear for dessert again (though the recipe seemed to have changed slightly). A lovely moonlit ferry ride back to West Island followed.
And then, all too soon, it was time to start thinking about packing up! We didn’t have high hopes that the plane would be on time and as we expected it was (again) late. But at least it had arrived (though the toilets did not work)! The buoys didn’t look too sad to be leaving Cocos, but I felt a small pang of strife as we strolled across the tarmac to the waiting plane – who knows when I would next return to the vagrant trap? Certainly not for a few years, I think.
It was off to Christmas Island for us with the hope of more lifers… but you’ll have to read about that next time. Until then!
