If det fixar sig was a woman, and not a non-binary jumble of code residing in some long-forgotten backwater of the interwebs where blogs (sadly, now classified an endangered species) wade across the flats of human attention at low tide under a pall of sea-fog, then xir name would be Penelope.
Yes, in this somewhat tortured and self-serving analogy I have egotistically cast myself as Odysseus, and lo! I have again washed up on the shore of my own digital Ithaca; here to recount nothing so noteworthy as nostos but merely my escape from the lotus-eaters.
In other words, I’ve been busy and haven’t really felt like writing.
A combination of ennui, a commitment to read 50 books this year, some secret work for Cornell and going through the process of acquiring a manor have occupied a fair bit of my ‘free time’ over the last 6 months. To catch up on everything that’s happened is not really appealing, frankly; this post will aim simply to ‘hit the wavetops’ of the year so far.
Georgetown
This might have been my final trip to this field site, and it was a doozy. I picked Wise up from his compound in Ravenshoe and we headed west. Lifers came thick and fast on this trip – of all flavours. Some of the animals encountered were real face melters, viz:
And the cream of the crop: Einasleigh Earless Dragon (Tymapnocryptis einasleighensis). I have leps to thank for this monster! In a brief pause in the survey action, I schlepped up to a hilltop to look for them and encountered this charismatic little chap instead. I hollered down to Wise and we both enjoyed basking in the presence of a fantastic reptick.
The site was looking pretty gnarly after the fires that had gone through during our last field trip, but we still managed to find some water in a billabong and have a dip to celebrate the end of another successful field campaign. Sadly, on our way back to Georgetown our car exploded, and it was only thanks to the heroic efforts of the mighty Olive that we escaped to tell the tale. An Australia day to remember.
Seabirding from the shore
After a fairly desultory return to the Wandoan area, the next item of excitement was the approach of Cyclone Alfred in early March. I’d been waiting for a chance to collect Grey Ternlet for me Qlist ever since Cyclone Oswald back in 2013… and now was my chance. Along with most of the other serious birders in BNE I was down on the foreshore near the Redcliffe bridge as Alfie approached. It was a real who’s-who with a lot of seabirders present whom I hadn’t seen for years. A good catch up and an easy tick of the Ternlet… happy days. When I got home Jess was gripped and so we made plans to return the following morning.
That morning and the day that followed will be enshrined in Brisbirding legend forevermore. Close encounters with amazing seabirds from the ‘comfort’ beneath the bridge ensued… it was madness. First up a group of White Terns drifted past, then I unblocked Common Tern for BNE, and got Jess on to the Arctic Jaeger sitting in the bay. Moving over to the bridge I was stunned to see Black-winged Petrel at point-blank range but the real MEGA of the morning was this crippling Wharf Louse!
I’d been in semi-frequent comms with the lovely young lad Kye Turnbull, who was on the far side of the bridge. I checked my phone during a bit of a breather in the driving rain and wind and was utterly gobsmacked to see that Kye and others on the far side were looking at two Leach’s Storm-petrels!!! Needless to say Jess and I were in the red rocket and on the other side of the bridge in about 3 minutes flat. Rushing out onto the pier I was soon stunned into a near-catatonic state by this ULTRA… but I roused myself and made sure that all present had actually seen it. Most of the birders on the pier had never seen a tubey before! Things would never be the same … As the rain and wind worsened Jess and I bailed – I had ended up with one Qtick and Jess had hauled in something like 4 lifers. Amazingly, the Leach’s SP was not one of them; we had seen the FFQ together in 2015! The aftermath of the cyclone was a bit grim as almost all of the birds we had seen on those fateful days joined Davy Jones. May they rest in peace.
Holidays (of varying kinds)
Following a lovely mini-holiday in Woomba with J and the dogs I was shortly zooming off to central Qld to look for roosting needlies with the incredible George Madani. Obviously we didn’t find any sleeping spine-tails, but we had an awesome few days together building up our county lists and hanging out again. I hadn’t worked with George since the magic days down in the Snowies.
Another mini-holiday followed courtesy of my ever-growing TOIL balance… Jess and I had been planning this one for a while. We hired a campervan and ripped up the coast with the dogs, staying in Amamoor, Rainbow Beach and the Wongi Waterholes. I’d crafted some long leads for the boys so that they could roam the wild semi-freely and apart from a few stressful moments everything worked out amazingly well!
A few field highlights
Back into the field after the campervan trip I was accompanied by the venerable (and legendary) Tom Nealson. A man of many talents, he was an excellent field companion. Sadly for us (but happily for the natural environment) the site was clapped out and it is hard to see much negative impact on the place at all if they whack in some turbines. We did clean up some county MEGAs in the SEVT on the trip which set the rare bird bells ringing for the Qlisters. I also finally got to see a ‘real’ Golden-tailed Gecko, an animal which I had been wanting to lock eyes on ever since seeing it in one of Steve Parish’s books as a kid. We did have one very adventurous night of spotlighting up in the SEVT on the jump up when some fog and rain descended… all in all a pretty good trip.
And then my lifelong run of no serious injury ended (in ignominious fashion) when I tore my right knee to pieces at the climbing gym. An almost complete tear of the medial meniscus had me hobbling around for about a month. Thanks to our ‘family’ physio Quentin I am ‘almost’ back to normal now, but it has been more than 3 months (I just aggravated it again and am limping about like Quasimodo). Definitely the worst injury I’ve sustained to date I think.
Other field trips have felt a bit half-hearted since that time as I’ve been limited to the car-based ‘boring’ trips. There have been some nice encounters with critters though, including families of Glossy Blacks, Emus and Red-winged Parrots… I also enjoyed putting the new camera through its paces and nailing a few high-quality shots of White-backed Swallow.
House hunting
In non-naturalist news, the last few months have been consumed by the search for a home. House inspections, meetings with the mortgage broker, putting in an offer, getting finance etc… it has been a pretty high-stress period for all involved. Eventually the house-hunting paid off; we were successful in securing a manor and I’m writing this latest missive from our new living room under the glow of my favourite stained glass lamp.
Now the real fun will begin – revegetating and improving the habitat quality on our own piece of land!!! I’m back in the mood for blogs too so hopefully there will be some more instalments tracking our progress over the next few months (and years).
As always, dearest readers, thanks for your patience… until next time.
