Lady Elliot birds

 There are a lot of birds on the island although not a wide variety of species; the White-capped (Black) Noddys, Common (Brown) Noddys, Bridled Terns and Silver Gulls are everywhere and very loud. The Noddys have an interesting nesting ritual. The male brings a potential piece of nesting material to the nest that is under construction. If the female approves it, she will poop on it to attach it to the stack of previous pieces. If she does not approve, the rejected item falls to the ground.  The nests have no bowl shape to them, just stacks of these nesting materials glued to a branch.  One morning we had the opportunity to take a bird walk with an expert which enabled us to see Red-tailed Tropicbirds (including an adult feeding a chick) and three chicks of Pacific Reef Heron (Egret).  There are two color morphs of the Reed Heron, white and dark. The parents of the chicks are one of each, which seemed unusual. We were told that Bar-tailed Godwits had recently migrated to the island, although it took us several bird walks of our own before we saw one. 

Pictured: Red-tailed Tropicbird with chick,  Black Noddys in nest, Bar-tailed Godwit 

Lady Elliot marine experiences

 Soon after we arrived, we took our first snorkel session in the lagoon, a highly tidal piece of reef just outside our cabins. The diversity of little fish darting in and out of the coral was amazing. Later in the day we walked through the same area at low tide and learned about the coral itself and its symbiotic relationship with the algae that gives it color. We had to tread carefully to avoid the sea cucumbers on the sandy bottom. There are four different types of sea cucumber here. Three are benign, but one is very poisonous if you were to step on it barefoot. All the sea cucumbers digest debris and deposit clean sand, keeping the reef tidy. 

The following day, our major outing was a ride on a glass bottom boat, both to see things in the reef and to be transported to a more distant snorkeling area. On the way we were distracted and entertained by a pair of Humpbacks swimming in the same direction as we were traveling. During the snorkeling session, we saw three manta rays and a green sea turtle as well as many beautiful fish. The boat ride back featured bottle nose dolphins alongside the boat. Later in the afternoon, four of the six of us snorkeled in another area on the west side of the island, with cliffs and canyons in the coral to explore. 

On Tuesday, our snorkel after breakfast in the lagoon yielded many kinds of fish, both large and small, reef sharks, green sea turtles, sea urchins and two types of starfish. A bird walk (including a school of reef sharks) filled in the time till lunch, and then most of the afternoon was spent snorkeling on the west side of the island. We saw a large stingray and many turtles.  That evening we watched the sunset from the lighthouse beach. Just as we were getting ready to leave, a pod of Humpbacks were spotted off shore. Two Humpbacks, probably a mother and calf, took turns practicing lifting their flukes out of the water and slapping them on the surface. It was quite a show.

After dinner we attended a talk about manta rays; Lady Elliott is one of the prime sites for viewing them due its location near the continental shelf. Two behaviors particularly struck us. The manta rays need to have parasites and other debris cleaned off their skin. This is done at “cleaning stations”, outcrops of coral at the edge of the reef where small fish wait for the mantas to come. The mantas then swim lazily around (they need to move continually in order to breathe) while the little fish scrub them clean. 

The second behavior is one we witnessed; when courting, a female manta (females are larger than males) swims with the aspiring males swimming behind her in a line. She leads them a merry chase and some of the males can’t keep up, so the fittest male wins. When saw mantas yesterday, we saw three in a line with largest one in front, and they were swimming fast, so we think we saw this exact behavior. 

Pictured:  Green Sea Turtle, Manta Ray, cute little fish, blue starfish 

Lady Elliot Island

 On Saturday September 25th we flew in a 12 seat airplane to Lady Elliot Island, the farthest south island in the Great Barrier Reef. We had great views of the Queensland coastline as well as sightings of Humpbacks, sea turtles, dolphins and a manta ray as we flew. Lady Elliot Island is only 44 hectares in size, so the unpaved runway spans the island. The island was heavily deforested and stripped even of its topsoil in the early 20th century when it was “mined” for guano for fertilizers and gunpowder.  Starting in the 1960s, the island has been rejuvenated with native species in lieu of non-natives, and hosts a privately run resort catering to snorkelers and divers. The resort has a 130 person capacity.  We filled our days with bird walks and snorkeling expeditions.

Early on the morning of September 28th, the once-a-quarter supply barge docked, so we watched many pallets of supplies (food, paper products, diesel for the generators) being moved from the western beach yore rest of the island. After lunch we did a “behind the scenes tour” focusing on power generation, clean water, and waste water.  The island has 900 solar panels enabling them to generate over a megawatt.  They have over 200 batteries to store energy for night time use. and a generator for those times when the batteries start running out or when the weather prevents optimal generation by the solar panels. The water desalination systems provides 100% of the potable water used on the island.  The (human) waste recycling system processes over 20,000 gallons a day.  The processed water is safe to be for agricultural purposes. We didn’t have time for the nursery tour, which includes a discussion of how they have, over 50 years, intentionally re-vegetated the island. That re-vegetation has, for example, increased the number of nesting Noddy pairs from zero in 1969 to 30 in 1979 to 30,000 !!! now. 

Pictured: Lady Elliot Island 1964 and recently, supply example 

Lone Pine Wonders

 Saturday, September 24:

No new birds today, but oh my we saw other things. We visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary just west of downtown Brisbane, including a behind the scenes tour. We thought we would see a few koalas— but there are 100 there, all identifiable by name and appearance by their keepers. The sanctuary also nurtures endemic reptiles, birds and other mammals. We also got a much better view of a kookaburra, including one who landed on a picnic table in hopes of a handout.

Our day began with meeting a Barking Owl named Bo and a Barn Owl names Chip. Barking Owls are in the Hawk Owl family which means they hunt by sight. Bo’s feather were so soft, and her grumbling noises as she continually surveyed her surroundings were precious. We got to hold both owls on a leather glove, and Chip flew to us to collect bits of mouse set on the glove as a lure. Next we met an injured Wedge-tailed Eagle (the largest eagle in Australia) who will spend the rest of his life at the sanctuary, but seems to have a pretty comfortable life.

Then it was off to the reptile house, where we got to hold two endemic lizards (Grub the Shingleback and Draco the Inland Bearded Dragon), and a Woma Python named Sunny. All three were fascinating... the shingleback is also called the two-headed lizard as its primary defense is to curl up in a horseshoe so that its fat triangular tail (and rear feet that point backwards) give the appearance of two heads to scare off predators. Both the lizards have a third eye (not a full eye but capable of detecting light and shadow) on the top of their head to help warn them if a bird predator flies over. The python species is one that eats other reptiles in the wild, even venomous ones. 

Koalas at the sanctuary are well protected by the Australian government, and can only “work” for 30 minutes on  three out of every four days; at Lone Pine because they have so many koalas, each only works for 10 minutes rather than 30. “Work” means interacting with humans other than their keepers, and to be fair, if you sleep 16-20 hours per day then 30 minutes is a big chunk of your awake and eating time. Koalas are naturally lethargic as their eucalyptus leaf diet provides little energy and requires a lot of energy to digest. At the sanctuary the koalas can be particularly picky and eat only the most tender leaves of their favorite types of eucalyptus (each has their own favorites out of the 20 subspecies (from a total of 700) that Queensland koalas eat), confident the their keepers will replenish with fresh tender leaves the next day.  Perkins, our koala, was completely unfazed by our petting him and watching him eat. 

The highlight of the day was seeing, and helping to feed, two platypus (grandfather and grandson). First of all, they were smaller than we expected. Other things that we knew about platypus seemed more vivid “in person” for example seeing them swim around with their eyes and ears closed, feeling with their bills for movement to tell them where their prey is hiding. Platypus have two layers of fur, with air trapped between the layers for warmth and buoyancy. The easiest way to locate them as they forage for their food is to look for air bubbles— they have to release the trapped air in their fur layers to be able to sink. At the sanctuary, they are fed with live crayfish for their main meals and get a snack of meal worms and earthworms (and sometimes fly larvae) at mid-day. We helped clean earth off the earthworms and then toss the combination into each tank.  The platypus wait for everything to sink to the bottom as it is easier to find the food wriggling down there. They scoop up the snack and hold it in their cheeks like squirrels, returning to their above water dens to eat. The older platypus is so particular that he picks out all the earthworms first ( by feel with his bill) and comes back later for the less preferred mealworms.  Platypus are nocturnal, so during the day the exhibit is in darkness, and at dusk the lights get turned on to tell the platypus it’s time to go to bed. They come out of the water, enter plastic tunnels that lead to wooden boxes with towels inside to be their burrows, and go right to sleep. The keepers don’t need to touch them (or risk the platypus venom) at all. 

Finally, we also saw dingoes (who looked just like normal dogs), a cassowary, four kinds of kangaroo, a wombat and a Tasmanian Devil (who was kind enough to wake up from her midday nap and run around a bit for us). We had dinner with the other couple on the trip; there will be just four guests and two trip leaders.  A great day, and tonight the real trip starts. (As a reminder, we’ll be off grid for the next three days which somewhat excuses the length of this posting!)

Pictured: Koala, Tasmanian Devil, Shingleback Lizard 

Queensland birds and marsupials

Friday, September 23:

At dawn this morning we met a local birding expert, Ronda Green, for a full day outing in different landscapes in this part of Queensland. We visited two locations on Bribie Island, just a bit north along the coast, and then drove about an hour further north and inland to Mary Cairncross Park, a temperate rain forest at much higher altitude. In both locations we saw new species of birds, and at Mary Cairncross saw our first kangaroo species, a small wallaby called a Red-legged Pademelon. Did you know that all kangaroos can manage three different ages of babies at once? They can have one that’s out of the pouch but comes back for a sip of a lower calorie milk from time to time, an infant latched on to a specific high calorie nipple, and a fertilized egg waiting for the right time to develop further (usually when a nipple spot becomes available). The idea of two different milks for specific nipples blew our minds. 

We learned that larger birds, of the sort we saw yesterday, are so dominant in suburban environments that smaller birds stay in rural and forested areas.  As we were a little more in the wild today, we saw some amazing big birds (including our first Kookaburra) and beautiful small ones. Searching for small birds in dense foliage on a beautiful day felt just right.

Pictured: Golden Whistler, Red-legged Pademelon, Wompoo Fruit-Dove, Australian Water Dragon 

Our first day Down Under

 The trip out here was long (30 hours door to door) but really not unpleasant.  We landed at 5 am, but ours was the only plane landing so immigration and customs were quick. Protecting the native flora and fauna is really important in Australia, so there are elaborate screening processes to make sure no invasive species creeps in on the soles of your shoes or in your luggage. Today turns out to be a bank holiday in Australia in honor of Queen Elizabeth, so the hotels are crowded and the roads are empty.  We are staying in Margate Beach, a bit north of Brisbane and right on the ocean. The village to the north of Margate is Redcliffe (settled in 1799) and the home of the BeeGees (there is a whole side street devoted to murals about them, including a copy of the 1959 recording contract their parents signed on behalf of the sons). 

It rained much of the day, but we scurried out to look for birds every time it let up, and ended up with 25 new species for the day. Of course, being in a new hemisphere, perhaps the more surprising thing was that we saw 5 species that we have seen before.  It was a bit surprising that almost all the species we saw were quite large birds, very different from our hunting for tiny warblers, hummingbirds and sunbirds on other trips. In keeping with this theme, on our way to dinner tonight we saw two species of bats, both were enormous! One of the birds we really hoped to see was the Rainbow Lorikeet. As often happens we got very excited to see a few on our first walk of the day, but by the end of the day we had seen dozens — but no complaints, as they are truly spectacular birds. 

Pictured: Rainbow Lorikeet, Blue-faced Honeyeater, female Maned Duck, female Magpie-lark