Another CES session in the mangroves

Up at 4:15 to go and set the nets at the mangrove constant effort site in the mangroves. Six nets produced 48 birds from 6 :oo until 9:30 when the nets were closed due to windy conditions.

Caught some nice birds including the following:

White breatsed whistler - a nice female

Sacred Kingfisher a nice immature bird with an amazingly big bill ! Similar useful comments on sexing in the Ozzie banders manual as the British manual !

Broad billed flycatcher - an immature showing the pale tips to the greater coverts and contrast between lesser coverts and greater coverts

A great morning but yet to catch a male White breasted whistler !

Wader banding at Roebuck bay

Wader ringing at wader beach. We caught a good number of red knot, great knot, Bar Tailed godwit and Black tailed godwit.

To avoid releasing birds indiviually that might be targetted by birds of prey we let them all go together from the keeping cages.


Black Tailed Godwit sporting breeding plumage but hwy is it still here when it should be breeding in the Arctic?

Red Knot in beautiful breeding plumage and the same applies, why is it still here??

As well as a yellow flag to identify the bird as having been ringed in the NW of Australia it has also been fitted with colour bands to identify it as an individual in the field.

The trip to Bush Point counting waders

As part of the Monitoring Yellow Sea M A counts a group of intrepid wader counters went out to Bush Point which is at the western end of Roebuck Bay (beyond the Mangroves). Two 4W drives went, Chris Hassell's and BBO vehicle with Matt, Clare and Grant, Maurice Chris and me.

Bush point is remote. You get to it by leaving the highway and taking a dirt track following the fenceline until you hit the open floodplains. Then you need to know where your going! there is a track of sorts but it isn't used very much. I can't get over the fact that in the UK peopel would pay an outward bound company to do what we are doing for real !

Winding our way through the floodplain we eventually come out to a creek and white sandy beaches which look heavenly and very tropical !








A pair of Caspian Tern

There were some 28000 birds seen that day including 4 Lesser Frigate birds hanging around the mouth of the creek which gave it acertain Juassic park feel !!!

A nice surprise at the Obs

Mist netting again and caught this Red headed honeyeater which was a bit of a surprise ! they are normally found in the mangroves not the pindan bush and don't breed that close by. This is a juvenile bird so i guess its doing some post juvenile disbursal !

Various photos taken during a trip to the lakes

During a trip to the lakes managed to take some nice photos.
Not sure what some of the things are apst species but hey they look nice !


Dragon fly

Home Sweet Home !!!

For those of you interested in the domestic side of life, here what the site looks like. The site has the office and accomodation block, the Shadehouse (camp kitchen) and camping areas so it takes quite a bit of maintaining.

This is the Shadehouse and BBQ area which gets its fair share of use. The shadehouse provides kitchen and dining room facilities as well as good views of bush birds coming into drink at the bird baths.

The office and woodside block - the hub of the operations !!!!

Solar panel array which when working provides all the electric for the site. Unfortunatley, the batteries are dead at the moment but due to be replaced any time soon so we can turn the genny off and have some peacful evenings again !!!

No this is really home for me, a steel framed builing with bedroom, study, bathroom and kitchen/diner. Gets boiling hot during the day and cold at night (in the summer) boiling hot during the wets season!

Mist netting continued

We continued to net that morning and caught more yellow white eye, a brown honey eater, plus a stunning immature Brown Goshawk

Yellow white eye better photos to come!

Me with the Brown goshawk

After the ringing session we posed for a Team photo to go out with teh press ad to let everyone know theres a new warden in town !