92. Isle of the Birds

Ruddy Turnstones in flight over the Coral Sea

For us, it sounds strange to the ear but we went up to the Great Barrier Reef-for the weekend. Specifically the southernmost island, Lady Elliot. The GBR has always been such a distant dream - maybe *someday* we will get there. Now its just a few hours away.







It is a 30 min flight from Hervey Bay out to a modest Eco-resort who boasts a majority of power from solar, and low(er) impact tourism.




A little history: Lady Elliot Island was mined for guano starting in 1863. In ten years the miners had removed 3 feet of accumulated soil/guano and cut down all but 8 trees! Goats were then introduced (to help stranded sailors).
In 1969 Don Adams started a revegetation program and now the island is back (somewhat) to fulfilling it role in the GBR - as a bird nesting ground with the second highest bird diversity in the GBR.

White-capped Black Noddys were everywhere on the island. The island is literally their breeding colony, and the birds are living out their lives like there's no tomorrow. They squawked and screeched day and night, and while I'm sure it was no picnic for them, they seemed to tolerate sharing their nurseries with us humans. There were noddys everywhere there was a horizontal space for them. Tree branches, railings, roofs, chairbacks, airplane runways, etc. This chick looks a little grumpy waiting for his breakfast, but they are actually quite striking birds.




Common Noddys hung out at the end of the runway near the ocean. They were en masse, but not as common as the Black-capped Noddys. The planes must have creamed some of the many birds on the island, but hopefully there have not been any crashes due to the birds.




These beautiful birds are Pied Oystercatchers. They don't have those big beautiful orange schnozes for nothing! Their eyes and feet are the same day-glo orange. This couple were quite symmetrical in all their actions, making it seem as though we were seeing double!


The Pacific Golden Plovers were not in their breeding plumage. They are migrants from the Arctic, where they breed in the northern hemisphere summer. They deserve to have a little winter holiday on a tropical island, given all that distance that they fly to raise their families!


These elegant Buff-Banded Rails were quite inquisitive, perhaps because they were on the search for food for their downy little black chicks! We saw good moms feeding big bugs to their little youngsters.

































Does it get any better than this? A glass of wine and a stunning sunset lounging on the beach of a tropical cay in the Coral Sea?







There were the usual hardship stories of the stoic people who manned the lighthouses. This lighthouse also had an associated graveyard that spawned ghost stories of former inhabitants. One woman died of pneumonia, because she was could not access treatment. Another woman walked into the ocean in her best finery, because she could no longer handle the loneliness and depression. Or maybe her husband unceremoniously pushed her down the staircase? Regardless, her ghost walks the island in a flowing white dress, and the pool of blood at the bottom of the staircase mysteriously has been seen by those who believe in the supernatural...







These adorable birds are "affectionately" called Mutton birds (good eating), or more properly, wedge-tailed Shearwaters. By day they are powerful seabirds, soaring silently and gracefully over the ocean. By night, they are gentle helpless creatures, so tame you could simply reach down and pick them up. They also had the endearing quality of snoring quite loudly right next to our tent (audio, below). I say "snoring" because they're at sea all day before coming back to the island at night to roost with their chicks, which are in burrows. But how any self-respecting shearwater could sleep with the "wailing 'ka-wooo-ah', repeatedly becoming faster, louder, rising to an almost hysterical climax" (Morcombe) vocalization of their nest-mate, we don't know. We certainly found it quite difficult, but maybe you just get used to it if you're a shearwater in a colony of other shearwaters. I found it more amusing than Dirk did...

(Check out the audio recording below)


We searched for hatchling turtles after dark and before the sunrise. Although we didn't find any, It was impressive to see every branch of every tree laden down with Noddys. At sunrise they rose in swarms that darkened the sky (well, a little...)




When walking on the beach at night, we spotted this little crab, almost perfectly camoflauged in the sand. I read about something called a ghost crab, that feeds on the little nestling turtles as they make their dash to the sea, and wonder if this guy might be a ghost crab scuttling about looking for dinner.




Mrs. Crested Tern had a bad hair day! She's probably trying to protect her chick (lower right of photo) from the photog infringing on her comfort zone (hey! I was 30 feet away with a 400mm lens!)... But even under calmer circumstances, these birds still have a shaggy black mohawks for their breeding plumage...


Bridled Terns are a little more sophisticated with a groomed black cap and white eyebrow.


Another bird I never would have expected to see in my lifetime is the Frigatebird, but here they are! They hung out in this one tree, probably the tallest tree on the island, after spending most of the day fishing for their meals. They certainly have a hooked beak you would were dread seeing coming toward you if you were a fish in the sea! Our most striking memory of these birds was watching them soar and glide overhead at night under the full moon like great, silent bats.







You can tell that this is a Lesser Frigatebird (as opposed to a Greater Frigatebird) because he has white armpits. Wingspans of frigratebirds are about 2 m (6 feet)!










Now, no laughing, this bird didn't choose his common name of "Brown Booby." We found this guy quite striking with his creamy blue beak, eyes, and feet. He perched quite nicely in a dead tree, and let us get a good look.





With bird guide in hand and binoculars 'round neck, we're off in search of even more birds. The island was small enough that we circumnavigated it and walked across it numerous times. Unfortunately Nancy made the mistake of wearing new sandles and wore a hole in her big toe. But it was all worth it, given the fabulous time that we had.




Yes indeed - we were warned to stay off the beach for two hours due to the possibility of a tsunami from the Chile earthquake.

We were glad nothing serious happened, as the high point of the entire island is about 2 m above sea level!








Videos of our landing, Noddys at dusk and, the sound (no image - its 3 am, its dark!) of the dreaded "muttonbird" (Shearwater). Dirk would have sworn the next Tent over had small, and crying, infants. But NOOoooo.... its was muttonbirds - all--night--long. Nancy thought it was funny... (click the 'play' button - I am not sure why the images aren't showing up.)




So this is a blatant tease - wait for the next blog post!