Yoshistar’s Wildlife Watching

Yoshistar888

Yoshistar888

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
In this thread I’ll be outlining my trips to various Wildife watching locations as well as my own backyard.

I won’t detail some of my trips from earlier in the year. Only a few days ago.

Edwardes Lake 19/9/20

A one hour trip to the lake in hope of seeing inverts, frogs and birds. Focused on a marshy area littered with the sounds of Banjo Frogs with their iconic (Pobble-bonk) call.

Immediately common park birds started to appear, first was a lone Silver gull, then as we headed toward the bank Domestic ducks, Pacific Black Ducks, Australian Wood Ducks and Grey Teals along with Eurasian Coots and Dusky Moorhens frequented the water and bank.

As we headed across the bridge to the marsh, the only identifiable invert of the day showed up, a Common Flatwing.

A lone Kelp Gull was preening itself along the bank and flew across the creek making sure to alert us of its presence, a strange find this far inland.

As we kept our descent into the marsh, the calls of frogs got much louder, although no frogs were seen, while searching I did accidentally flush a White Browed Scrubwren and a Superb Fairy Wren (Female).

Other than that the jaunt was quite slow, with the occasional unidentifiable insect.

Local Park 20/9/20

I won’t reveal the location of my local park (mainly just an oval with a few trees) due to its proximity to my house but it’s nothing special. The first butterfly of the year an Australian Painted Lady, gracefully appeared. Back at home a Light Brown Apple Moth and a Slender Ringtail and Cabbage White were sighted.


Home 21/9/20

Not much was seen during the daytime here although a Victorian Funnelweb Spider seen in a peculiar place above me (normally they prefer lower places) scared me a little bit. Chestnut Slugs and Milky Slugs were also sighted.

Home 22/9/20

During the daytime only a Common Bird Dropping Spider, European Honeybee and Chestnut Slug were seen as well as a moths name that I can’t pronounce.

I attempted to create a weird, homemade mothing device which would allow me to moth without having excess amounts of lights and attracting bogong moths which although admittedly would be cool, is not very good for the conservation of the Mountain Pygmy Possum.

So my ‘ecologically un-impactful mothing device’ was a failure, I thought maybe a small torch could be wrapped under a white plastic bag and that would do the trick but after half an hour of no sightings I gave up.

Although with torch in hand I did decide to do my second ever jaunt of spotlighting!, which worked out fantastically, a small German Cockroach was seen as well as an unusually active Black House Spider, there are hundreds of Black house spiders on the property I live in although they are seldom sighted due to their reclusive habits. To finish off the night a Diamond Comb Footed Spider greeted me.


I did go to Edwardes Lake today again (no new animals) which I will detail in another post.
 
At least you will have more time from next week!
 
Yoshistar888 said:
In this thread I’ll be outlining my trips to various Wildife watching locations as well as my own backyard.

I won’t detail some of my trips from earlier in the year. Only a few days ago.

Edwardes Lake 19/9/20

A one hour trip to the lake in hope of seeing inverts, frogs and birds. Focused on a marshy area littered with the sounds of Banjo Frogs with their iconic (Pobble-bonk) call.

Immediately common park birds started to appear, first was a lone Silver gull, then as we headed toward the bank Domestic ducks, Pacific Black Ducks, Australian Wood Ducks and Grey Teals along with Eurasian Coots and Dusky Moorhens frequented the water and bank.

As we headed across the bridge to the marsh, the only identifiable invert of the day showed up, a Common Flatwing.

A lone Kelp Gull was preening itself along the bank and flew across the creek making sure to alert us of its presence, a strange find this far inland.

As we kept our descent into the marsh, the calls of frogs got much louder, although no frogs were seen, while searching I did accidentally flush a White Browed Scrubwren and a Superb Fairy Wren (Female).

Other than that the jaunt was quite slow, with the occasional unidentifiable insect.

Local Park 20/9/20

I won’t reveal the location of my local park (mainly just an oval with a few trees) due to its proximity to my house but it’s nothing special. The first butterfly of the year an Australian Painted Lady, gracefully appeared. Back at home a Light Brown Apple Moth and a Slender Ringtail and Cabbage White were sighted.


Home 21/9/20

Not much was seen during the daytime here although a Victorian Funnelweb Spider seen in a peculiar place above me (normally they prefer lower places) scared me a little bit. Chestnut Slugs and Milky Slugs were also sighted.

Home 22/9/20

During the daytime only a Common Bird Dropping Spider, European Honeybee and Chestnut Slug were seen as well as a moths name that I can’t pronounce.

I attempted to create a weird, homemade mothing device which would allow me to moth without having excess amounts of lights and attracting bogong moths which although admittedly would be cool, is not very good for the conservation of the Mountain Pygmy Possum.

So my ‘ecologically un-impactful mothing device’ was a failure, I thought maybe a small torch could be wrapped under a white plastic bag and that would do the trick but after half an hour of no sightings I gave up.

Although with torch in hand I did decide to do my second ever jaunt of spotlighting!, which worked out fantastically, a small German Cockroach was seen as well as an unusually active Black House Spider, there are hundreds of Black house spiders on the property I live in although they are seldom sighted due to their reclusive habits. To finish off the night a Diamond Comb Footed Spider greeted me.


I did go to Edwardes Lake today again (no new animals) which I will detail in another post.
Click to expand...

Guide

Bold: Seen
Italics: Heard
Underline: Lifer (seen)

Edwardes Lake 23/9/20

A mildly successful session although it did not compare to the initial jaunt of Edwardes Lake.

Most of the same water birds were seen across the same trail, Dusky Moorhens, Domestic Muscovy Ducks, Australian Wood Ducks and Eurasian Coots were the most numerous although at the end a lone Australian Reed Warbler decided to show, this is by far the best sighting I’ve ever had of this usually elusive species, a Purple Swamphen also decided to creep along the bank. Other birds that were numerous included Noisy Miner, Indian Myna, Spotted Turtle Dove, Australian Magpie, Silver Gull and Magpie-Lark

On the pathway back a Grey Butcherbird was seen sitting peacefully on a branch.

Merri Creek 28/9/20

One of the most successful sessions of the year, although Organ pipes earlier in the year was great, most birds there that captured my attention were all lifers, however here at Merri Creek I saw quite a few lifers as well as a high portion of the common and uncommon Bush birds seen plus a couple nice invertebrates.

I won’t reveal the exact location of the stretch of creek that I walked on once again due to parts of it due to it being close to my house.

The walk down to the creek was what you’d expect, the common suburban birds of Melbourne along with invertebrates such as Cabbage Whites, European Honeybees and best of all a Small Grass Yellow.
Birds were the usual suspects, European Blackbird, Little Wattlebird, Australian Magpie, Rainbow Lorikeet, Indian Myna, Noisy Miner, European Starling, Little Raven, Magpie-Lark, and Silver Gull.

Down at the creek, the results were initially standard with the only new species for the day being seen, a pair of Australian Wood Ducks and a Common Grass Blue. I have been to Merri Creek many times to bird and herp but today I realised that all this time I had been hitting the wrong spots, the two main entrances to the creek on these two main roads are where I normally start from and I normally head outward because supposedly ‘away’ from the roads however, I found out that heading inward going from one major road to the other was much better. Previously the only bird I’d seen here that I hold in high regard is the Grey Fantail, a fairly rare species only seen once on the many visits I had made.


Today there were no Grey Fantails, but there were some of the best sightings of bush birds I’d seen, firstly a Grey Butcherbird, White Plumed Honeyeater and Red Wattlebird, while neither of these birds are rare it was a promising sign of what was to come, then two Chestnut Teals, one of which in full plumage was a stunning sight. After walking a decent distance I found a small lake with reeds, trees and perfect habitat for wildlife. Immediately I heard an Eastern Rosella although unfortunately they refused to show despite their calls supporting the symphony of bush birds calling. Immediately a Dusky Moorhen was seen not particularly exciting but right behind me my first ever Weebill decided to show right behind me, such beautiful birds, extremely tiny as well. If the day couldn’t get any better, my second ever robin (and second species of robin) (Australasian robins), showed a Jacky Winter presented itself on a bush. A pair of Willie Wagtails showed off their brilliant pied colouration and erratic behaviour by darting in and out of the reeds and bushes. The best bird of the day was next, I was about to leave the little lake area with one last scan, I saw a small shape and immediately thought “It’s probably just a Thornbill or Fairy Wren” until I saw it’s olive coloured body and fiery red eyebrows and tail, that’s right my first ever wild Estrildidae, the amazing Red Browed Finch, finally a Spotted Paradalote was seen rounding out an amazing ten or fifteen minutes at this tiny little lake.


After leaving the tiny lake, the bird activity was not as lively although there were a great amounts of birds calling and flying, particularly Pied Currawongs beautiful birds with an even more fantastic call, I highly recommended you listen to the doing-doing-doingadoong it makes. Yet another beautiful bush bird was enjoying the weather, a New Holland Honeyeater, minding its own business until a very pissed off Pied Currawong decided to disturb it, turning into an all out free for all with the local family of Australian Magpies enraged at the Currawong, so too were the local Red Wattlebirds, highly territorial, although New Holland Honeyeaters are aggressive and territorial even they know to back down from a fight against the bushes most fierce and relentless competitors.

Continuing on the track, the atmosphere was slowly changing, the water was a little more polluted, Spotted Doves, European Starlings and Indian Mynas, started to become much more common, I could tell I was close to the other main road. Although theee new birds of the day two above average and another fantastic find, the first being a lone male Superb Fairy Wren despite its lack of breeding plumage, still had the quirky character and characteristic blue tail, nearby a Brown Thornbill was seen, I tracked it down although it was a difficult as it tried to imitate a Currawong. The third however was much better my second ever sighting of Buff Rumped Thornbills, I could not identify these on the field as I was quite dehydrated and sore, but I saw enough characteristics including their size and yellow colouration near their rump, they didn’t have yellow on the rump and were too small to be Yellow Rumped Thornbills, lacked the facial features, was in the wrong habitat and was too large to be a Striated Thornbill or Yellow Thornbill, was too large to be a Weebill or Brown Thornbill either. These Buff Rumped Thornbills are really cool birds, they were on the forest floor which is surprising as most Thornbills are sighted in trees or bushes.

Today was an amazing day for birding with a couple inverts thrown in!


General Observations

The local European Starlings, have been imitating other birds in their calls, is this normal? I’ve heard them squawk like their close relatives the Common Myna, Coo like a Spotted Dove, Bark like a wattlebird and most surprising even attempt to Caroll like a magpie!




 
I have gone out a lot in the last month I just haven’t been bothered reporting on it although I’ll start catching up to date though.

Look forward to the next few reports..

Im heading up to Organ Pipes National Park today! (The only National Park in a 25km radius of me), which will be exciting, the last time I went there was more of a scouting trip but brought many lifers anyway, hopefully this time I might be able to track down those elusive mammals and herps since it’s warmer.

Targets:

See one year list mammal: (Swamp Wallaby, Platypus or Echidna)

See at least one year list herp (any snake or frog species as well as the following lizards: Striped Skink (C. Robustus), Bouganvilles Skink, Shingleback, Eastern Bearded Dragon, Jacky Dragon).

See at least one year list bird of prey.

See at least one bird lifer (Common species I haven’t seen include, Royal Spoonbill, Grey Shrike Thrush, Tawny Frogmouth, Brown Goshawk, Collared Sparrowhawk etc)


Unrealistic Targets

Echidna
Royal Spoonbill
Any Snake
Striped Legless Lizard
Growling Grass Frog
Tawny Frogmouth
Platypus
Sugar Glider
 
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