ZooChat Big Year 2020

Yoshistar888 said:
Forgot an obscure one from very early in the year, a parasite which is found on Yellow Tail Scads, we didn’t notice it until we were about to fillet the fish (the fish were caught about 3:00 AM dec 31, weren’t about to be filleted until the morning of Jan 1), apparently the parasite is harmless to humans but i didn’t want to take any chances so I ended up giving the fish to my uncle to use for bait. I usually don’t like catching fish to use as bait, If it’s kept it should be eaten but I didn’t want to take a risk even though there has been extensive studies.

93. ceratothoa imbricata
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Today was a big failure, same place as Monday, except wildly different results. The best bird of today was maybe the twelfth best bird of Monday’s session at Merri Creek.
A common brown flying past near the end was a minor salvage.

94. Wattle Tick Scale (Cryptes baccatus)
95. Common Brown (Heteronympha merope)
 
Yoshistar888 said:
Today was a big failure, same place as Monday, except wildly different results. The best bird of today was maybe the twelfth best bird of Monday’s session at Merri Creek.
A common brown flying past near the end was a minor salvage.

94. Wattle Tick Scale (Cryptes baccatus)
95. Common Brown (Heteronympha merope)
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Never mind what I said about this trip being a faliure, I saw an unidentified bird above behaving like a bird of prey, at first I thought it was just a Honeyeater but I saw a shade of black on its shoulder! I overlooked it until now, which means.

114. Black Shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris)
 
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Yoshistar888 said:
Never mind what I said about this trip being a faliure, I saw an unidentified bird above behaving like a bird of prey, at first I thought it was just a Honeyeater but I saw a shade of black on its shoulder! I overlooked it until now, which means.

114. Black Shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris)
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Another invertebrate ID, this time back all the way at Kinglake NP.

96. Australian Inchmen (Myrmecia pyriformis)

Finally got an ID on the small flies around my house.

97. Sylvicola dubius
 
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Yoshistar888 said:
Another invertebrate ID, this time back all the way at Kinglake NP.

96. Australian Inchmen (Myrmecia pyriformis)

Finally got an ID on the small flies around my house.

97. Sylvicola dubius
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Looking for inverts in the backyard until I see this massive stinger a few centimetres away from my face, I did what every person should not do in this situation, run away to the door and retreat in the house.

98. Asian Paper Wasp (Polistes chinensis)*
 
Weather forecast for today looked like a washout but in the end the rain held off just enough to allow a brief excursion to pick up a handy lifer from a largely deserted and rather damp Idle Valley NR at Lound.

Birds:
197. Pectoral Sandpiper - Calidris melanotos

(UK: 195)

:)
 
Dannelboyz said:
So I finally got around to checking my list as there were some discrepancies with my eBird list... I thought this was to do with birds I had only heard this year, but it turns out I've now seen every bird I've identified by call this year. I had completely forgotten to list #81 - Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis) and #220 - Scarlet Robin (Petroica boodang), which means Topknot Pigeon was actually bird #280 for the year :p

281 - Red Knot (Calidris canutus)
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It's been known for some time that Tasmanian boobooks occasionally show up in southern Victoria. These birds have yellow irises, higher pitched calls and darker, spottier plumage than mainland birds. Recently, it was even revealed that these Tasmanian birds are closer related to New Zealand moreporks than to Australian boobooks. As such, major taxonomies now treat Tasmanian boobooks as a subspecies of the Morepork, split from Australian Boobook.

Prior to 2015, it was assumed the morepork records in Victoria were of occasional vagrant birds rather than a large-scale migration. However, in mid-October 2015, a birder spotlighting at Cape Liptrap found large numbers of boobook-type birds feeding on the moths around the lighthouse. These all turned out to be Tasmanian birds. Since then, Tasmanian moreporks have been a regular sighting at Cape Liptrap in October, where they gather to feed before beginning their migration back to Tasmania. It is the only known location in mainland Australia to offer annual sightings of this species/subspecies and perhaps the only place where multiple individuals have ever been recorded.

I decided to try my luck visiting a little earlier than usual (they had previously been reported from about the second week in October) and was rewarded with eight excellent sightings of what I estimated to be about four different birds. Although not a species lifer (I have seen the species in Norfolk Island previously), it is a subspecies lifer and my 350th Victorian bird species!

BIRDS
282 - Morepork (Ninox novaeseelandiae)

MAMMALS
37 - European Fallow Deer (Dama dama)*

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@Yoshistar888 oops... I missed your post about the turtles... I don't have any particular tips for where to go around your area, but I recommend going in the middle of a warm, sunny day. That's when they're most likely to be basking on a log or sitting on the surface of the water.
 
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Yoshistar888 said:
Looking for inverts in the backyard until I see this massive stinger a few centimetres away from my face, I did what every person should not do in this situation, run away to the door and retreat in the house.

98. Asian Paper Wasp (Polistes chinensis)*
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A bogong moth hit by a lawnmower, it was still alive although it had its wings teared off :(.

99. Bogong Moth
 
Moonlit Sanctuary

Reptiles

18. Lowland copperhead Austrelaps superbus
 
Mehdi said:
Got to identify a beautiful moth I saw that day as well as notice I had totally forgotten to check a few pictures which turned out to be a new species for the year:

26/09/2020 (Ifentar, Morocco)
BIRDS:
152 - Common redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus

INVERTS:
15 - Crimson-speckled flunkey, Utetheisa pulchella

This puts me at 156 species of birds for the year and adds one species to my "record" day, thus putting it at 72 species of birds seen that day.
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Fall birding once again doesn't disappoint! A quick, 2 hours excursion to the Tamri river mouth estuary some 70km shy north of my hometown wasn't as productive in terms of additions to the year list as my last two birding trips but it was still definitely lovely!

03/10/2020 (Tamri, Morocco)
BIRDS:
157 - Ferruginous duck, Aythya nyroca

52 species of birds seen in total (which I think is my second most at a spot) including species I don't see often like Garganey, Eurasian teal (seeing both species at the same time is unusual!) and other species I see more but in particular contexts: for ex. about 20 Western yellow wagtails seen of three different subspecies as well as 14 Ruddy shelducks (never seen that many before).

The nicest sighting though was obviously the three Ferruginous ducks, a species that isn't particularly hard to find in Morocco but is harder to get this south (even if they're found in reasonable numbers here) than up north. Certainly a gorgeous species too, that charismatic white belly is quite visible in flight!
 
Wow, this bird is worth every bit of the praise they get! An absolutely legendary species of which I got excellent (albeit very short) views. An absolute mega in all senses of the word, and one of the most exciting twitches I've had over the past 4 years!

BIRDS:
271) White's thrush, Zoothera aurea

INVERTS:
153) Pea blue, Lampides boeticus
154) Lesser treble-bar, Aplocera efformata
 
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One more gap plugged at RSPB Old Moor this morning!

Birds:

198. Bearded Reedling - Panurus biarmicus

(UK: 196)

:)
 
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