Sooty Oystercatchers, Victor Harbor
Sooty Oystercatchers, Victor Harbor, South Australia
Seeing oystercatchers always delights me. In Australia we have two main species of this family of birds: the Sooty Oystercatcher shown here and the Pied Oystercatcher. There is a third much rarer species, the South Island Pied Oystercatcher, an occasional vagrant from New Zealand. This is one for the experts; I don’t have the skills to pick the difference.
Both species of oystercatchers are found around the entire coast line of Australia where there is suitable habitat. They prefer undisturbed sandy or pebble beaches, estuaries, mudflats and the like. They tend to be found only in small numbers; single birds, pairs or small loose flocks up to about 20 birds. They tend to be wary and not easily approached.
They make a nest on the ground, a shallow hollow in the sand or in in seaweed. I am not sure whether the bird shown below was nesting or just resting and sheltering from the cold wind. Like many oystercatchers they probably nest on the islands a short distance from this point on Encounter Bay, Victor Harbor.
Pied Oystercatchers are more common than their Sooty cousins in Australia.
Sooty Oystercatchers, Victor Harbor, South Australia
Sooty Oystercatchers, Victor Harbor, South Australia
Hooded Plovers
Hooded Plover warning sign on beach at Victor Harbor, South Australia
Early last year I took this photo of a sign on the beach front at Victor Harbor, about an hour’s drive south of Adelaide in South Australia. The message of the sign is quite clear. This beach is one of the nesting places of the rare and endangered Hooded Plover. The beach also happens to be one of the busiest in the state during the summer holidays and is even popular at most other times of the year.
Hooded Plovers are confined to coastal areas of southern NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and parts of Western Australia. Nowhere is it common and, as the sign says, very few are left in places like the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide. The birds are small (about 19-23cm) and tubby, and their favoured habitat is broad sandy ocean beaches. The nest is a small shallow scrape in the sand where they lay 2-3 eggs.
If my memory is correct, this beach at Victor Harbor is the only place I’ve ever seen this species nesting. I was leading a large group of young children on camp when we came across a nest. Keeping 60 eager children away from the nest was a logistical nightmare. I’ve only ever seen this species on a handful of occasions, mainly on the Yorke Peninsula further west in South Australia. I have no photos of the Hooded Plover. I must try to get one when I visit the town again in about a week’s time.
Further reading:
Malleefowl mound at Tintinara
Simulated Malleefowl nest in main street of Tintinara, Sth Aust
Yesterday I wrote about the mural painted on the side of a classroom at Pinnaroo Primary School showing a Malleefowl and its nest. A few days later I visited Tintinara in the south east of South Australia. Right in the main street of the town there is a Malleefowl’s nest with two birds tending the nest.
Before local birders race off to visit this “nest”, let me assure you that it isn’t a real nest; it’s been put there to simulate a real nest. And the two birds are metal cut outs in the shape of the birds. It’s located on the lawn in front of the Art Gallery and Information Centre which happens to be the old railway station building.
The nest looks realistic and so do the birds – if you just look at the outline shape. I think it would have been improved if an artist had painted the birds in their correct colours. I guess for consistency they’ve left them just as a shape, in keeping with the metal cutouts of a shepherd, a sheepdog and some sheep across the lawn and little.
It was only a short distance to the west of here that I once saw 6 Malleefowl in ten minutes, doubling my lifetime count of this species. You can read about that incident by clicking here.
Below I’ve posted some photos of the shepherd and his sheep.
A shepherd and his sheep, Tintinara, Sth Australia
A shepherd and his sheep, Tintinara, Sth Australia
Malleefowl painting, Pinnaroo Primary School
Mural on classroom, Pinnaroo Primary School
As I was driving past the Pinnaroo Primary School recently I spotted a lovely mural painted on the wall of a classroom. The mural illustrates various aspects of the local farming activities and the environment. I’ve shown it in the photo above – click on it to enlarge.
From a birding viewpoint I was pleased to see the Malleefowl shown prominently as a part of the painting. Pinnaroo is in the heart of mallee country in South Australia.
The Malleefowl is an amazing bird unique to this part of the world and is classified as a vulnerable species in Australia. It is about 55-61cm in size (like a smallish turkey) and quietly feeds on seeds and berries in the mallee scrub, or on wheat seeds in farming areas.
The male Malleefowl builds a rather odd nest. It is a mound of dirt, leaves, sticks and bark and can be from 2 to 5 metres in diameter and up to 1.5 metres high. He will work this mound like a compost heap over the summer months, the rotting vegetation and sunlight heating up the mound. Over many months the female lays about 5 to 30 eggs in tunnels in the mound which are then covered over. The heat inside the mound is kept at almost exactly 33C throughout the incubation period which can last many months. On hatching, the young struggle through the dirt of the mound before running off through the scrub, independent from the beginning.
This species can be found nesting within 20km of my home, yet I’ve only ever seen one in the wild on a handful of occasions. One memorable occasion occurred a few years ago when I saw 6 birds in a period of 10 minutes. You can read about that encounter in an article called What kind of a duck was that? (Click here)
Below I have also included photos of two Malleefowl nests I have found in different parts of South Australia.
Malleefowl featured on a mural on classroom, Pinnaroo Primary School
Malleefowl nest, Gluepot Reserve near Waikerie, South Australia
Malleefowl nest, Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, South Australia
Choughs everywhere
White-winged Choughs, Geranium, South Australia
Yesterday I was asked to drive from Murray Bridge to Pinnaroo via Karoonda in the Murray mallee region of South Australia. A local courier company needed some parcels urgently delivered in the morning and I was available. I used to do relief driving for this company.
I enjoy doing driving jobs like this because it gets me out of my office and away from my computer for some fresh air. It also enables me to look at the birds along the way. After I’d delivered all the parcels I took a leisurely pace on the way home, stopping a number of times to actually get out and stretch my legs and do some birding.
One of the things that impressed me on the outward journey was the number of White-winged Choughs in the region. It seemed that I was seeing a flock every kilometre or so along the way. It is my guess that this species tends to be found along the country roads in this region for several reasons.
- The roadside vegetation allows foraging opportunities for the birds, more so than many of the open farm paddocks nearby.
- The roadside vegetation provides excellent nesting sites in the many trees lining the route.
- The rain run-off from the roads gathers in puddles and gutters long enough for the birds to build their mud nests.
At the point where I stopped for lunch on a dirt side road I found a family of choughs, some of them posing for my camera nicely (see photo above).