ecember was going to be a month of two halves.
Up to and including Friday 13th birding was to be decidedly patchy in birding terms; final report cards to compose – how do you tell a doting mother that her beloved daughter is decidedly a sandwich short of a full picnic, or, how do you find a way of pointing out to the obviously unwashed father whose every other utterance is a four-lettered expletive that he can’t really hold the school responsible for the decidedly foul language used by his macho 9-year old son? Not that it’s all that way inclined; for the vast majority it’s just finding another way of repeating more or less what you maintained at the end of the first semester. Leopards and spots?
From Saturday 14
December it was to be a decidedly more birdy period. I was effectively retired after 43 years in
teaching. Summer vacation and
long-service leave would keep me out of the classroom until my actual
retirement on 25 April 2014. My time was
my own and birding was decidedly on the horizon.
While Allen Road failed to adhere
to the script, the South Burnett in general came very close to performing its
part word perfect. Our computer records
clearly indicate that during the first working week of month [1st –
6th December], apart from the trip to Dusty Hills Winery for my
official retirement lunch, all other Bird
Journal entries revolved around Allen Road and birds noted at Blackbutt
State School; the latter very casual observations either first thing in the
morning on arriving [between 0600 and 0630 hours as a rule], heard from the
classroom or while out on playground duties.
The first real foray into birding
the South Burnett came on Saturday 7 December; by then the bulk of report cards
had been finalized, merely waiting to be edited by the Principal. It came as a welcome break from the graft
although our initial sortie involved only the local Sewage Treatment Plant in
Grey Street and the Nanango Fauna Sanctuary.
The latter was again disappointing, as it had been on previous visits in
September and November. The Sewage
Treatment Plant [23 species] was more promising, with the solitary Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus a
gem.
On Sunday 8th we
ventured forth to investigate the Darley Crossing Circuit followed by a quick
visit to the L-shaped track [bordered by open woodland] running between the
Nanango-Tarong Road and Nobby Smith Drive.
The pick of the 35 recorded species along the Circuit had to be the two
Fairy Martins Petrochelidon
ariel while the woodland offered fabulous views of a male Satin
Flycatcher Myiagra
cyanoleuca.
Thereafter, as predicted, the
second week of the month [8 – 13th December] fell away into a
humdrum routine of clearing years of accumulated “junk” [and I’m an old hoarder
from way back; a relative [Western] Jackdaw Corvus monedula or, in Australian terms,
perhaps a male Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus]. There were class parties to organize,
end-of-year concert items to perfect and various goodbyes to make.
Again, as I penned in that other
place:
On the other hand - and
no doubt Papa Hemmingway would have penned it in a far more appropriate style,
something about the best laid plans of mice and men- there was always the
unexpected; the long list of chores that had somehow slipped below my radar
while my head was buried in schoolbooks and report cards: the verandahs needed
ceilings; the bannister rails needed repairing and painting; the henhouse
leaked; there was a carpet snake housed under the pigeon loft; there was
weeding to be done and holes to be dug for new plants and of course the house
needed cleaning up in preparation for Christmas. Did I mention Christmas cards to write and
post and presents to be wrapped?
However, unlike Allen Road, the
birding did not completely evaporate under the pressure of mundane household
chores. It wasn’t quite as prolific as I
had perhaps expected when first contemplating my post-teaching life but birding
in the third week of the month [14th – 21st December]
showed promising signs of a brighter birding future just over the horizon. Actually the glory of the entire week rested
on the shoulders of our excursions on 17 December. Fay gleaned a trip to the Bunya Mountains
with the Nanango Information Centre volunteers; one of the staff, a former
working colleague, was unable to convince her spouse of the potential pleasures
of being aboard with a busload of nattering old women so offered his place to
Fay. She could see the potential of
birding the Bunyas and that brought her the Crimson Rosella Platycercus elegans,
Satin Bowerbird, Eastern Spinebill Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris and
Nankeen Kestrel Falco
cenchroides.
The real promise lay in the fact
that shortly after Fay’s return from the Bunyas we agreed to call in at the
Nanango Fauna Sanctuary and Grey Street Sewage Treatment Plant – our second
visit to both locations that month. As
before, the Sanctuary [five species] rather disappointed while the Sewage
Works, with 28 species, was far more gratifying.
From thereon in birding in the
South Burnett hummed, or at least it clamoured with excitement on both 22nd
and 31st of the month. In an
attempt to locate a packet of mace [a traditional spice used in the making of
Cumberland sausage] we travelled into Kilcoy, which, strictly speaking, lies
well beyond the South Burnett and should be featured in Birding Beyond the Pale.
Suffice to say that we hit both Yowie Park [good coffee and fine
birding] and the newly-discovered Winya Road dams.
On our return, with mace secured,
we called in on the Tarong Power Station, via Berlin Road. The Cooling Water Dam brought us good views
of three Musk Duck Biziura lobata – one bird behind the four
recorded during 2010 but entirely surpassed by the 20 seen in 2009. Yet these were completely eclipsed by the
fourteen [14] Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus on
the dam.
Berlin Road had one of its
quieter days.
By the end of the year, the
December tally stood at 110 species, one behind the December 2012 all-time
record and only one ahead of the December 2009 score.
We made a last attempt to improve
the numbers by visiting Tarong National Park on 31 December. Our tally included: Australian Brush-turkey Alectura lathami,
Brown Quail Coturnix
ypsilophora, Brown Cuckoo-Dove Macropygia phasianella, Rainbow
Bee-eater Merops
ornatus, Noisy Pitta Pitta versicolor, Green Catbird Ailuroedus crassirostris, Regent
Bowerbird Sericulus
chrysocephalus, Yellow-throated Scrubwren Sericornis citreogularis, Brown
Gerygone Gerygone
mouki, Yellow Thornbill Acanthiza nana, Brown Thornbill Acanthiza pusilla,
Black-faced Monarch Monarcha melanopsis and
Red-browed Finch Neochmia
temporalis.
And that, for the more
mathematically minded amongst you, came to a total of 13 species, thrusting the
final December 2013 tally to 123 birds.
From possible obscurity the month
capped all previous December tallies [since 2001] to establish a new record for
that month.
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