The great perth twitch - part 1
November 2018
It’s 10.13pm in Melbourne on Sunday the 25th of November. I’m currently sitting in Terminal 4 waiting for my 11.00pm Jetstar redeye flight to Perth. Finally, I am off on a big three week birding adventure which will take me to Perth, Carnarvon, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and finally, Christmas Island. Though it’s only the first night on my 21 day round trip, I am already feeling pretty exhausted. This week I have had my biggest music arranging job of the year, completing 18 charts for a Bruce Springsteen big band tribute show for a band in Norway. As of this morning, I still had three charts to go and the clock was ticking. Thankfully I completed the scores and even managed to take a quick last minute gig playing trombone at a Brazilian music festival before hoping to my flight to Perth. Suffice to say, I’m tired, though so excited to finally be off!
Before I get into the vagrant goodies of Cocos Keeling and Christmas Island (Australia’s equivalent to Attu or the Isles of Scilly), I’ll be spending a week running around Western Australia attempting to track down a few new species for my list. The plan, as it thusly stands, is to meet up with my twitching partner in crime Sue Taylor (she arrived in Perth during normal human travelling hours) at 6.00am and then head out to Lake Joondalup, where we will attempt to locate the vagrant Oriental Honey Buzzard. I have twitched this species before, but it will be a new one for Sue’s list. Following this, we will jump across to Rottnest Island to see if we can track down a Roseate Tern for my own list. Naturally I am hopeful, but Roseate Tern seems to be an irregular visitor to the island, so a bit of luck will be involved. Whilst on Rottnest Island, we’ll attempt to find the introduced Common Pheasant, as it is a species I still require a good photography of for my Australian list (have only photographed in North America).
Before I get into the vagrant goodies of Cocos Keeling and Christmas Island (Australia’s equivalent to Attu or the Isles of Scilly), I’ll be spending a week running around Western Australia attempting to track down a few new species for my list. The plan, as it thusly stands, is to meet up with my twitching partner in crime Sue Taylor (she arrived in Perth during normal human travelling hours) at 6.00am and then head out to Lake Joondalup, where we will attempt to locate the vagrant Oriental Honey Buzzard. I have twitched this species before, but it will be a new one for Sue’s list. Following this, we will jump across to Rottnest Island to see if we can track down a Roseate Tern for my own list. Naturally I am hopeful, but Roseate Tern seems to be an irregular visitor to the island, so a bit of luck will be involved. Whilst on Rottnest Island, we’ll attempt to find the introduced Common Pheasant, as it is a species I still require a good photography of for my Australian list (have only photographed in North America).
A rather quiet terminal 4 in Melbourne
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Will I finally see a Roseate Tern?
Photo by Les George
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With the ‘local’ things out of the way, Sue and I will join forces with WA twitching legend Steve Reynolds and head north on the Tuesday to Carnarvon (a casual 900km north of Perth, roughly the same distance as driving from Berlin to Slovenia), where we will hope that the vagrant Purple Heron is still present. This is a true mega. A superb rarity with only one accepted report in Australia from Perth, and a additional unconfirmed report from Christmas Island.
Hopefully, following some success, we will then begin our trek back to Perth via Kirkalocka Station for Western Quailthrush (for both Sue and myself) and a few other sites for the outside chance of a Crimson Chat (my rather embarrassing bogey bird).
All in all, we will get back to Perth late afternoon/early evening on Thursday 29th of November and be ready to fly to Cocos Keeling the following morning at 4.30am to begin our two weeks of intense vagrant hunting!
It’s now 12.53am (or 3.54am in Melbourne) on Monday the 26th of November and I have landed Perth and ready to go! Wish us all good luck! I’ll be keeping the updates coming through the Big Dip Birding instagram and Facebook pages!
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James Mustafa is a birder, wildlife enthusiast and self-confessed twitcher from Melbourne, Australia. A musician and composer by trade, he has been birding, exploring nature and appreciate wildlife for all his life. Since taking up a real fascination with birds, he has soared with tropicbirds in the Indian Ocean, played with hummingbirds in North America, chased owls in Asia, and twitched everything from gulls to leaf warblers across Australia.
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