What a great week! Eleven COG members and friends stayed at the Green Cape Cottages and one happy camper stayed a Bittangabee and commuted by foot (and Mum’s taxi) each day. The weather was fine and largely benign – give or take a few bitterly cold southerlies (35 knots or so) and the occasional shower.
Birds had to compete with the whales for our attention. There were 10s of thousands of Short-tailed Shearwaters (up to 50,000 by Peter Fullagar’s estimates) moving around Green Cape, and rafts of 5,000 or so on the water. But there were often five or six pods of Humpbacked Whales in sight at the one time (I saw 4 simultaneous spouts from a single pod) with some just 20-30 metres off shore. Breaches, tail slaps and fin waving were common events. Occasionally the birds and whales would collide when whales would plough through a storm of feeding shearwaters and gannets. One whale even ploughed through the ‘boys’ – a group of about 15 young male fur seals which were almost permanently 30 - 50 metres off the Cape – simple joie de vivre on the whales part, I think. For me the highlight of the whale watching was on the Friday of our departure – two whales swimming 30-50 metres apart, each accompanied by a calf, and each calf taking it in turns to breach. In a space of about 15 minutes each calf probably breached 10 times – and all this within 100 metres of the Cape.
Much of the time was spent on the Cape (often on the verandas of the cottages) watching the sea birds and whales although we had one walk from Bittangabee in which almost everyone took part. There were many excursions by small groups into the heath lands – early morning, late afternoon, anytime. Because of the variety of birds seen by different groups, reporting back on these small groups trips was one of the (many) pleasures of the week (although some people refused to believe that there really was a Bassian Thrush almost permanently on duty at the gate to the cottages - until she saw it on the last day).
Now for the numbers. The total number of bird species seen by one or more birdos at Green Cape, Bittangabee or the heath lands between was 81 (I saw 54 – 9 for the first time). Short-tailed Shearwaters were there in mass every day, and Fluttering Shearwaters were seen on 10th and 11th (from 2 to about 100 on different days), while only two Hutton’s Shearwaters and a few Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were seen. Of the Albatross family, Shy Albatrosses were the most common (from only one on one day up to several hundred later in the week), a few Black-browed Albatrosses and one Yellow-nosed Albatross were seen.
Sightings were made of a few Giant and Cape Petrels and a few Artic Jaegers. One off sightings were made of a Brown Skua, Pomarine Jaeger and a Southern Fulmar. The sighting of the Southern Fulmar produced what Peter Fullagar described as the ‘most memorable incident’ of the week – ‘Tobias running back from the Cape to let the rest of us know that he also had identified the Southern Fulmar flying past him’ (See http://peter.fullagar.com/2007/10/greencape-nsw.html for more details on birds seen, photos etc – a beautiful website). I didn’t see this but was told by a couple of people that did see it, that as Tobias was getting close to the group which had also seen it, Peter, almost as excited, was calling out to Tobias ‘Yes Tobias, Yes it was a Southern Fulmar’. Clearly many others regarded this as a memorable incident also.
Australasian Gannets were present in large numbers, White-bellied Sea-Eagles were (almost) common. There were a few sightings of Cormorants (Little Pied, Black-faced and Great), Pied and Sooty Oystercatchers and a couple of Ruddy Turnstones. Caspian and Crested Terns and Pacific and Silver Gulls were also seen in varying numbers. Lots of sea birds - you get the picture.
The Cape also had a pleasing variety of resident birds: the Beautiful Firetails were probably the favourites; Australian Pipits were common and two nests were found; Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters were busy amongst the Westringia and occasionally engaged in combat with Yellow-faced Honeyeaters. Little Wattlebirds were their usual noisy selves but not in great numbers.
The heath started almost at the gate to the headlands and continued several kilometres towards Bittangabee Bay. Perhaps the most sought after heath bird was the Southern Emu-wren and several groups of people saw them, often accompanied by Striated Fieldwrens.
The walk from Bittangabee Bay to Green Cape passed through open forest, heath land and Melaleuca scrub. The different habitats provided a great variety of birds: the open forest provided Black-faced Monarchs, Olive-backed Orioles, White-bellied Cuckoo-shrikes, Created Shrike-Tits, Varied Sittellas, Brown-headed Honeyeaters etc; the heath and the Melaleuca scrub provided lots of calls and a few good looks at Eastern Whipbirds, Brush Bronzewings, Eastern Yellow Robins and Thornbills (Striated and Brown).
We shared the area with a variety of other wildlife: wombats, wallabies (Red-necked and Black), Lace Monitors, bush rats etc.
The Parks and Wildlife Ranger in charge of Green Cape gave us a conducted tour of the light house and told us of its construction, operation and history and went on to tell us of the Aboriginal peoples who lived and live along the coast from Eden to Mallacoota. He was also a great store of information about the wildlife and birds of the area.
For the first three nights each cottage prepared its own meals. But on the last evening we shared curries, crème caramels and quaffables and a large amount of hilarity.
Peter Fullagar shared his boundless store of knowledge of birds with us, Sue Lashko was ever patient in explaining to some of us novices (and to many groups of tourists) how to use the telescopes and how to tell a Shy from a Black-browed Albatross, while the boundless energy and enthusiasm of Tobias Hayaski was a never ending joy.
Although I enjoyed seeing 9 new species and endless breaching whales, for me one of the most enduring memory will be of a flight of 19 Black Swans, flying in line out to sea, with their primary feathers glowing pink in the early morning light.
Roy Harvey