Oystercatcher Diary Day 2015 2.5

Yesterday saw 15 yabby pumpers, 24 kayakers, 86 walkers and 1 off leash dog. Included was the two groups I talked about that jumped fence. Realised today I missed a valuable opportunity to ask the two girls that decided to go through the fence what we could have done differently to stop them walking through the fence lines. Next time.

Today we had only 8 yabby pumpers, 7 kayakers and 44 walkers. But we did have 2 off leash dogs that had come through the camping area.

We also had a big group of 14 people turn up with fishing rods and yabby pumps. The girl in the group noticed the fence and saw our off nest parent at the far end of the fence line. That prompted an extreme amount of excitement and pointing and then up came the rope line with her and four others racing through. I started shouting and waving arms and fortunately the two guys that were at the end of the group worked out what was going on and in Chinese stopped the 5 excited charging people. I don't think any of them were very good at fishing as it took them an hour and half to pump yabbies and just an hour of fishing.

Met a very keen UK birder today. He and his wife were accompanied by one of the Royal Bush Care Volunteers, whose name I remembered just long enough to pass on to Jo as requested, but not very good with names so once passed on, it was gone. He lives in North Sydney and is a keen birder himself.

The UK birder stood out by a mile. The car pulled up and he was out like a shot, leaving everyone else behind. He was wearing khaki clothes, had the tripod strapped on and the cameras and it was obvious he was making a beeline for me. That in itself was an achievement as the only thing that could have pinpointed me as a bird minder was that I was wearing the same hat as the Bush Care volunteer he arrived with.

He had tried when he first arrived here to see the Oystercatchers but had found out that a fox had taken the eggs so has been doing his travelling and stopped in here by chance hoping our guys had nested again. Because they are now so hard to see being endangered, these were the ones that finally made his list and had them checked off. He was well rewarded with parent on nest and the other close by doing protection duty. He was very interested to hear about the Oystercatchers plight.

Apart from the disturbances noted above, I am wondering why Birdlife Australia doesn't include a check box for another Oystercatcher visiting nest site. We are filling out daily forms to take note of everything happening around the nest. Apart from dogs off leash, the stray Oystercatcher that turns up causes the most nest disturbance. Our birds were both off at 5.30pm for 20 minutes chasing this extra Oystercatcher. It takes around a 750m beach chase before it finally flies off with them hot on its tail. Wondering if maybe this is site specific, that our birds find it a problem more than other sites do. Will ask.