Oystercatcher Diary 2016 Days 1 -3

Welcome everyone to another exciting season of Pied Oystercatcher nesting for Deeban Spit, Maianbar, Port Hacking!

Our Oystercatchers don't seem to want to make anything about nesting easy. Crazy birds lay their eggs in the middle of a beach, they leave when predators come too close and now they start laying their eggs on a Saturday when the weather is fine and the campground is half full.

The first big task for the birds has been successfully accomplished. An egg was produced on Saturday and I’m assuming they probably have their second in as well as it is really difficult to see under their bonnets today. When they only have one egg in they spend quite a bit of time off nest. They fluff around on changeovers and sometimes both are off chasing predators so it is easy to see if there are eggs in the nest. Best guess, from what I’ve been able to find, is they prefer both eggs to hatch around the same time so they don’t give the first egg too much of a head start by sitting on it all the time.

The first big task by our group has also been successfully accomplished. Sunday was spent building the protection fence lines. It looks really tidy this year as we had all the equipment ready to go, acquired after Council applied for, and was granted, funding. We also had the help of a great supervisor by way of Council Officer, Stewart Harris, keeping us all in line. It is a very professional looking job rather than our last minute, cobbled together, what have you got lying around in your backyard job of last year. It was the best Council, Parks and us could do with no budget at the time.

HUGE thanks to Sutherland Shire Council, in particular Stewart Harris, who came in really early on Sunday morning to get the job going. Also big thanks to Duncan and Sandy Chalmers, Tom Ledden and Anne Carrick, Manu Low, Barry Bradshaw, Mark Szulmayer and Jo Keohan, who all worked like demons in the hot sun for most of the day to get that all important fence up. Also big thanks to Cameron Douglas who took this lovely shot of the first egg experiencing its first dawn.

A really special treat for the campers coming out of the Bonnie Vale campgrounds around high tide was the bar-tailed godwits that arrived back from Alaska last Friday. People did notice them and were asking what they were. Biggest flock seen for many a long year, with around 40 in total, resting alongside the critically endangered far-eastern curlews. The campers I spoke with expressed surprised when I told them what they were actually seeing were the superheros of the bird world. Birds that are crazy enough to nest on a beach in Sydney plus the migratory birds that travel thousands of kilometres, there and back, for breeding. They thought they were just seeing "birds".