top of page
Search

First godwits 2017, and $2.20 in change

  • Jewels
  • Sep 15, 2017
  • 2 min read

Despite the wind, counted nineteen curlews and managed to see we now have 2 bar-tailed godwits that have arrived. This time last year, we were seeing forty, so hoping these 2 are just the early arrivals.

The masked lapwings unfortunately lost their eggs last night. Fox. For some reason it is day fourteen or fifteen when the fox finds our beach nesting bird eggs. No-one is able to answer why day fourteen or fifteen makes eggs more attractive to the fox.

Council is looking at new ways for fox control working with local residents willing to have traps in their backyards and also seeing if we can get some help from Parks having traps out in the mangroves, if Parks will approve and Council pays through the pest species grants program. We know the traps in backyards works as one of our volunteers at Bundeena managed to catch two foxes in one night with a cage trap recently.

The wing I found on the beach did not belong to our resident pair of oystercatchers. It could be one of the pair that were visiting or another bird that is also pied in colouring.

With the recent wash overs on the beach, and a subsequent few days of wind, was the ideal day to be watching where you walk along the sand grit. Found 5 coins totalling $2.20; 2 $1 coins, 2 five cent coins, and 1 ten cent coin. It's sort of like nature doing the work a gold prospector normally does revealing buried treasure.

Lapwings are not wasting any time in nesting again. They are back to where they started, looking for new nesting opportunities. Oystercatchers not that far away from that spot. With school holidays starting next weekend the placement of eggs will be more interesting than usual.


 
 
 

Comments


Our journey of discovery managing a beach nesters breeding site.

21 September 2015 we found a pair of eggs sitting on the Deeban Spit beach. Thus our crazy journey began. So much to learn.

The opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

So much thanks goes to Sutherland Shire Council, Birdlife Australia and  NSW Office of Environment and Heritage as they have supplied equipment and research required to help ensure our shorebirds, resident or migratory, can survive into the future.
 

© 2016 by Shire Shorebirds Diary. Proudly Created with Wix.com

bottom of page