The chick grows so fast

Here is a brief Youtube video to show how much the chick has grown in just two weeks.

Above is a "Where's Wally" photo to find all the threats in just one lucky snap.

This morning I headed out to the beach feeling incredibly nervous as the morning of day 15 was always when the eggs were gone, having been taken by a fox during the night or a raven in the early morning hours.

When I got up at 6am I saw one oystercatcher flying down towards Fishermans Bay and then when I was travelling across to the beach at 7am I saw two oystercatchers flying in from Fishermans Bay to the Bonnievale lagoon, where the family is residing, but 1 parent bird took off again as soon as it landed.

I approached the fence line for my normal morning walk around to see what has visited through the night. There was a very obvious fox and oystercatcher dance track, where parent oystercatchers lead the fox, extending through the fence. I reached the far side of the fence and saw the same dance continuing on out of the fence.

There was one oystercatcher sitting on the tidal flats, in front of the mangrove the parent birds normally stash the chick but it was just sitting. No feeding, no returning to chick. I couldn’t see the chick but that is not out of the ordinary as it blends into the mangrove roots so well.

So it was sit and wait. This was a very long and lonely 45 minutes.

I had been watching a fisherman coming from the northern end of the Spit. He was following our signage even though he was trying to get to the bridge (did not know that ‘til later) so he could have cut across very easily from the beach but being responsible, he did not. It is great to know that mostly our signage works.

When I saw him heading for the mangroves after having done all the right things I thought I should go across and have a chat to see what his plans were and see if I could help. I went through what we were doing, that after a quarter of a century we have managed to hatch a chick on a public Sydney beach and he the pointed out to the tidal flat and said “what, that one”. I was overjoyed. I had been waiting to see it but he had inadvertently flushed it. Fortunately our volunteer yesterday, Bryce, had repositioned and put out extra seaweed on the tidal flat, which the chick ran straight towards and crouched beside.

From there the chick tucked into its next favourite spot after the big mangrove tree, the embedded piece of twisted timber. Then the parent birds had to chase off the visiting oystercatcher pair, leaving the chick waiting for their return. This crossing was without incident.

The one back to the mangroves later in the day, however was another story. It took an hour to set up as the beach was really busy. When you cleared one area, the one on the opposite side filled up with people. The birds gave up on 3 attempts but finally on their fourth try we had managed to hold back the tide of people and free the little family who then made it safely across.

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Other highlights for the week (thank goodness there aren’t as many as last week) included:

• Interloper oystercatcher chases each day, sometimes up to 3 per day, sometimes only 1 other oystercatcher, sometimes a pair

• Flyovers by the Osprey and a Wedge-tailed eagle putting the entire bird community up in arms

• A large kayak group turning up at the wrong time causing the chick to turn around from its swim from the mangroves. This was quite knuckle biting as the tide was rising fast

• The loud music festival across the bay which could have masked predator approaches

• Fox tracks in and out of the safety zone enclosure most nights

• A pair of yabby pumpers that, having let them pump directly outside the fence line last week, could not understand why they couldn’t do it this week despite saying the chick was trying to swim back. It was all about the timing and where the chick was. I asked them to go further down the creek, which they did, parking themselves directly next to a person fishing, only to have them return. They then flushed the chick that had just finished its swim and was tucked in amongst some seaweed for a rest. The chick ran back into the water for another swim as that is its only defence mechanism once cornered. When I pointed out the chick swimming and thus explained I had not been kidding about why they could not pump where they wanted at that particular time they had the temerity to ask “seeing as the chick is in the water, can we walk back through the fence to get back to the beach front”. What can you say?