Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Ulverstone "Listers" Recent "Tick".

John Tongue writes: My wife and I are self-confessed "listers--we keep all sorts of lists of the birds we see....on holidays, on a trip, from the yard, across the state, and so on. One bird that had eluded us for our Tasmanian list was the Nankeen Night Heron. Despite searching for it on King Island (a supposed stronghold) during our 2005 holiday, and calling many times at Bell's Parade at Latrobe (where they are also supposed to reside), we hadn't been able to chance upon one anywhere. We'd seen lots when living on the Mainland, but never one in Tassie. That was until we met Peter and Hazel Britton. They are also of Ulverstone (where we have recently moved to), but hadn't caught up with them until the recent North West wader count. We got talking about various 'bogey birds' (those that seem to elude us), and for us, one of these was the Nankeen Night Heron. Hazel said she'd photographed them, quite easily, just a few days before, at Bell's Parade. It seems we'd been searching the wrong trees! With a little bit of first hand knowledge, and a beautiful Summer's afternoon, we set off back to Bell's Parade, and within a few minutes searching, had found two! We are not sure how many regularly roost here, but these two were a very welcome sight indeed. Neither was in a particularly easy spot for photography, hence the fairly mediocre accompanying shot. But thanks to Peter and Hazel, this is now one 'bogey bird' we can finally "tick" on our Tassie list.

2 comments:

Duncan said...

Nothing wrong with the photo John, shows the bird's personality nicely. Good one.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Duncan,
I'm glad at least this bird was in a fairly open wattle, the other was hidden away in the deep dark depths of another species of wattle (I'm not so good on my Botany), and almost impossible to photograph)