2019 AU-NZ: Birding Events with Bird Life Australia, Melbourne Chapter January 26 & 27

January 26 & 27 we participated in two day-long volunteer birding events with Bird Life Australia, Melbourne Chapter.

President "Big Al" had been in email communication with Bob about the Saturday January 26 outing to Point Cook. The final Saturday of each month, volunteers Hazel & Alan Veevers lead a beginner's birding outing, and so we arranged our schedule to go January 26. Many experienced birders also attend, such as Geoff - past President, and past outing leader.

It was a fun outing and we met interesting, friendly people, including local bird expert David Torr, who invited us to his favourite birding spot, Western Water Treatment Plant. We accepted and compared schedules. As David Torr was not able to go out February 5, our available day, Hazel & Alan Veevers offered to take us, as the gates are locked to all those without permits. We also met Lindy, who works as a plant regeneration specialist.

Lindy was pleased that we had already seen kangaroo, and impressed that we had seen an emu by a pond, as apparently very few Australians have seen one in the wild. Lindy offered to take us to see platypus in the wild if we don't see any on our own.

We learned a neat term from Big Al to describe the many habitat trees (dead due to fire and drought): "Skelettree". This should come in handy when we are trying to communicate the location of a bird in the bush to one another. Yolanda had been noticing these trees and had taken pictures of some that particulsrly looked like piles of bones. Skeletree was a perfect word to find out about!

January 27 Yolanda counted hundreds of swans and Bob counted pelicans and took long-lens photos of a few dozen birds.

Mike Carter (we later learned he was Australia's top bird observer) had been in phone contact with Bob about our attending a bird count at Melbourne's Eastern Treatment Plant. We hadn't realized that it was an elite event, so felt great that we could contribute in some way: Yolanda's meticulous swan count and Bob with his fantastic camera work.

Mike was pleased to receive record photos from Bob of about 1/3 of the counted birds. We met the group of seven expert birders around 9am and had to leave at 3:30pm. In total for the day, 88 bird species were observed. What was most astounding were the numbers of birds, in some cases thousands of a species. We carpooled with Andrew McCutcheon, who shared camera interests with Bob. Andrew told us about a pal of his, Neil Macumber, who guides pelagic tours. So, Bob is now signed up for a pelagic tour near Adelaide on March 17th, just before we fly to New Zealland March 19th. Super!