A Big Twitch

The weather was Un-Australian

Two weeks ago a Lesser Yellowlegs was sighted in a swamp on the NSW north coast and it was spotted again in the same place last weekend too. It had somehow got itself horribly lost and instead of being in America, found itself in a small puddle of water in Australia. A vagrant this rare just had to be checked out but unfortunately the soonest that I could get away to try and see it was this weekend. And so, early on Saturday morning, Jarrod and I set out on the 1030 km round trip to try and find this little lost American wader.

Birdwatching is lots of fun

The weather was awful on the drive north and ultimately proved our downfall I suspect. When we arrived at "one of the last swamps at the end of Boyters Lane" we knew it was probably all over. The recent heavy rain had merged all of the little swamps into one huge wetland and so even if the Yellowlegs was still in Australia, it certainly wasn't nicely contained in one small pond. We carefully checked the whole area with no joy. Our hopes were lifted at one stage when Jarrod spotted three waders on the far side of a flooded field. Not only that but one of them was clearly different from the other two. Without a scope we couldn't identify them and, with so much at stake, we just had to wade out through the water getting very soggy feet only to find they were the very common Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and the different one was simply a juvenile.

A Jabiru briefly turned up which was nice

The weather cleared towards the end of the day and it turned out to be a very pleasant weekend anyway. We stayed over at a motel in the coastal town of South West Rocks and returned to the swamps again the next day on the off chance but ultimately turned up empty handed.

Lovely beaches as always

A pair of Ospreys at the coast

A young kangaroo decides to make his escape

Even without the Yellowlegs, the birdwatching for the weekend was pretty good and Jarrod got 7 new ones for his list, breaking through the 200 barrier in the process. These included the Jabiru, Brahminy Kite and Forest Kingfisher towards the southern edge of their ranges. I also got my first Wonga Pigeon outside of a carpark or picnic area! We also found another echidna, saw plenty of kangaroos and also breaching Humpback Whales from one of the headlands. Thankfully, noone else today has reported spotting the Yellowlegs over the weekend!

Sunday in Belmore Swamps