WA Big Year 2024: Ashmore
Black Noddy on West Island - Ashmore Reef
Well, I’ve hit that magic 440 mark. It just took 10 days on a boat to Ashmore Reef and back to top that list on up. I’d given myself a ridiculous two and a half day turnaround from a 16 day east coast tour featuring Dan Terrington, Blue-faced Parrotfinches and Regent Honeyeaters to get up to Broome and board the boat. That east coast trip was hard work from a logistical perspective but worth it to meet and spend time with the aforementioned wonders of the Australian bird world and many more.
So, I squeezed out that 20 odd hour drive in just over 24 hours and when I woke just outside of Broome on the day I was to board the boat, I was rewarded with a Pacific Koel joining in the dawn chorus. That was a great omen. A bird I’d missed early in the year in the Kimberley. It was going to be a birdy trip.
I was first on the bus after parking the ute under a friend’s tree around Cable Beach. Next up was George Swann and Rohan Clarke. Rohan came out of the gate carrying two Brown Boobies. He meant business. Decoys for a photoshoot on Browse Island 10 days from that point it turned out. I’m pretty sure George thought I worked for the bus company. That might have been fair. I don’t often give people 10 day birdwatching trip to remote Australian territory vibes. But, I can tell you, he got the idea eventually. The bus loaded with nine other new and familiar faces and eventually we boarded Diversity II and headed west. Members of the wonderful crew had individually told me that they were under the impression I was at work along the way too. I most definitely wasn’t, but I did have a job to do.
Northern Indian Ocean specialties please. Many of them. That was the job. They pretty much all showed along the way. Streaked Shearwater first as expected, an unexpected Great Frigatebird for that early in the trip and a completely obscene and almost overlooked Timor Sea Shearwater started us off. There was a weird looking shearwater amongst the Hutton’s. A few of us had seen the weird looking one but Rohan’s photos showed us that it was a yet to be described taxon of Puffinus-type shearwater. We don’t know much about this bird but a recent trip put together by Rohan’s lab showed that they weren’t necessarily always present in the Timor Sea. Hopefully we’ll know more one day but that would do for day one! Long-tailed Jaeger, Swinhoe’s Stormy, Bulwer’s and Tahiti Petrel joined that Northern Indian Ocean cohort early in the second day and Red-footed and Masked Boobies topped it off throughout the rest. It kept rolling early day three with Matsudaira’s Stormy and Jouanin's Petrel showing up somewhere not far from Scott Reef. But it would get just a little more silly and satisfying. I heard a wagtail, Eastern Yellow, calling around the boat. I thought someone was practicing their calls on Morcombe or P&K. Nope. Flying up the starboard side, looking for land, a lost Motacillid. Poor thing. Followed a little later by a swiftlet buzzing round our heads! So close that it was photographed extensively and sufficiently enough to be identified as Edible-nest thanks to some recent lumping (phew!). All this before we’re actually supposed to be sourcing rare vagrants at Ashmore.
Tahiti Petrel and Swinhoe’s Storm-Petrel in the Northern Indian Ocean
Ashmore is an external territory to Australia so it doesn’t count to your eBird totals and it certainly doesn't count towards your Western Australian totals. Perhaps fair… but, I think it might be in the Cornell labs best interests to include these. The big listers love these external territories and as a result do not love eBird. Lost data in my opinion. I also have some thoughts about including Ashmore reef as part of the WA big year list seeing as anyone who does a big year will inevitably go to Ashmore. But, that’s a discussion for another time. All this said, If I’m honest, I wasn’t really that hyped on finding new birds on Ashmore. I’m spoiled enough to have been there before, paid as a marine scientist in a previous life. And as a result, was more excited about being underwater than on land. There are obvious impacts from overfishing around this atoll but the marine life around there is still absolutely exceptional. So many fish I haven’t seen in a long time swam through glorious warm water right in front of my mask. I won’t list them. Instead I should list what we saw on land – Supertramp Fantails, Island Monarchs and an Asian Brown Flycatcher being the Passerine highlights amongst droves of Sulidae and Fregatidae.
We’d be back in WA waters soon. On our way to Browse Island. The tropicbirds weren’t missing from the year list for much longer. We saw one Red-tailed sitting on the water feeling stringy posing as a Red-billed, all marked up on its upperparts, literally halting the entire vessel. The water is shallower on this return so the tubenosed seabirds aren’t readily present. It’s a bit slower, more terns and an increase in Noddy activity. Not far off of Browse Island, Rohan broke the malaise with a “What’s this!!??”. Quickly followed with ID’s shouted by a few – an Abbott’s Booby. Rising on a thermal, likely eyeing us before gliding effortlessly yet still at a distance over our stern and off to the east. Wonder where it was going. I adore these prehistoric looking things and it felt like an enormous privilege to have that not only on my Western Australian list but also as a contributor to this year’s sightings. Incredible.
Browse approached and promised so much. The water was blue like I’ve never seen before. Iridescent. I spent a lot of time in that water during the two days we were there. The top layer was like a bath. As the crew and I went for a surf, we sweated like we were in Indo. I hope the coral was coping – we were certainly struggling despite the ridiculous place we’d found ourselves with surfboards. That was a surf to remember, finished off with a very strange chat with some Indonesian fisherman sailing away on their prow. That’s a story for a different blog though. More relevant to this one, earlier that morning I’d seen a White-tailed Tropicbird fly in and circle the island. We were parked in the shade of the lighthouse waiting for the tide to fill. Having found only a Tawny Grassbird on the tramp/vagrant Passerine front, we were eyes to the sky. As Rohan and George often say around 9 to 10am the White-taileds will come and circle the islands. It was 9:30. I’d picked a Lesser Noddy out of the Blacks earlier that morning too – mustn’t forget those as a WA specialty.
That arvo, we landed on Browse again. A Dollarbird, Oriental Prats and Plovers, that Grassbird and a handful of Eastern Yellow Wagtails kept us interested and optimistic that tomorrow might provide more. And it did. The first Scaevola Rohan checked had a Phylloscopus Warbler in it. Likely Arctic. But wouldn’t it call and confirm or deny that initial, probability based ID? There had been a flyover of a largeish looking Muscicapid Flycatcher earlier in the morning so that kept us motivated for a while but I shamelessly returned to that Warbler optimistic I could get it to call. Pestering it with pishing, playback and my presence for almost an hour it remained silent. The group returned to join in. I’d play some more calls and to our collective surprise, another appeared. I was recording the whole time just in case. But I hadn’t noticed any calls when the other had appeared. The two interacted for a bit as they joined up and I thought I’d better check the recording to see if I’d captured anything I’d overlooked. Yep. One contact call. Sue Taylor wouldn’t go home without a new bird for her enormous Australian list and I’d add one to my WA one. I’d confused it as Arctic for about a day. Good thing Nigel Jackett is always on the case. Paired with a congrats for holding the new WA Big Year record, Nige had messaged me to tell me it was a Kamchatka Warbler call before I’d got back to Perth. Thanks Nige.
Kamchatka Leaf Warbler
I was exhausted by the time we’d hit port in Broome, and I wasn’t the only one. I’d decided I’d save too much extra birding round the Kimberley for another time and get home to my loved ones including my beloved Southwest. On the way I’d have to just have a quick look for a few things though. Seemed fitting to go look for another cuckoo after that Keol kicking off the trip. One we’d seen an extraordinary number of while walking West Island at Ashmore perhaps? Oriental? George had said to check One Tree out towards the Crab Creek Mangroves on Roebuck Bay and there one was almost immediately. Thanks George. I checked for one of the best looking Columbids (Pigeons) on the planet on my way south. There they were too. Flock Bronzewings are always a treat!
Regularly birders reflect on trips focussing on the birds that were missed, the dips. We didn’t really miss anything, or at least from my where I sit, I didn’t from a WA birding perspective. It was an incredibly productive trip and topped up my Australian, Western Australian and WA Big year totals nicely. Have a look for yourself in this spreadsheet if you’re interested in following along with the Big Year totals. Further to classic birder mentality, we’ll look onto the next birds too. Here’s a list of what I see as still available to see in WA this year, colour coded for rough likelihood (dark red is not very likely, green is good).
Bremer is next on the trip cards so I’ll be hanging out birding in the Southwest for now. Maybe those Phalaropes have started visiting Rotto? I’ll keep you updated.
Red-footed Booby
