Friday, December 22, 2006

Port fairy

After a few days in the rather dull town of Mount gambier (the major tourist attraction is a lake), i'm down in port fairy 2 more days. unfortunately the squally weather is menaing no fishing boats ae going out far enough for pelagic birding but yesterday i managed a short trip out around the bay which provided two lifers in Little Penguin (very cute) and black faced cormorant (very ugly). Last night i went out to Griffith island at dusk to watch the short tailed shearwater colony arriving back at their nest burrows. it was pretty awesome having thousands of these birds swooping around my head with a deafening chorus of their wierd guttural calls. A short seawatch in the rain this morning was very rewarding with a great winged petrel being a long overdue lifer and a Shy albatross, Brown skua and masses of short tailed shears adding very nice indeed in what will probably be my last birding for a while as tomorrow i head for melbourne for christmas and the cricket and then a 10day trip to tasmania before flying home via 12 days on Thailand.

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