In earlier blog posts I described some aspects of our journey to Australia in November-December last year, and our amazing rainforest experiences in southern Queensland. The main objective of travelling to Australia, however, was to assist a University of New South Wales (UNSW) PhD student, Simon Gorta, to initiate his research on a Sooty Tern colony on Phillip Island, a small uninhabited (by humans) volcanic island in the Norfolk Island group, in the Pacific about 1500 km east of Brisbane.
We flew to Norfolk Island from Brisbane but only for a one-night stopover. Simon had booked a room in “Seaview” hotel and after checking in we set about shopping for some of the more perishable items that would be needed for our two-week stay on Phillip Island. In the evening we ate heartily at the Norfolk Island Bowling Club before retiring to the Seaview for a badly needed full night’s sleep. Thankfully, this cleared our brains and bodies of the jet lag resulting from the London-Brisbane journey.
Our first impression of Norfolk Island, both from the air and after landing, was how green it is. It is substantially wooded, with the endemic and charismatic Norfolk Pine Araucaria heterophylla trees (that are found as exotics in many parts of the world) creating a unique landscape. There are also extensive grasslands, leading to a lush “English” countryside appearance in parts of the island. The island has a variety of other endemic vegetation but, as with the birds, there are many introduced species as well. Sadly, human activities have led to the extinction of most of the endemic bird species. A few survive, however and, along with other components of the indigenous environment that have survived man’s onslaught, their welfare is now secured by Parks Australia. This agency adopts scientifically supported management plans to the benefit of indigenous wildlife, and to the people of the island.
When we returned to Norfolk after our spell on Phillip, Simon came with us and gave us a brief guided tour of the island and showed some of the habitats and their surviving indigenous avifauna.
The most conspicuous birds were European Starlings, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, House Sparrows and Greenfinches! These had been introduced by early European settlers and they clearly liked their new environment. Much of the island had been managed to resemble low intensity northern European farmland and support grazing livestock. European Starlings were breeding during our brief visit and I was surprised that males seemed to have smaller white/buff tips to their body feathers than British starlings, and some of the Norfolk Island birds bore a close resemblance to the Spotless Starling of south-western Europe and parts of north-west Africa. This mixed farmland-woodland habitat also supported Sacred Kingfishers and Crimson Rosellas, the latter introduced from Australia.
Several of the island’s endemic species were unable to survive the transition, however, and are extinct, but some species have survived and Simon was able to point out some of them on a forest track walk through the Norfolk Island National Park. We were to learn later that location and identification of rainforest birds relies heavily on their calls, and while Simon was able to draw our attention to the presence of calling birds identify them, actually seeing them was a different matter. With Simon’s help we caught glimpses of the endemic Grey Gerygone and endemic subspecies of Golden Whistler, Grey Fantail and a female Scarlet Robin.
Forest close to the National Park office supports a small population of the endemic and endangered Norfolk Green Parrot (sometimes called the Norfolk red-crowned Parakeet) Cyanoramphus cookie, a green parrot with a red crown. Needless to say, we were keen to see this bird and Simon was keen to find it for us if at all possible. After a few failed attempts to find them in various parts of the forest, a pair of them appeared through the forest canopy and appeared as keen to see us as we were keen to see them! They arrived calling and settled in a tree branch above us, giving splendid views.
Following this excitement Simon took us other parts of interest on the island, of both historical and wildlife interest. For me, the most remarkable sighting was along the northern coast. The sheer cliffs here were topped with mixed woodland and farmland, especially grazing pastures. To my astonishment, a few pairs of Masked Boobies were nesting in the grass fields. My previous encounters with these majestic seabirds have been on wild predator-free oceanic islands but here they appeared to be nesting successfully amid human and animal disturbance, and doubtless in the presence of domestic predators such as cats, dogs and rats!
Wild Bird Conservation 