A Tale of Two Sisters at the BBO
“I know it sounds disgusting but the sewage works was one of the places that we saw the most birds!”
Broome Bird Observatory
by Amelia Furness (age 10)
We were only going to stay at the Broome Bird Observatory for two nights. Just so we could see what it was like. We ended up staying there for about two and a half weeks. Before we had actually got there Mum and Dad told us about the nightly bird count. Every night a staff member would call out bird names from the region and if you had seen it that day you would tell them.
The Shadehouse
The Shadehouse was basically the camp kitchen, and it even had a huge oven! There were two long tables to sit at and watch the birds as they washed and drunk from the bird baths. One time, a Brown Goshawk flew in and all of the finches flew right into the mesh, they were really panicked and they even made a hole in the mesh! My family and I were in the camp kitchen one morning and it was pretty windy and there were five Long-Tailed Finches and they were all huddled up together on the top branch and they were all swaying in the wind. My favourite bird that I hadn’t seen before we came to the BBO was the Diamond Dove. It was really pretty. It has a red ring around its eyes and white spots on its wings.
The Shadehouse offers a place to eat, bird-watch, read, write and draw!
The Mangroves
The first time we went to the mangroves we went to the wrong place. It was a beach. We walked all the way out to the edge of the mangroves. The mud there was really squishy and my Mum sunk all the way to her knees! We couldn’t even see any birds, probably because the sea was miles away! The second time we went to the mangroves we went to the right place but we didn’t go into the mangroves. We sat in the shade of a little tent thing while we watched the running stream and the tops of the mangroves. We only saw two new birds but lots of others we had already seen before. The third time we went to the mangroves we went right into the mangrove trees. There were so many mosquitos buzzing around. We had come to see the White-Breasted Whistler. Bronte, my sister, really wanted to see one but because she keeped on getting bitten by the mosquitoes so she left early and just when she left I saw a female White-Breasted Whistler!! It was really beautiful.
The Bower
Near our campsite there was a bower. The Great Bower Bird that lived there liked white stuff. I found marbles and even a coin! There was a pile of white little crosses and white pebbles there as well.
Disturbance Monitoring
This was the first time we had done disturbance monitoring. It’s where you go to a beach and sit right up the top of the beach and watch what disturbs the birds. It could be a Brahminy Kite or a plane or something else. We had to sit in the hot sun for 4 hours and Dad, Bronte, Jane and I were one group. Bronte and I spotted a little lizard and we gave it some water from the cap of the bottle.
The little lizard gets a drink from a bottle cap of water.
Cannon Netting
I had a great time doing Cannon Netting. We waited under a big jiggle tree then Chris started the count down from three, then we heard the net being shot and we started running down a big sandy slope towards the net. Then we all went back to get the boxes to hold the birds in. I mostly carried the birds around and when all of the birds had been collected we took them to the shady work office. We put all the Great Knots, Whimbrels and Bar-Tailed Godwits into the canvas netting cages there. I got assigned with Val, Chris, Nyil and Daniel. My job was to put very sticky glue on the end of a screwdriver and as Chris opened the tag up (the tag was around the birds leg), I put the glue in between the tag and held it together. My Mum and Dad were helping to bleed the birds, once the bird had been bled, they had to rest for 5 minutes and then all of the kids and I went and released them but you needed to watch out for birds like the Brahminy Kite and White-Bellied Sea Eagle and even the Torresian Crow! Because sometimes they liked to snatch up a disoriented shorebird. Once we had done all the birds we started to pack up the work office. We formed a human chain and took all of the stuff up to the cars.
Second Disturbance Monitoring
The second time we did disturbance monitoring we all knew what to do so it was very relaxed. My Dad, Bronte, Jane and I were teamed up again. The lizard came back as well. At the end of it we all got up and we scared all of the birds so we had to write down us as what scared them!
Amelia and Bronte spent 4 hours in the hot sun watching shorebirds through the scope during Disturbance Monitoring. In this photo, terns, Silver Gulls, Red-necked Avocets and a Pied Oystercatcher roost behind them.
Beach Lookouts
One lookout we went to was the one across the road from the actual campsites. We once saw two Beach-Stone Curlews there! That was one of the birds that Bronte and I really wanted to see so we were really lucky. Other birds we saw there were Sharp-Tailed Sandpipers, Red-Necked Stints and Terek Sandpipers.
Sewage Works
I know it sounds disgusting but the sewage works was one of the places that we saw the most birds! You drive in and there is a little platform overlooking the sewage works and there are even some boards that give information about some of the birds seen there. One of the cool birds I saw there was the Royal Spoonbill. We also saw Pink-Eared Ducks and I saw a Wandering Whistling Duck.
Dinosaur Footprints
One time Nyil took us down to the beach to see the footprints of dinosaurs! My entire family came down. There were two footprints. After we saw them me and Bronte found some small red crabs.
I had a wonderful time at the Broome Bird Observatory.
Photos by the Furness family, 2019
“We were only going to stay for 2 nights... In the end we actually stayed for almost 2 weeks, we just couldn’t get enough of the birds! ”
Broome Bird Observatory
by Bronte Furness (age 12)
When we arrived at the Broome Bird Observatory we were only going to stay for 2 nights. It was supposed to be a taste of bird watching, just to see if we liked it. I was already good at identifying land birds, a couple of years of travelling will do that to you, but even though I had every opportunity to learn shorebird identification, I was content to stick to what I already knew. But when we got to the Broome Bird Observatory that all changed. The first day there I met three passionate birders, Jane, Nyil and Mattea. Mattea was learning her birds and was the trainee. Jane and Nyil were expert birders and they were always testing me on my bird skills. Jane would give me tips, like how you can tell it’s a Grey Plover in flight, because of their white bums. Nyil and Jane could also know straight away what bird it was by its call. But even they couldn’t really tell a Collared Sparrowhawk from a Brown Goshawk.
The first day when we went to the shadehouse (an awesome public kitchen, complete with an oven, utensils, bowls, plates, cups, fridges and there’s even a place to sit and watch the birds in the shade, with fans overhead!) we saw heaps of birds. We didn’t even have to get up! I saw new and interesting birds like Banded Honeyeaters, Diamond Doves and a Great Bowerbird who has a bower (nest) at the back of site 5a. When we visited the bower we found two marbles, a coin, and the spaces that go between tiles. A few days later there was only one marble, so the Great Bowerbird must have thought that it wasn’t pretty enough and had thrown it away! Outside of the shadehouse I saw a beautiful Mangrove Golden Whistler in the trees next to our campsite. It was calling at dawn and I was stunned to see it, because I thought they only lived in the mangroves. I also saw a male Red-Backed Fairy-Wren surrounded by females! It was just where the sealed road ends and the dirt road starts, on the way in. In the end we actually stayed for almost 2 weeks, we just couldn’t get enough of the birds!
The “stinky sewage works in Broome” was one of Bronte’s favourite places to spot birds.
One of my most favourite place to spot birds was the stinky sewage works in Broome! It was where I saw my first Pink-Eared Ducks and Hardheads. There was a shelter on the top of the hill that provided some shade to stand in and I could spend an hour there watching the Terns diving and the Royal Spoonbills swinging their beaks in a very odd way. It was just full of life!
The beach was one of the places we liked to go and see the shorebirds. There’s a pretty awesome lookout we could go to. Maybe the most exciting of all the birds that we saw during our stay was two BEACH STONE-CURLEWS. They were amazing! Big and exactly how I imagined they would be. In our years of travel we had never seen a Beach Stone-Curlew, only looked at them in our bird books. You know how you always have a bird that seems to evade you for years? The Beach Stone-Curlew was that bird for us.
One place that Nyil recommended to us was the mangroves. The first time we got to the wrong place and got trapped in the clay to our knees, but the second time we made it to the right mangroves. There was a tarp stringed up that provided shade for the bird watching. We couldn’t actually go into the mangroves, when I tried my feet got stuck in the clay and it was very icky to scrape off. The birds that we saw that were stunning were a Broad-Billed Flycatcher (which was so beautiful) and an Australian Hobby flying over the mangroves. I’ve only ever seen an Australian Hobby once but it was in a bird sanctuary so that was pretty big thing to see for me. There was also a trail to the right of the shelter that I found between the mangroves. Down there my sister says that she saw a White-Breasted Whistler there but I missed it, it was one of the birds that I really wanted to see, but I had to get the mosquito cream because the midgies had attacked my arms and legs and I was itching like mad!
One day while we were watching the birds in the shadehouse (where we spent most of our time), Nyil asked us if we were interested in dinosaur footprints and we said “yes!”. The next day he led us down onto the beach at low tide. There on a big flat rock were 2 dinosaur footprints and of course my Mum wanted to take a photo of us standing near it. The dinosaur footprints were near the beach mangroves and I saw heaps of red and pink crabs that got startled very easily if I went too close.
The dinosaur footprints can be seen on a flat rock on the beach at low tide not far from the BBO.
Nyil also showed us how to play cricket. He let us borrow his bat and I’m not quite sure what it’s called but one person had the bat and stood in the middle with their feet together. You weren’t allowed to move your feet but the people with the ball had to aim it at your legs. The person with the bat had to twist around without moving their feet and block it. If it touched your leg you were out. Nyil was a very good shot and Jane could block pretty good. It was lots of fun!
Another fun thing that we got to do was participate in the nightly Bird Count that happened at 6pm every single night! We got to say what birds we saw that day and where, and my little sister, Ashley, even chimed in sometimes. It was very fun and we made sure that we were always there on time.
Dad, my sister and I volunteered to help out with disturbance monitoring on two occasions. The first time we went to a spot overlooking the beach and what we had to do was monitor the birds for four hours, 2 hours before high tide and 2 hours after, and see what disturbed them. If they took off after a boat had gone past we had to write it down. We only had 4 disturbances and they were mainly caused by predators of the sky. We didn’t have to stay but we decided to stay anyway to keep Jane company and to finish all four hours. Nyil, who was on another beach had one person disturb the birds 16 times!! Chris, an expert birder who follows the birds to China every year, texted to Jane to say there was a Beach Stone-Curlew on his beach. This was before we saw some a few days later and we were desperate to see one. We rushed over but it had walked away and out of sight. We tried a few more stops to try and spot it but to no avail. We didn’t get to see the elusive Beach Stone-Curlew that day.
The Furness sisters with BBO Warden Jane during disturbance monitoring at one of the beaches. There are lots of grey birds dotting the shoreline.
The second time we did disturbance monitoring, we stayed until the end again and we had a lot more disturbances, but most of the time we didn’t know what spooked them. One time we all stood up at the same time and disturbed all the birds, so we had to write ourselves down as the disturbance! There was this little lizard that liked to sit on our backpack of water and when the water sloshed around the tiny lizard went up and down. I squirted some water into the water bottle cap and it drank from it! It was very cute. There were also two grumpy Pied Oystercatchers, one was guarding the nest and the other was down by the water preening itself. When all the other birds came too close it would snap at them. The other birds looked terrified and kept their distance after a while. Once the Pied Oystercatcher separated a group of shorebirds and walked after them and they had to sneak pass while it was snacking to get back to the bigger group!
The other thing that we did was cannon netting. Cannon netting was separated into two groups, the box carriers and the sprinters. My sister, Dad and I were part of the sprinters group. My Mum and little sister helped with the boxes. It was nerve-racking before the net went off but very exciting. The net was targeted on a group of unsuspecting birds but I didn’t get to see the net go off. When the net was fired by Chris, we raced down to the net, but thankfully it was a dry catch so we didn’t have to go into the water. The boxes were carried down the slope and Chris assigned me to Helen, a nice lady. I followed her around the net with the box and she put all the Red Knots into it. Then she told me to carry it over to the shelter where we would spend all our time under. Chris assigned me to a team with Jane, Kerry and Connie and my job was to put the glue onto the bands to seal them onto the birds leg. After we had finished with the bird, Jane would take it to have a blood sample taken. My Mum and Dad helped with the bled birds by holding them for a minute or so to help calm them and then putting them in the box for 5 minutes to rest. Then we were allowed to release them, but first we had to check the sky for any predators. If there were some hanging around we had to wait, but if not, we let them go. I really enjoyed doing the cannon netting and I even did a report on my experience which has now been published on the Global Flyways Network website and WA Bird Notes Journal!
I had a brilliant time at the Broome Bird Observatory and helping out with both of the disturbance monitoring and the cannon netting. I’ll really miss Jane, Nyil, and Mattea who helped me so much with identifying all the birds. Overall, it was a fantastic experience and I hope to go back one day.