Courtship Dance of the Terns: Birds on Lady Elliot Island

Fellow Baffled Ones and Gentlebears, We hope you are enjoying our tales of Lady Elliot Island. BeeBear went along on behalf of all of Mawson’s friends because she was small in the luggage (Mawson’s own generous proportions were WAY too big) and because she is an experienced aviator. She was thrilled to fly out there across the sea. She came home to tell all of Mawson’s household about the island, the corals she saw in the lagoon, and the great day that she saw turtles at dawn.

A map and brochure of Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef

There are thousands of birds on Lady Elliot Island too, and BeeBear did her best to explain how numerous and noisy they all were.

COURTSHIP DANCE: And now fellow BaffledOnes and Gentlebears, as promised, we are proud to present to you, direct from the dance troupes of Lady Elliot Island, the amazing, the wonderful, courtship dance of the terns.

Courtship dance of terns on Lady Elliot Island

‘Oh, will you do the courtship dance, will you do the courtship dance,
Will you do the courtship dance, with handsome, hopeful me?’
‘I might I guess, I really might, I’m making up my mind.
Then again, I like your looks, so let’s lose no more time,’

‘Stick your tail feather up,
Drop your right wing down,
Stand on a leg and pirouette round. .’.

‘Its just a waddle to the left –
no, to your left, your other left –
And let’s do the wing dip now!
Yes, let’s dip the wing dip now!‘

‘.. And a chest boop, And a chest boop,‘
‘And let’s choose a tree, my dear’.

And soon you see couples perched in the trees and making renovations for the nest.

In the nests, on the ground, even right next to the walkways and the buildings, there are parent birds minding fluffy chicks.

Fluffy chick and parent bird by the path on Lady Elliot Island

‘Will you just stay where I put you, junior.’
‘Don’t want to. It’s boring. I’m bored. Where’s Dad and the food?’

Chick screaming to be fed — Feed me, feed me, feed me NOW.

And many chicks are in nests on their own, waiting for their parents, insisting they are famished, that they are fading away, that they need FOOD NOW. Right NOW.

This very new fluffy little fella was right under the veranda of our cabin! Shy though, understandably, and only peeked out briefly when his parent returned.

If you love birds you will absolutely enjoy visiting Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia – if any of us can ever travel anyway again. (As a travel tip, we suggest not looking at a rerun of Hitchcocks movie The Birds before you go to the island).

And that’s all we have for you from Lady Elliot Island.

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Mark is guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears.

Birds, Birds, Birds at Lady Elliot Island on the Barrier Reef

Bee Bear has been telling her friends about Lady Elliot Island, her journey there, her explorations of the island, the corals she saw in the lagoon, and whether she saw turtles. But her bird friends at home especially want to know if she saw tropical birds.

She certainly did! Lady Elliot Island is paradise for twitchers (bird spotters.) On this coral quay which is so small that the air-strip cuts right across it (see picture above) there are thousands of birds. They come for the nesting season and peak around November.

It’s high density living here. Birds that usually nest on the ground get squeezed out by the earliest arrivals of the season and so take to the trees instead. They are all over every branch of every tree.

The birds in the picture above were in the trees three metres from our veranda. You can simply sit on your cabin veranda with a camera and take pictures of domestic life among the birds.

Birds that prefer trees have to find themselves a place on the ground. It’s all about high demand for premium real estate.

Everyone is making a racket.
‘Mummy, where are you, I’m hungry!’,
‘Harold, you’ve been ages. It’s your turn to mind your kid’,
‘Steady on, Mabel, I only just got back’,
‘You stayed out at sea deliberately, didn’t you, leaving me stuck here with this squawker’,
‘I did not, Mabel, you’ve no idea how far I had to go for fish ‘,
‘ Hah! A likely story’,
‘Its true. I blame those line trawlers. They’re killing everything.,
‘Oi, You, get off my branch’,
‘Your branch? Hah! It so is not.’
‘It is, it is. Me and Narelle got it first. So get lost’.
‘ You did not, you great big liars, we got it first,’
‘You pinched it!’
‘ You get over here, mate, and try saying that, go on, go on.’
‘ Mummeee, Daddeeeeee! Where’s my fooooood!’

Screeches, calls, warnings, quarrels. On, and on, all night it goes. The resort even provides ear plugs so that guests can sleep at night.

Birds soar everywhere. Outgoing- traffic of the parents leaving chicks to find food in the ocean crosses through incoming traffic of food-laden parents in what looks like an air-traffic controller’s worst nightmare.

The birds are all protected from humans these days, of course, and completely at ease with people. They perch all over the cabin verandas and some venture hopefully toward the diners in the restaurant. They even raise their young right next to the walkways and buildings, including the most unusual bird you see below.

This is the rare Red-tailed Tropic Bird. It’s one of the world’s oldest and most elusive birds. Read more about them here and here. We had the most wonderful good fortune to see a young one and only hundred metres from our cabin.

Just look at this Red-tailed Tropicbird chick hunkered into its ground-nest waiting for its ocean going parents. It was enormous. It was bigger than a full grown chicken. . ‘Food”, it cried, ‘Gimmee foooooood!’ Of course, we didn’t- no feeding of the birds on Lady Elliot Island. But we did wonder how the parents could ever bring back enough food to satisfy this big lad. Both of them were out at sea trying to do just that.

In the next post, fellow Baffled Ones and Gentlebears, we bring you even more birds and more chicks.

You are at Baffled Bear Books, brought to you by Mark, guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and of She Ran Away From Love.

BeeBear Flies to Lady Elliot Island on The Great Barrier Reef

Lady Elliot Island is a coral quay on the south end of The Great Barrier Reef. The tiny island has featured on an episode of David Attenborough’s TV series, Great Barrier Reef not only because of the bird life, turtles and manta rays there but also because it is a conservation success story.

Our BeeBear spent two amazing days and nights there. Naturally, she is bursting to talk all about it to the birds of Mawson’s house and to Tammy Turtle and to YOU.

Tammy Turtle and The Birds listen enthralled as BeeBear tells of her journey to Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef

Where is Lady Elliot Island? Zoom in on a map of Australia. Find Queensland. On the east coast of Queensland, you can see a large island, Fraser Island / K’Gari which is the largest sand island in the world. Lady Elliot Island lies north of K’Gari.

Just getting there was an adventure. First, BeeBear (and her people) flew ALL DAY from Perth in Western Australia to Brisbane in Queensland in Boeing 737 (comfort and movies) then on a turbo prop aircraft to Hervey Bay (shaking and rattling and sandwiches). Then the planes got even smaller. We hoped none would shrink too small to carry a small bear.

We flew out on a Beechcraft B 200 from Hervey Bay and returned on a Cesna 210 Centurion. As an experienced aviator herself, Beebear helped to oversee the control thingygums. If you zoom in on the photo below you can see the navigating thingygum. It shows our position and the red line shows our flight path.

BeeBear supervises the flying. The map diagram on the control panel show the flight path

Our flight from the coastal town of Hervey Bay to Lady Elliot Island took 80 minutes. We headed out over the sea and then northerly between the mainland and K’Gari/ Fraser Island, the big one in the distance (below). It’s the largest sand island in the world.

Looking east from our aircraft. The large island in the distance is Fraser Island

Beyond Fraser Island is The Pacific Ocean where the turtles roam for years on the currents after laying their eggs on Lady Elliot and on many other islands of The Barrier Reef. Just look at those blues! BeeBear was mesmerised by the colours of the ocean.

The astonishing blues of the coastal waters between the coast and Fraser Island

The colours and swirls and patterns of coastal seas are just too blue for words. And these pics were taken through slightly fuzzy perspex windows so in fact they looked even bluer. We flew past Fraser Island and had a good view of the little islands and sand banks too.

Looking back southward as we past by Fraser Island we also see small islands and sand banks and blue waters

See that little island in the foreground of the picture above? Imagine an island like that all for oneself. Our BeeBear thought it just about the right size for a a small-winged bear to settle down on. She would just sit there in the shade by the sand all day simply being stunned by the colours of the sea. Cyclones could be a bother though.

Lady Elliot Island, photo taken by us through windows of the plane. A beautiful clear day. The lagoon is clearly visible

Thar she blows! Lady Elliot Island hoves into sight (above). You can see the main coral reef where the deep dark blue ocean is breaking to white tops (and you can compare with the picture on the brochure at the top of the post). Within the reef lies the lagoon. You can do reef walks at low tide and snorkel there at high tide. You see green turtles and reef sharks and all kinds of starfish and fish and lots of coral. The island is so small that, as you can see, the airstrip goes right across the middle, one side to the other.

The runway runs end to end of the island. You can see it end at the waters of the lagoon

If you look through the blur of the propellor (above) you can see two bands of blue at the end of the landing strip? That’s the lagoon, and after the lagoon the dark deep blue of the Pacific Ocean. We were to see turtles right there where the runway strip ends.

The eco resort on Lady Elliot Island, deliberately low impact and low key

And there is the Eco Resort on Lady Elliot Island. It’s deliberately low key and low impact. The staff are very involved in caring for the island. They plant trees and count the birds nests and the turtle nests and inform visitors about the wonders of the island.

The island was actually a conservation disaster until some decades ago, and since then it has been restored tree by tree. More about Lady Elliot Island in the next post when we go for a walk and enjoy the Slow Life.

Mark is guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Of Mawson’s first book, ‘It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In’, a reviewer said, ‘Reading this book is like receiving a great big hug of reassurance and a huge hot chocolate with fluffy marshmallows.’

Share the Joy

Share the Joy

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