CHRISTMAS ON CHRISTMAS

On 20 December 2022 I flew to Christmas Island. This was my sixth visit to this tiny piece of utopia. Of course I've always loved Christmas Island: I've seen 27 lifers there. On my first trip in 2002, I saw seven lifers driving from the airport to our accommodation! There's not many places in Australia you can do that. On this occasion, I had learnt that an Amur Stonechat had been seen recently at North West Point, so of course I wanted that. When I arrived, it was two weeks since the bird had been seen, but I was still keen to look for it.

As you can see, I got wet! This photo was taken by a fellow intrepid searcher, Bill Russell, and that's me in front. I am not enjoying myself. Apart from the rain and the deep puddles, there were creepers across the track designed to trip me up, not to mention the lack of any stonechats. There are better ways to spend a morning on Christmas Island. The red crabs are famous on Christmas, and rightly so, because of the incredible numbers of them. They can be a breathtaking spectacle. On this trip, we saw millions of teeny tiny crabs, which looked like red paint spilled across the road. Workmen were blowing them out of harm's way with leaf blowers. Many roads were closed throughout our week on the island, limiting the spots we could visit.

There are nearly 100 different species of crabs on Christmas. Perhaps the most impressive is the huge robber crab. I've never actually been brave enough to pick one up before, but this time I did, more than once!

Sadly, I dipped on two very exciting birds on this trip. One was a Yellow-breasted Bunting, which I thought I'd earned, having spent a couple of very hot hours waiting for it to return to the chook pen where it had been sighted. The other was a Northern Boobook, which I also thought I'd earned, as I stood beside Elliot Leach while he admired it! I had better luck on Christmas day. I received the best possible Christmas present: a lifer! It was a Eurasian Hobby, flying overhead and saving me a trip to Western Australia to look for it. A most welcome present indeed, and my 28th lifer for the island. Like MacArthur, I will return!