MY SEVENTH TRIP TO CHRISTMAS ISLAND

I had only 24 hours at home after my Northern Shriketit adventure before I was off to Christmas Island on a Richard Baxter tour. I'd arrived home from the Northern Territory late on Saturday night, spent Sunday worrying about what to pack and left for Perth early on Monday. At 3.30 on Tuesday afternoon I was disembarking at Christmas Island with nine fellow birders. I learnt immediately that the island was extremely dry and there were few vagrants. Of course I'd seen all the endemics on my first trip in 2005 and have been returning to Christmas Island ever since in the hope of seeing vagrants. Generally, I have not been disappointed. I have never visited without seeing at least one lifer, and have achieved a total of 26 on my previous six visits. This year I had heard that there was a Red-billed Tropicbird on Christmas in August and hoped that he'd stick around to greet me in November. Alas, he did not.

We didn't have a great deal of time for birding on Tuesday, the day we arrived, but we did manage to see (and identify!) both Christmas and Great Frigatebirds and both Red-footed and Brown Boobies as well as the spectacular Golden Bosunbird. No effort was required to add Christmas Imperial Pigeon and Island Thrush to the list and Eurasian Tree Sparrow is probably not worth mentioning. We saw White-breasted Waterhen (a bird I did not see at all on my first visit to the island, but which has become much more common since cat eradication has been taken seriously). They are not yet as common on Christmas as they are on Cocos, but they are very readily seen on Christmas nowadays. On Wednesday, again without effort, we added Christmas Swiftlets and White-eyes, then Java Sparrows and Abbott's Booby. This last entry brought my annual total to 400 birds, a target I always aim for, but which I do not always achieve. We also saw several goshawks (these days deemed to be just a race of Brown Goshawk) and Red-tailed and the white morph of White-tailed Tropicbirds (the same species as the aforementioned gorgeous Golden Bosunbird). On Thursday with a little effort we saw Red Junglefowl. Note that not every feral chook is a Red Junglefowl. We also saw Common Emerald Dove (a different species from the Pacific Emerald Dove on the mainland) and Lesser Frigatebird (not common on Christmas, easily seen on Cocos). Kestrels are common on Christmas Island. We saw Barn Swallows on the top of Phosphate Hill and Glossy Ibis on the oval. Oddly there is also an Australian White Ibis on Christmas at the moment - it's been resident for about eight months. This photo by Heather Alexander is me on the new impressive Margaret Knoll lookout.

On Thursday we did a boat trip to allow the more intrepid of our group to have a snorkel. They tell me the fish are colourful and stunning. I, on the other hand, sat on the boat and watched young boobies and frigatebirds swooping at the bright pink lure being dragged behind the boat. The next day some birders reported seeing a passerine with white wingbars (perhaps a Purple-backed Starling) so we all set off in search of it. We walked along an overgrown track admiring white-eyes and I thought we probably wouldn't be seeing any passerines. This was the same general area where I'd failed to see the Amur Stonechat last year, so I wasn't feeling very lucky. Suddenly everyone was looking up. A bird flying overhead looked as if it were going to land on a dead twig out in the open, but saw us at the last minute and changed its mind, twisting and flying off never to be seen again. Richard said it was a Large Hawk-Cuckoo (#842) so my record of always getting a lifer when I visit Christmas is still intact. Let's see if I can do the same on Cocos.