MELVILLE ISLAND

Melville Island does not spring to mind as one of Australia's premier birding sites. It doesn't even feature as a major Northern Territory site. And yet I've just enjoyed a few days of most rewarding birding there. I came home with 83 species on my Melville Island list. In fact, there are nine subspecies you cannot find anywhere else in the world. That's what I went there to see. And I saw them all.

I flew to Darwin on Saturday, took the ferry to Melville Island on Sunday, then the bus to Milikapiti where I was staying, arriving at 2.30. Even in August, it's too hot for birding in the middle of the day, but later that afternoon I ticked seven of the nine endemic subspecies. That night I went looking for the Tiwi Masked Owl, but didn't see it. The next day I saw the last diurnal subspecies and that night (much to my surprise) I saw the owl. All nine subspecies in less than 36 hours! I also picked up three other Northern Territory subspecies, not exclusive to the Tiwi Islands, that I'd never seen before. To my eye, most of the subspecies didn't look any different from their mainland counterparts. The order I saw the birds in was: (1) Brown Honeyeater - common, easily seen; (2) White-bellied Cuckooshrike - also very numerous and easily seen; (3) Yellow-tinted Honeyeater, not quite so common, I didn't see it every day I was on the island, yet I saw it easily and it looked like our mainland Yellow-tinted; (4) Striated Pardalote - vocal and easily seen, but visibly different with black on its face, altogether very colourful with a very stubby bill; (5) Green Oriole - loud and obvious (but there were also plenty of Olive-backed Orioles), it looked like other Green Orioles to me; (6) Rufous Whistler - male looked and sounded the same as mainland birds, but the female was very different: more colourful underparts with many fewer striations, very light streaking on her throat only. The last diurnal passerine (7) the Singing Bush Lark was easily seen, but not widespread, and looked quite indistinguishable from other bush larks to me. This is Bush Lark terrain.

After one night looking unsuccessfully for the owl, I didn't really expect to see it on the second night. But there it was! Unfortunately, it didn't hang around to have its photo taken. There were lots of birds on Melville, but there were only three species that I saw every day of my five day stay. They were: Bar-shouldered Dove, Whistling Kite and Torresian Crow. After Melville Island, I turned my mind to the mainland where I hoped to pick up a further seven subspecies new to me. I'd seen Helmeted Friarbird, Singing Honeyeater and the Silver-backed Butcherbird already on Melville. I wasn't quite so lucky on the mainland.