Where? Where? Wedgie! 2018 Day 15 : 15-05-2018

Cape Barren Island is sandwiched between Flinders Island to the north and the north east corner of Tasmania further to the south. James and I flew over this morning to see what eagle action we could find with the students of Cape Barren School.

James told me as we boarded at Bridport that this would be his first flight in a small plane. Conditions were perfect for a smooth flight across to Cape Barren Island. We touched down to be met by Steve in the school 4WD. Steve's wife Charlotte is the teacher at the school who invited us to make the island and the community part of the expedition.

The township and surrounding area is home to about 80 people and the primary school has 7 students from Prep to Grade 6. We sat down to plan our adventurous day with the goal of spotting a Wedgie and any other birds of prey. 

Fiona Maher and the team of rangers joined us as we scouted to a quiet valley. A lot of the island has low vegetation so the tree filled valleys would be a good spot for Wedgies to build nests.

James told me as we boarded at Bridport that this would be his first flight in a small plane. Conditions were perfect for a smooth flight across to Cape Barren Island. We touched down to be met by Steve in the school 4WD. Steve's wife Charlotte is the teacher at the school who invited us to make the island and the community part of the expedition.

The township and surrounding area is home to about 80 people and the primary school has 7 students from Prep to Grade 6. We sat down to plan our adventurous day with the goal of spotting a Wedgie and any other birds of prey. 

Fiona Maher and the team of rangers joined us as we scouted to a quiet valley. A lot of the island has low vegetation so the tree filled valleys would be a good spot for Wedgies to build nests.

Fiona and I thought we'd spotted a Wedgie driving in but it was very distant and there was a slight chance it was a sea eagle. Continuing to open ground James identified a smaller raptor as the Nankeen kestrel. This bird is not common on the 'mainland' part of Tasmania so we were excited to see one. In fact there were more kestrels that you could poke a stick at, maybe up to four. They have an incredible ability to hover in one spot using rapid wing movements. It reminded me a little of videos of hummingbirds.

Over lunch at the beach, just as we were simmering down after sighting a sea eagle, Fiona pointed to the clouds and declared a Wedgie sighting. Bingo, a Cape Barren eagle bonanza!

Back in class the students created paintings and I had my first lesson in using Scratch.

The report is late tonight because we capped off the day with a community workshop on the public survey. I just realised that it's NEXT FRIDAY, SATURDAY ands SUNDAY!! If you want to do the survey and haven't booked a square at www.naturetrackers.com.au, get onto it.

Today's t-shirt winner: TheWoodlandChild for consistently good posts on the discussions over many days.