Talk about work / life balance, I was up at 0330 this morning finishing off a grant proposal – remember I mentioned it a while ago, only breaking for a 5-min stationary count in the back yard. It also consumed my afternoon after the meeting at the lovely 34 Trafalgar Street office of Marine Parks personnel at Manly. They have the best office in Brisbane I reckon. When the meeting finished at 1230 the water level was still super high even though it was 2.5 hours after high tide, so there wasn’t much point in looking for shorebirds. With such a high tide they would all be safely squirreled away in the Manly roost, so I headed home.

On the way home I saw a Dollarbird on wires at the junction of Old Cleveland Road and Mount Petrie Road, and it occurred to me I’ve been seeing more this year than I have been in previous summers. It is, of course a strict summer visitor to Brisbane, and that is reflected very nicely in the monthly reporting rate – see below. Perhaps surprisingly there is no obvious year-on-year decline in Dollarbirds in Brisbane, although I need to add 2016 and 2017 to the plot – I’ll be doing this at the end of February when the new eBird data update is provided.

I’ll probably need a rest tomorrow, and there’s a busy day with kids’ activities, but will then go for a decent trip out Sunday morning.

There’s nothing desperately rare to chase, so this intense work period has come at a good time. Things are looking clearer in the diary next week and beyond.

With no year ticks today, my year list remained on 230 species. I spent 5 minutes birding, walked 0 km and drove 0 km.

Monthly reporting rate for Dollarbird in Brisbane – a clear summer visitor to the city, occurring on about 15% of eBird checklists during the summer months, gone by April, returning in October.

eBird reporting rate for Dollarbirds in Brisbane between 2006 and 2015. No obvious decline, although it should be borne in mind this is a measure of how widespread the species is, not how abundant it is at the sites where it occurs. Also, I guess with a migratory species like this, one has to check whether there has been any change in birder behaviour, e.g. doing more summer birding at time goes by. Lots to figure out!