Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club members have been involved in the Annual Challenge Bird Count for more than 20 years, and 2023 was no exception.
This event is overseen by BirdLife Australia, but relies on local coordination. In essence, this fun event – and supposedly non-competitive – involves people from across Australia attempting to detect as many birds as possible during a single day from within their local area, in or around the first weekend in December. For the Castlemaine area, the sightings must be made within a 25km radius of the central township. And for a bird to be a legitimate record, it must be either seen by 2 or more people, or heard by 3 or more people.
There were three groups representing Castlemaine in 2023. Kerrie Jennings and I covered areas around Baringhup and to the west of Tarrengower. Geraldine Harris led a team of three through a range of locations around Barkers Creek, Harcourt and eastern Muckleford. Sue Boekel – a member of BirdLife Castlemaine – led a team of three across a range of sites from Malmsbury to Maldon.
In summary, 1575 individual birds were recorded from 108 different species. Some of the highlights included a single Sharp-tailed Sandpiper on a farm dam in Baringhup, a Black-tailed Native-hen in Muckleford, two Intermediate Egrets in the Harcourt area, 43 White-browed Woodswallows around Barkers Ck and Muckleford, and a Square-tailed Kite in Muckleford area.
By comparison, the numbers detected in recent years are shown in the first table below while the second table shows what was seen this year.
| Year | No. of individual birds | No. of species |
| 2016 | 1212 | 84 |
| 2017 | 1723 | 107 |
| 2018 | 1840 | 107 |
| 2019 | 2377 | 113 |
| 2020, 2021 | Cancelled due to COVID | |
| 2022 | 287 | 61 |
| 2023 | 1575 | 108 |
| Common Name | Number detected | Common Name | Number detected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australasian Darter | 1 | Little Pied Cormorant | 6 | |
| Australasian Grebe | 11 | Little Raven | 51 | |
| Australasian Pipit | 2 | Long-billed Corella | 178 | |
| Australian Magpie | 63 | Magpie-lark | 28 | |
| Australian Raven | 1 | Masked Lapwing | 22 | |
| Australian Reed-Warbler | 4 | Mistletoebird | 2 | |
| Australian White Ibis | 3 | Musk Duck | 1 | |
| Australian Wood Duck | 107 | Musk Lorikeet | 44 | |
| Black Kite | 1 | New Holland Honeyeater | 16 | |
| Black Swan | 5 | Noisy Miner | 12 | |
| Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike | 7 | Olive-backed Oriole | 3 | |
| Black-fronted Dotterel | 4 | Pacific Black Duck | 20 | |
| Black-shouldered Kite | 2 | Peaceful Dove | 4 | |
| Black-tailed Native-hen | 1 | Pied Cormorant | 9 | |
| Brown Falcon | 2 | Pied Currawong | 1 | |
| Brown Goshawk | 1 | Purple Swamphen | 2 | |
| Brown Thornbill | 8 | Rainbow Bee-eater | 4 | |
| Brown Treecreeper | 9 | Rainbow Lorikeet | 1 | |
| Brown-headed Honeyeater | 3 | Red Wattlebird | 31 | |
| Chestnut Teal | 5 | Red-browed Finch | 17 | |
| Collared Sparrowhawk | 1 | Red-rumped Parrot | 45 | |
| Common Blackbird | 7 | Rufous Songlark | 2 | |
| Common Bronzewing | 6 | Rufous Whistler | 5 | |
| Common Myna | 11 | Sacred Kingfisher | 1 | |
| Common Starling | 51 | Scarlet Robin | 1 | |
| Crested Pigeon | 7 | Sharp-tailed Sandpiper | 1 | |
| Crested Shrike-tit | 1 | Silvereye | 4 | |
| Crimson Rosella | 20 | Spotted Pardalote | 4 | |
| Dusky Moorhen | 19 | Square-tailed Kite | 1 | |
| Dusky Woodswallow | 17 | Straw-necked Ibis | 6 | |
| Eastern Rosella | 24 | Striated Pardalote | 7 | |
| Eastern Spinebill | 2 | Striated Thornbill | 3 | |
| Eastern Yellow Robin | 1 | Sulphur-crested Cockatoo | 21 | |
| Eurasian Coot | 37 | Superb Fairy-wren | 38 | |
| European Goldfinch | 1 | Tree Martin | 5 | |
| Fairy Martin | 13 | Wedge-tailed Eagle | 2 | |
| Fuscous Honeyeater | 27 | Weebill | 6 | |
| Galah | 72 | Welcome Swallow | 20 | |
| Great Cormorant | 19 | Whistling Kite | 4 | |
| Great Egret | 1 | White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike | 2 | |
| Grey Currawong | 2 | White-browed Babbler | 17 | |
| Grey Fantail | 3 | White-browed Scrubwren | 2 | |
| Grey Shrike-thrush | 19 | White-browed Woodswallow | 43 | |
| Grey Teal | 12 | White-faced Heron | 9 | |
| Hardhead | 4 | White-naped Honeyeater | 26 | |
| Hoary-headed Grebe | 30 | White-necked Heron | 4 | |
| Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo | 2 | White-plumed Honeyeater | 18 | |
| House Sparrow | 7 | White-throated Treecreeper | 7 | |
| Intermediate Egret | 2 | White-winged Chough | 91 | |
| Jacky Winter | 2 | White-winged Triller | 2 | |
| Laughing Kookaburra | 5 | Willie Wagtail | 27 | |
| Little Black Cormorant | 6 | Yellow-faced Honeyeater | 2 | |
| Little Corella | 8 | Yellow-rumped Thornbill | 14 | |
| Little Eagle | 1 | Yellow-tufted Honeyeater | 2 |
Keep this event in your diary for the weekend of 30 November-1 December 2024. Surely we can beat the high-water mark of 2019.