One of Brush Island’s Sooty Oystercatcher breeding pairs. Males are smaller than females and also have smaller beaks. The boys prefer the "bash and smash" menu of molluscs and sea urchins while the girls prefer to "slice and dice" larger prey such as cunjevoi. This gives the girls more mass to produce larger eggs while the boys stay lean and mean sex machines - the brighter the beak the more likely to attract and defend a nice voluptuous mate. Meanwhile the chicks eat variegated limpets at their "feeding stations".

Sooty Oystercatchers in flight

Sooty Oystercatcher nests vary from simple depressions to sophisticated constructions made of plants, shells and other building material. Inger Vandyke took this photo of "the most architectural Oystercatcher nest on Brush Island out of any of those surveyed."

"It requires a certain amount of stealth to circumnavigate Brush Island. Landing on the island is a matter of crashing the boat against the rocks, the impact of which will virtually throw you ashore. An interesting start considering the value of equipment loaded in your backpack."

Wildlife Photographer Inger Vandyke visited Brush Island late last year to survey the island for Oystercatcher nests with National Parks Ranger Michael Jarman.

"The island has virtually no beach and is strewn with boulders on the western side", Inger recalls. "Getting around the eastern side involves a bit of rock scrambling and the western side is all rock and boulder hopping. The island is littered with remnant boiler and tank pieces from the large marine vessel that went ashore there in 1932."

For a wildlife photographer with a passion for seabirds however the hike was well worth the effort.

"Nesting penguins and oystercatchers dot the entire shoreline so a hike around the island revealed vocal and wary oystercatcher pairs and the odd growling penguin who stated their presence as I walked past. Much to my amusement, a number of penguins had utilised parts of the wreckage to nest."

Brush Island Nature Reserve off Bawley Point near Bateman’s Bay on the south Coast of NSW is 47 hectares of prime habitat for Little penguins, shearwaters, white-faced storm-petrels and eastern reef egrets.

Trouble in birds’ paradise

The Nature Reserve is also one of the most important breeding sites for the threatened Sooty Oystercatcher Haematopus fuliginosus, and it would be a safe haven for the species had not the Black rat Rattus rattus gotten hold of the island. They came ashore when on February 22 1932 the SS Northern Firth ran aground off the island’s shore.

Sooty Oystercatchers breed mainly on remote marine islands like Brush Island, where the pairs maintain large territories in the littoral zone to supply enough food for both parents and chicks. Limited by their choice of breeding habitat, Sooty Oystercatcher populations in NSW are few and far between, with only 100 individuals recorded in counts in the mid 1980s.

The birds build their nests amongst patches of pebbles, shells, rocks and vegetation, and nest constructions vary. Some pairs are content with just a simple scrape while others carefully line theirs with pebbles, shells and bits of vegetation.

These nests are often quite exposed. They offer the sitting bird a good view of the surrounds and ways to escape, but do not protect the two to four speckled eggs from the rats.

Rugged Brush Island provides ideal conditions for Oystercatchers to raise a family. It is remote with rocky shores and was once predator free. With a little help from the Foundation it will soon be rat-free again.

The success of breeding pairs on Brush Island has decreased severely due to the rodents, and the already small population size calls for immediate action to protect the species.

Rats get evicted

The Foundation has decided to help Brush Island’s bird community get rid of the unwanted lodgers through funding a rat eradication program. This winter ranger Michael Jarman will start to set bait stations across the island to eradicate the rodents.

"It's awesome that the rat eradication program has been approved for this island. The rats got there when that vessel went ashore more than 70 years ago, and it is disheartening that both Oystercatcher and Penguin chicks could suffer due to rat infestation."

View more of Inger’s bird pics on the Australian Bird Image Database at http://www.aviceda.org/abid/birder.php?action=birder&bdid=160

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