Cocos/Keeling Islands 2022: Part One

One of the many, many beautiful spots on Cocos

I reckon I could not have built up a memory more wonderful than I had about Cocos. I fell in love with everything about it in December 2019. I wrote glowingly about the islands in “More Australian Birding Tales”. I do love it and I loved it again. The accommodations were not as good as last time, and the internet did not work, but the ‘vibe’ as Richard Baxter calls it, did not disappoint what-so-ever. It radiates from those islands. I wish I could have more time there to absorb it better (a week is not nearly long enough). It is so very, truly special to me.

On the first of December my generous, dear friend Peter gave me a ride to the airport (that helps to ease a lot of my anxiety). After navigating the check-in and security, I flew the 4-ish hours to Perth. There I spent the night at my usual overpriced, and underwhelming, airport motel (it has a free shuttle). Friday morning early, I flew to Cocos. For all of my lifelong anxieties, I do not have a problem with flying itself. It is the details of booking, checking-in, and organising that can fry my nerves. But with various coping skills practiced over the years, I get through it. It can be painfully difficult, but it is worth it. I think.

We had a group of 11 on Richard’s tour. There were a lot of good people including old friends and some new friends. It was a first visit to the islands for my dear friend Alan Stringer. I know he loved it.  

 As you do first thing on Cocos, we dropped our bags at our rooms and went to the little grocery for some limited shopping. After that we rode around a bit. It was hard to believe I was back. It was hard to believe it had been three years. It is hard for me to believe anything in the ‘moment.’ I work on that. I work at doing that, but I have a very difficult time appreciating joy ‘alone.’ One of the main reasons I write is to look back and remember, realise, and enjoy an experience afterwards. And then I can share it and it becomes more real for me. It seems a little backwards, and it is, but it’s me.

Behind our motel

Saturday morning brought me my first Lifer of the trip, a Chinese Sparrowhawk. We saw it from Richard’s bird hide. It’s not actually his of course. It was funded by the Cocos local council and the Cocos tourism bureau, but he designed it and is responsible for it being there. I went back to the hide by myself a few days later and had even better views of the Sparrowhawk. We also saw the resident Cocos female Northern Pintail. Birders used to have to travel in Geoff Christie’s boat to Horsburgh Island to see that duck, but it has now (most often, but not always) moved over to West Island and into the pond in front of the hide. Not bad, hey?

Front view from the hide

The Cocos Northern Pintail from the hide

Chinese Sparrowhawk flying in front of the hide

Very heavily cropped shot of the Chinese Sparrowhawk perching

Richard Baxter in 'his' hide

Sunday was a gorgeous day for the trip over to South Island in canoes to see the rare Saunders’s Terns. I wrote about this in chapter 21 of “More Australian Birding Tales”. It is so beautiful over there and we owe a big thank you to Cocos Island Adventure Tours for once again providing us with the canoes and their delightful company over to see the terns and back.

Saunders's Tern (the correct spelling includes the extra "s")

A photo of the group taken by Jaali Barton of Cocos Island Adventure Tours

Speaking of ‘and back’, on the way back from South Island and viewing the terns, we stopped at a little island to see the Blue-tailed Skink. It was an endemic on Christmas Island, but has become extinct in the wild there. However through a breeding program, they have been released into the wild on this island in Cocos (with no predators) and they have flourished. They are a gorgeous little lizard. 

And then we went snorkelling. We stopped at a small island and snorkelled around it. It was a truly OMG experience. 

It was glorious. I saw the most amazing, diverse and colourful reef fishes I have ever seen snorkelling anywhere in the world (and I have snorkelled in Florida, Hawaii, Grand Cayman Island and Christmas Island). I wish I had had an underwater camera. I was in awe as I glided through the water staring at these dazzling little fish. I adore snorkelling; it is like birding but you get to fly with the birds and those little finned birds are crazily colourful. That’s a memory I will hold in my old brain and cherish. I managed to take a photo from the plane of that little island as we were leaving Cocos. Here it is...

On Tuesday we spent the day on Home Island. The air-conditioned people-ferry makes the trip over from West Island several times throughout the day. It is a lovely ride. There had been a Grey Wagtail seen over there and we hoped it was still around. 

It had been in an area near the tip and some sort of sewage or water tanks (I am not sure what they were). There was a chain-link fence around that area and noisy workers in there at times.  

First thing that morning, a couple of us had a very brief sighting of the Wagtail flying out of that area, but the group could not refind it. Then the workers arrived and that was that.  

However, after lunch several of us who really wanted that bird went back over. The workers were not there and soon we saw a little Wagtail fly down into one of the cement tanks (as Richard had described it doing previously). We could not see it once it was in the tank, but we knew it was there. Most of the group gathered around waiting and watching. Soon it flew out, looped around a bit and went off into the big tree up the back. My friend Nick Thompson did a great job getting a lovely flight shot and I will include a ‘back of the camera’ pick of it here. If there is a third book, I will include his original shot with his permission and credited. As are a few of my friends, he is a damn good bird photographer. So I had my second Lifer of the trip and some wonderful, shared Lifer High. The best.

Grey Wagtail photo courtesy of my friend, Nick Thompson

There is much more to tell, but this has gotten too long for me so I will stop here and write a second Cocos blog entry soon. I will be writing blog entries about the Christmas Island trip as well. 

And I will mention that since doing this trip twice with my friend, Richard Baxter, I am finally going to go on his Torres Strait trip in 2024 (March or April, the dates will be announced). It is a must-do experience for Aussie birders and I am finally going to go. I will include a link to Richard's ISLANDS OF THE NORTHERN TORRES STRAIT  tour and I will tell y’all much more about it as I learn the dates and details. BUT, I AM going. 

Stay tuned for Cocos Part Two.

Sending love as I do ❤️