.

I first took an interest in the mutton bird in 1993 while travelling around Tasmania,  my wife and I saw a flock of them hovering over the bleak grey sky’s of Bruney island,  south of Hobart. 

These birds where on a feeding frenzy,  eating  Krill. We also saw them returning to their rookery one evening on the cliff face on the knoll at Stanley.   A truly amazing site to witness.

The Short-tailed Shearwater is  sooty brown in colour, although appears  grey. It is a migrating bird  -  but I’ll come to that later. The length  approximately 42 cm and its   Wing span is approximately 1metre.

Their tube-nose  beak  excretes more than 90% of the salt taken in with seawater and food. It’s the tube-nose beak distinctive smell  that  helps  identify partners on their large breeding grounds. They  mostly nest around Tasmania and the islands in Bass Straight  but also off the southern and south eastern coastline  of  Australia.

They  never visit their nests in daylight,  instead they will form rafts out at sea and await dusk before returning to their rookery to feed their chicks. They will travel as far south as Antarctic for food 

Like most birds they are faithful and Loyal and return each year to be with the same mate in that same burrow - for thirty or forty years

The female always lays her single white egg between the 20^th Nov and the 2^nd December,  without fail.  Regular as clock work, and the male and female alternate the incubation of the egg.

But  in the 1840’s the Bass Straight islanders had exterminated all the seals in that region and they fell on hard times.    So they turned all their attention to that strange grey bird which appeared on their islands every September.   They knew that the bird ate Plankton,   Krill  and  Anchovies,  just like whales,  so they hoped for good oil.  They had a feast on the eggs,  plucked the feathers,  ate the flesh.. 

However when the islanders tasted the adult Shearwater it tasted like old mutton -  hence the name Mutton Bird,  but  when they tried the younger bird its flavour was  unique,  it neither tasted like fish or fowl. However I can't verify this because when we where in Tasmania  we chose not to eat the bird.    

The baby Mutton birds  ( fledglings ) are commercially harvested between March and April each year  and up to 600,000 birds are killed.

Just as well it is Australia’s most prolific bird.

Their Down is used for sleeping bags and pillows,  their fat for dairy cattle feed supplement,  their oil is used by pharmaceuticals companies  and their flesh is for human consumption.

Now before I tell you of this amazing birds migration flight,  I’d like to read you an excerpt from a book I  read a few years ago. 

Matthew Flinders sailed through the Bass Straight islands in 1798,  he noted that more than one hundred and fifty one millions birds passed over his ship in 1 ½  hrs.  And that was one flock.   

He wrote;
They where 50 to 80 yards in depth and 300 yards or more in breath.   The birds were not scattered but flying as compactly as free movement would allow.  During a full one and a half hours this stream of birds continued to pass without interruption and with the swiftness of a pigeon. 

Can you imagine that?  151,000,000   birds in  1½  hours.  Scary Hey !!   You’d think the end of the world was coming.

At the end of the breeding season,  adults and the immatures leave their nests.  They head towards New Zealand then northward,  eventually reaching the North Pacific where they spend the Australian winter.  

Young birds may remain in the north for their first year but the adults return along the west coast of North America then turn southwest. They arrive on the east coast of Australia,  having navigated a figure-eight path around the Pacific. 

From the east coast,  the Shearwaters head south to their breeding islands.  Many die along the way of starvation and exhaustion and are washed up along the  NSW beaches. 

So -  how fast do migrating birds fly ??

Well  this varies from species to species,  but  generally,  most migrating birds fly between  30 and 80 kilometres  an hour;   A good wind would increase the speed considerably. 

A bird (fledging)  banded in Bass straight in 1957 was killed by an Eskimo in the Bering Sea  (off the north Alaska coast)  having flown 15,000 kilometres -  15,000 kilometres  in less than a month.    And that was the birds first flight. 

I find that truly amazing  !

This is my tenth speech -  my last,   and hopefully my best.   

But more importantly,   I want you to think about the incredible journey that mutton bird has undergone  when next you see one lying dead and half covered with sand on your south coast beach. 

Mr Toastmaster.
.

.