Today was the annual ‘A Day in the Bay’ competition, a big day contained within the Hobsons Bay LGA.

I was competing with Jonathan T in both the three-hour birding category. Our plan, which we practiced a week ago, was simple: start early and move fast.

We began the day at 7.06 at Doug Grant Reserve. It was clear but chilly, especially with the wind coming off the bay. The low tide was rewarding: we found 33 species in the mudflats along the shore, including large numbers of pied stilt, banded stilt and red-necked avocet. Very happily we got a few uncommon ticks here, including bar-tailed godwit, curlew sandpipers, hoary-headed grebe and Australian shelduck.

From here we jumped in the car and raced across the Laverton Creek mouth to Truganina Park, which we started at 7.36. We spent 47 minutes here, our longest time in a single site, but it was worth it: we added 22 species, including white-faced heron, great egret, Australian pelican, long-billed corella, striated fieldwren, golden-headed cisticola and a rufous whistler. A royal spoonbill helpfully flew over and descended into the eastern marshes. We were also the only group to observe striated pardalote on the day, which we found here among a flock of house sparrows.

We ran into a few other groups, including Joshua G, though none competing with us in the three hour period. Truganina Park brought our total for the morning up to 55.

Ducking back over the creek, we arrived at Truganina Swamp at 8.28. In 17 minutes we added another five species here: Australasian shoveler, marsh sandpiper, common greenshank, great crested grebe and Eurasian coot. Here we dipped on two birds we had seen the week previously and were counting on – hardhead and fairy martin – though a bigger dip was yet to come. We also had a flock of corellas fly over but couldn’t ID them – they were probably long-billed, but little would have been another tick. Truganina Swamp brought us to 60.

Our next major stop was the Racecourse Road Ford over the Kororoit Creek. On the way there we picked up a common myna (61) and rock dove (62). At 8.54 we paused briefly on the Altona Road crossing over the Cherry Creek when something big and white grabbed my attention. There were actually two big white birds that we added here: Australian white ibis (63) and little egret (64) mixed in with a lot of gulls and grey teals down in the mud of the creek.

We arrived at the Racecourse Road Ford at 8.58. We added great cormorant (65), but it was mostly a bust. We had been hoping for a mistletoebird, buff-banded rail, crake or dotterel here, but no luck.

We had two more stops where we knew that we’d find more.

The first was Jawbone Flora Reserve, which we reached at 9.09. We didn’t travel far here, parking on Crofton Drive and walking about 300m to the pond. We got what we came for here with pied cormorants, blue-billed ducks, Australasian swamphen, Australian reed warbler and an Australasian darter. Out on the sand banks in the bay itself we managed to spot three more: Australian pied oystercatcher, which we expected, and Pacific gull and sooty oystercatcher, which we did not. We spent 14 minutes here and added eight for 73 species.

At 9.30 we got to the the last stop of the day: Newport Lakes. We did a quick lap, starting at the ampitheatre, adding Australian spotted crake, sacred kingfisher, white-browed scrubwren, golden whistler and brown thornbill. Right before the buzzer at 10.06 a little wattlebird dropped down to feed right in front of us, becoming our 79th and final bird for the morning.

We had a couple of dips at Newport: Australasian grebe can often be found here, and very sadly I heard a grey butcherbird call and Jonathan did not, so we couldn’t count that. Other species we dipped on across the day include hardhead, fairy martin, black-shouldered kite, brown falcon, swamp harrier, pink-eared duck, buff-banded rail and black-fronted dotterel. Freckled duck, collared sparrowhawk, black-tailed nativehen and purple-crowned lorikeet eluded us during our competiton time, but when we casually went to Cherry Lake later for some photography, we found all of them. Bizarrely, no team on the day found a maned duck.

The most painful miss though was at Truganina Swamp a few hours after we left. Multiple teams there at around 11.00 saw two brolgas fly in and land in the inaccessible northern section of the swamp, only the second ever record of the bird in Hobsons Bay and a remarkable finding. We did venture back in the afternoon but sadly they had either moved on or were hiding in the tall reeds there.

Those misses ended up being decisive: we came second in the three-hour competition, losing 79-80 to the now four-time winners Anthony P, Liz A and Jack K, competing as Crake Expectations. It won’t happen again!

Still, it was a fantastic day. I brought my Hobsons Bay life list up to 108 from 80, and added two global lifers in banded stilt and marsh sandpiper. Can’t wait for next year.