Greetings all ... Friends of ours, keen birders, had just arrived in Sydney
from Cambodia via several other locations and we wanted to begin with a few
of the local specialities. Not wanting a long drive we dropped into Royal,
our park on our doorstep, and birded the Wattle Forest picnic and bush
regeneration area I had reported on previously. Time 5.30pm-8.00pm.
How obliging can our birds be? Within ten minutes both the Sacred and the
Azure kingfisher had made themselves known, the Dollarbird had perched in
full view, a Spotted Pardalote had flown from bak cavity to an open perch
and a male Satin bowerbird had come over to inpsect the world. Perhaps the
Azure should have given us some better views, but given all the other
delights (those Cockatoos, etc) this was OK.
Within 5 metres of the actual bush we were stopped dead in our tracks by the
most open and obliging Green Catbirds I have ever seen here. A full,
close-up view of three birds calling to each other (one was making a high
piping call, not the cat-like screech), swaping from side to side so we
could see all sides, in clear view and as long as we wished.
Ten more metres, or so it seemed, we stood less than 5 metres from three
Superb Lyrebird as the male did a full chorus of its repertoire and the
female and younger bird setled into roost or scratched the leaf litter. So
open. So clear. The complaint I had was that Mike, our guest, had to retreat
to use his scope.
King parrots, a Leaden Flycatcher, two Bassian Thrush, the various Grey
Fantail, Striated thornbill and White-browed scrubwren all added to the
experience ...and Rosie did love the Brown pigeon. My only failure was in
not enticing the Eastern whipbird to do more than call from the thickets.
The wonga pigeon seemed intent on doing likewise ...
... but the place did make me seem rather clever ...I think I might need to
make appearance payments to those catbirds and lyrebirds ..
Brian Everingham
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
quotes)
|
