|
Hi there all,
Yesterday I was birding in the Murray Mallee areas
of South Australia. I was about 150 km east of Adelaide trying to visit as many
un-Atlassed areas as possible over the weekend. All day I had the feeling that
one thundercloud was after me because it seemed to follow me all
afternoon.
The final 20 minute survey was near the little town of
Geranium. Heavy clouds all around, much thunder and lightning, light failing. I
went for a short walk along a narrow dirt track before retreating to the car as
the rain started. Over the 20 minutes of the survey all I saw was 2 Western Grey
Kangaroos and an Echidna.
No birds.
Zero.
Zilch.
I think I may have heard a Bronzewing but can't be sure.
Has anyone had to submit a zero Atlas sheet? This will be
my first.
The rest of the weekend was quite productive resulting in
about 20 Atlas sheets all with some birds listed on them.
Species observed were:
Little Eagle
Black Shouldered Kite
Rock Dove
Masked Lapwing
Common Bronzewing
Brush Bronzewing
Crested Pigeon
Red Rumped Parrot
Elegant Parrot
Galah
Rainbow Lorikeet
Superb Fairy Wren
Yellow Rumped Pardalote
Striated Pardalote
Yellow Rumped Thornbill
Weebill
Singing Honeyeater
White Eared Honeyeater
Yellow Plumed Honeyeater
Brown Headed Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
Red Wattlebird
White Fronted Chat
Hooded Robin
Golden Whistler
Rufous Whistler
Grey Shrike Thrush
White Browed Babbler
White Winged Chough
Willie Wagtail
Grey Fantail
Restless Flycatcher
Australian Raven
Little Raven
Dusky Woodswallow
Grey Butcherbird
Australian Magpie
Grey Currawong
Magpie Lark
Common Blackbird
Common Starling
White Backed Swallow
Welcome Swallow
Silvereye
Skylark
House Sparrow
Richard's Pipit
Tony Russell please
note: many of the areas visited covered those 10-minute grid squares
that had not been atlassed or had very few visits. Your maps in the SAOA
Newsletter were very timely as I was planning to be in that area for another
purpose.
Happy birding,
Trevor Hampel
Murray Bridge
South Australia
| 