Hello birding aus,
I have just returned to this group after a four month absence. I am just
writing to say the Swift Parrot-Regent Honeyeater survey weekends are on 20-21
May and 5-6 August. Please contact me if you would like to participate.
The Swift Parrot has returned to the mainland from Tasmania, with records
already from Gippsland, Melbourne and box-ironbark areas in Victoria, and
Wisemans Ferry and Bathurst in NSW.
In Victoria the Bendigo and Maryborough forests (Central Victoria), so silent
last autumn, are brimming with life. Observations from the north-east suggest
that the reverse has occurred (these forests were full of birds in 1999)
although the Swift Parrot has been seen in box woodland at Chiltern.
Yesterday evening at Wellsford State Forest (on the eastern outskirts of
Bendigo), I decided to count all the lorikeets flying overhead. All were flying
west to a roost site. I counted 306 Musk, 119 Purple-crowned and 23 Little
Lorikeets in just over an hour, so there ie considerable activity within this
forest at the moment! I also got my first good views of Swift Parrots for this
season, with about 10 guzzling nectar from the Red Ironbark and the Yellow Gum.
You could hear a pin drop at this site 12 months ago, its always changing.
Simon Kennedy, Swift Parrot Project Officer
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