G,day again,
Returning from Kerang, Peter Morison and myself stopped in for a brief spot of
birding at the Terrick Terrick NP. For such a short period of time, and
considering
it was mid afternoon on a windy day in such a dry place, our bird list was
quite
impressive.
We stopped at two spots. The first was in the north-east block of the park,
along
Regals Track, off Marlow Track. Within the space of half an hour, we saw
numerous
species, many of which are regarded as members of the declining woodland bird
guild.
Peter and I call such species 'Dougies', named of course after the great Doug
Robinson, who initially shed light on the decline of many temperate woodland
species.
Birds we saw included Hooded Robin, Diamond Firetail and Gilberts Whistler,
although
the most exciting one for us was a group of 4 Chestnut-crowned Babblers. I
have been
wanting to see these birds in the Terricks for myself for some time, following
a few
earlier confirmed sightings by Chris Coleborn, Lawrie Conole, Russell Woodford
and
probably others. They were originally spotted there by the late Frank Noelker
in
about 1991, but after much searching by NRE staff at the time, the birds were
not
found until about a year ago I think. What surprises me is that there are no
babbler
nests anywhere in the vicinity of where we saw the birds. As most of you would
be
aware, all Babbler teritories contain those distinctive footy-size nests in
saplings
and outer branches of mature trees. White-broweds, Grey-crowns and other
Chestnut-crowns that I have seen have all been in areas where their nests were
conspicuous.
A list of the birds we saw follows below:
Wedge-tailed Eagle (just taking-off from a tree- fantastic!)
Peaceful Dove
Galah
Eastern Rosella
Red-rumped Parrot
Pallid Cuckoo
Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo
Rainbow Bee-eater
Brown Treecreeper
Superb Fairy-wren
Chestnut-rumped Thornbill
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
Yellow Thornbill
Southern Whiteface
White-plumed Honeyeater
Black-chinned Honeyeater
Red-capped Robin
Hooded Robin
White-browed Babbler
Chestnut-crowned Babbler
Crested Shrike-tit
Gilbert's Whistler
Rufous Whistler
Grey Shrike-thrush
Restless Flycatcher
Willie Wagtail
Grey Fantail
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
White-browed Woodswallow
Dusky Woodswallow
Australian Raven
White-winged Chough
Diamond Firetail
Mistletoebird
Tree Martin
(35 species)
Cheers,
Chris Tzaros
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
