Folks,
Following a phone call from a friend last night, I went this evening to
Wurundjeri Walk in Blackburn South (eastern suburb of Melbourne about 18 km
from CBD), met up with him and looked for and found a pair of Swift Parrots
that he had seen there the previous two or three evenings. (I couldn't go
last night - was at the MCG watching ducks of an unwelcome sort - Gilchrist,
Symonds & friends!) Identification was positive - one bird was viewed
through binoculars at a distance of no more than about 8 metres on a bare,
dead branch for about four minutes, before it flew into a nearby eucalypt
from which we had heard Swift Parrot calls while we watched the first
individual. Clearly saw the long, sharp tail, dusky red underneath, red
vent, shoulder and face and yellow eye. A few minutes later, when we had
moved further along the path, a pair of Swift Parrots - probably but not
necessarily the same two birds - flew overhead at canopy height, jinked
sideways between a couple of trees and disappeared, possibly into another
eucalypt. Looks like at least the odd birds have decided not to cross Bass
Strait for this summer.
I'll send a separate message to Debbie Saunders - hoping she's still the
Swift Parrot Project Officer.
It was a good little walk - in an hour we covered maybe one and a half km
and recorded thirty species, including three Lorikeet species (Rainbow, Musk
and Little), Black-fronted Dotterel and Song Thrush. Given the cool
southerly wind, the relatively recent improvements to the area in terms of
native vegetation replanting and artificial wetland enhancements, and the
number of people jogging and walking dogs, we thought it was pretty good
going.
Regards,
Jack Krohn
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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