Dear Alan and others
I'd be grateful for your views on a couple of sightings made in northern
NSW last weekend.
We were at a property called "Brooklyn" out of Urbanville/Woodenbong. It was
basically a 4WD driving course, but of course I was birding as well.
Sunday morning (1 Dec, c. 7.30am), I was waiting outside the toilet block,
without binos or even
spec, when a large greyish bird flew by, making a mew, mew call. At the
time I
was stumped - it wasn't a bird of prey, or a parrot or pigeon and later
I've come
to think that it was most likely a Ground Cuckoo-shrike. It was certainly
about that
size, i.e. larger than a Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike and the general
colouring, flight and
call would fit although I didn't get a great look at it. The habitat was
varied, Eucalypt/
Angophora woodland/forest with patches of rainforest but also a fair bit of
more open (heavily
grazed) fields. Not exactly the habitat I've seen GCShrikes in before, but
I guess not
impossible.
The old Atlas shows few records from this area but I'm sure you have more
up to date
info.
The second species was Little Corella, no doubt here about the id, we
stopped on the road
back to Urbanville on the Sunday afternoon and had a good look at them with
binos.
There was a flock of about 50 in a field next to the road, feeding on the
fallen seeds of Hoop Pine.
I was particularly interested in this because I've earlier recorded both
Little and Long-billed
Corellas feeding on Hoop Pine seeds in the St Lucia campus of University of
Queensland
(Sunbird 31: 30-32, 2001). So it was interesting to see a "rural" flock
doing the same thing.
Again the old Atlas shows few records of Little Corella from this area but,
as in Qld, they may
have moved to the coast.
Your comments please.
Peter Woodall
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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