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A good days birding around Taree (NSW Hunter Region) - 7th Dec 2003

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Subject: A good days birding around Taree (NSW Hunter Region) - 7th Dec 2003
From: "Edwin Vella" <>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 05:17:00 +1100

Yesterday (Sunday 7th December 2003), myself and David Mitford enjoyed a good day?s birding in the northern part of the Hunter Region (approx. 300 - 350km north of the Sydney CBD). It was a mainly overcast and cool day but with very little rain to bother our good birding.

 

In Coopernook State Forest we saw 4 Square-tailed Kites (2 adults with 2 young), a Pacific Baza; several Little and Scaley-breasted Lorikeets and Satin Bowerbirds. The 2 young Square-tailed Kites appeared just about ready to fledge having obtained beautiful reddish brown juvenile plumage and seeing them exercising their wings every now and then. The adults were still seen dropping food for the young on the nest a couple of times and were seen perched for some time in trees close to the nest giving great views in our scopes and for David to video tape all 4 of them. It was a magic moment for us.

 

Another Square-tailed Kite was seen closer to the town of Coopernook and was a few km further down the road after we saw the previous 4. I have been told that there are 3 pairs of Square-tailed Kites at the moment in Coopernook SF.

 

Around noon, we spent a brief hour or two around Harrington seeing an Osprey; an adult male Black-necked Stork (on the edge of the lagoon behind the caravan park), a Varied Triller, Spectacled Monarch, Large-billed Scrub-wrens, White-cheeked Honeyeaters, Regent Bowerbirds (3 adult males and a female feeding in with many Figbirds), a male Leaden Flycatcher and Forest Ravens. There were still lots of figs with fruit in the patches of Littoral rainforest between Harrington and Crowdy Head.

 

Our next and final destination was Old Bar (south-east of Taree) where we saw a Brahminy Kite; 2 Beach Stone-curlews in their nesting area; 10 Pied Oystercatchers; 70 plus Pacific Golden Plovers; a few Red-capped Plovers (one gave a broken wing display as we approached it); 12 Sanderling; 100 plus Bar-tailed Godwits; 10 plus Eastern Curlews as well as 6 White-winged Black, 150 plus Little and 20 plus Common Terns. Many of the terns were probably out to see feeding as we saw less than usual on the sand spits and as the tide was moving.

 

A good day.

 

Edwin Vella

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