highlights, SEQ, 500m

highlights, SEQ, 500m

12 July - 27 September

Weather:- From the coldest winter, through spring, to early summer. Though Brisbane's dams have now reached about 35 per cent, up here we had our kindest winter yet, in terms of occasional rains, and the Dry did not begin until September.

As it's been an entire quarter since I last wrote about Ocean View / Mt Mee, I'll go by dates...

12 July -  On this day I was surprised to see a STRAW-NECKED IBIS being dive-bombed by a MAGPIE.

16 July -  A WOMPOO FRUIT-DOVE sitting beautifully in the MBFig, just outside our sunroom.

        M1's bower is up, still in the old overgrown site - the weather's been a little drier the past week or two.

17 July -  Found at last! - M2's bower, which I always knew was somewhere on next-door's place. It  proves to be in an open/edge position, and is a large, handsome structure.

        Also, a FAN-TAILED CUCKOO seen today.

25 July -  This afternoon the Wompoo Fruit-Dove called once from a strange position, somewhere down near M1's bower, away from its fig-tree roost. Up on the road this evening, there was much to-do between GALAHs and RAINBOW LORIKEETs - perhaps disputing a possible nest tree?

26 July -  Found the Wompoo Fruit-Dove, dead, right next to M1's bower.

28 July -  This year the PALE-HEADED ROSELLAs seem to be feeding much more in the MBFig than ever before.

2 August -  Well, what with the unseasonal rains, and the overgrown garden-bed, and the BRUSH TURKEY, and now the dead fruit-dove, M1 has at last moved his bower. He has constructed a most beautiful basket-shape, in the next garden bed, slightly uphill and closer to some cypresses. The bower once again is aligned north-south, and has backing on three sides, being in an open-edge position, allowing the sun to fall on it for a brief period in late afternoon.

        BOOBOOKs calling.

3 August -  Green BOWERBIRDs eating Grevillea flowers.

5 August -  Well, M1's magnificent bower is down, and there's much flurry of green birds back & forth to it.

        A silent Fan-tailed Cuckoo. (On this day last year, a silent FtC was seen being chased by a possible Brush Wattlebird.)

12 August -  A WILLIE WAGTAIL! Haven't seen one for ages.

15 August -  A mixed flock of WHITE-BROWED SCRUBWRENs and RED-BROWED FIRETAILs.

18-24 August -  This page of the diary is just packed with entries, from 2003-2005. Many of this year's notes simply say 'ditto', with an arrow to last year's entry. Hard to know what makes the seasonal difference in just this one week...

        There are eucalypt trees in bloom, and the figtree continues to fig. Rainbow Lorikeets increase exponentially; birds calling include PHEASANT COUCAL, TAWNY FROGMOUTHs, and Boobooks, antiphonally. Birds seen but silent include WHIPBIRD and Fan-tailed Cuckoo. A Rainbow Lorikeet comes to ground right in front of a young Magpie - is the parrot teasing?

        Regular as clockwork is the purr of thousands of bees in the Liquidambar, and the return of the FIGBIRDs (though the figtree has been in fruit for ages). Green bowerbirds crowd in too, on time. And the magnificent new bower is up again.

30 August -  Frogmouths still oom-ing. Also Boobooks. And... Barn Owl?

31 August -  All sorts of birds are feeding on the trunk of the MBFig. And the PACIFIC BAZA is easily seen. The insects must be rising.

10 September -  BLACK-FACED CUCKOO-SHRIKEs very vocal.

11 Sept -  Perhaps the BROWN CUCKOO-DOVEs are breeding in the cypresses...?

12 Sept -  MISTLETOEBIRDs! Lovely.

15 Sept -  Two Bazas are sitting low down, in a Jacaranda by the drive. Last year too, on the 22nd, a Baza came down low, onto the gatepost, and closely examined a human for quite some time - eyeball-to-eyeball.

18 Sept -  SILVEREYEs heard. A GREY GOSHAWK perched, holding firmly to its dead prey, while being dive-bombed by NOISY MINERs and PIED CURRAWONGs, then chased from tree to tree for a while.

        The bower is down, after a big windstorm.

19 Sept -  The bower's back up!

        A GREY BUTCHERBIRD is sitting on a very neat nest down the bottom among the gumtrees.

20 Sept -  The White-browed Scrubwrens begin building a nest of sugar-cane mulch, at the base of a rose-bush, inside a fence, under a little tree - but this endeavour is abandoned by the next day.

22 Sept -  Pheasant Coucal heard again.

24 Sept -  Another Wompoo Fruit-Dove has appeared in the MBFig. Let's hope its fate is better than the last one's.

        M1 seems to be away, and meanwhile his bower is destroyed by green birds and by the Brush Turkey/s.

25 Sept -  Our first SPANGLED DRONGO for the season!

        And M1 is back. He rebuilds - this time, for the first time ever, with a 'third wall'! This runs parallel with the bower north-south, along his one unprotected side (the westerly), but is not high enough to shade the bower itself in the afternoon. Is he hoping to repel the Brush Turkey with this spindly arrangement?

        Meanwhile, over in the MBFig tree, the female Figbirds are chasing the green bowerbirds incessantly. The female Figbird sits with her tail wagging up and down. It looks like the faster that tail is moving the more agitation/warning she is expressing, and the more likely she is to give chase. It's a mystery why the bowerbirds flee, since they are bigger...?

25 Sept -  On this day, I heard M1 giving his 'advertising' bleat/squawk. (Last year I first heard this on 21 August.) This peculiar call may begin earlier - could be easily missed by the human ear.

        A male VARIEGATED FAIRY-WREN in full plumage passed through.

...

Looking back over this 'report', I see that you can see the seasons changing in it.

Cheers,

Judith.