G'day birders
I recently posted a similar item on a more local birder's list
(Birding Northern Beaches), but I know that there will be some
Birding-Aus people who might find the following of interest. This
site is never visited by any birders to the best of my knowledge (I'm
there every week and have never even seen a human footprint on the
trails until yesterday). Because nobody on the northern beaches list
knew about it, I'd hate to leave the area one day and think that
nobody knew about it or shared in the birds which are there.
Garigal National Park is in the Sydney northern beaches hinterlands
and, apart from providing a very rich and varied series of habitats
also acts as healthy catchment for a number of creeks and rivers in
the area. The park is a patchwork of several areas, some of which are
surrounded by suburbia or light industrial areas. The result is that
some sections of the park are full of weeds and I've seen good (bad)
numbers of foxes in some too.
One part of the park in particular is excellent. It is the section
which flanks Mona Vale Road and The Forest Way. It runs in a
continuous sweep down to Narrabeen Lakes and feeds water to Deep
Creek and maybe Middle Creek in the lower sections.
My favourite walk here is one where the entrance is just south of the
lights on the corner of Mona Vale Rd and the Forest Way. There's a
large traffic island adjacent to the entrance (on the Forest Way) and
it provides excellent parking between the two lanes and is quite safe
and, I'm pretty sure, not illegal.
The forest in this section has a fairly closed canopy at around 10
metres and consists of Sydney Peppermints, Red Bloodwoods,
Stringybarks, Sydney Scribbly Gums and Angophora costatas. The
understory varies but is mostly fairly dense. Common vegetation are
Hakeas, Geebungs, Acacia, Banksias, Christmas Bush, Leptosperms and
plenty of other goodies for the discerning botanist. The track is on
an escarpment and runs half way into the valley. Some areas of the
valley walls have dense stands of Banksia ericafolia, providing a
nice ecotone which seems a haven for many honeyeaters. Many (and I
mean many) bloodwoods are massively scarred with Sugar Gliding feed
cuts - many of these are very fresh. I bumped into the only person
whom I've met on this trail in a year of weekly surveys yesterday: a
student doing an honours thesis on Antechinids. She said she was
stunned by the numbers of Antechinids she was trapping as well as
Bush Rats, several Dunnarts, Bandicoots and even a Sugar Glider
(elliot trap on the ground). Her "feeding mammal abundance
experiments" indicated a high level of activity. We both agreed that
the Sugar Glider numbers here were very large indeed, given the
amount of foraging activity in evidence.
My bird list for the area is below. It's mostly Sydney staples but
the abundance is way above average. Several species which are common
here are rare or non-existent or difficult to find in the parks and
reserves of the northern beaches, such as the Striated Thornbill,
Superb Lyrebird (a once-off on this trail but have heard them calling
lower down), Varied Sitella and Crested Shrike-tit (also a once-off).
Glossy Black-Cockatoos can turn up anywhere in the locality, but this
is the only place I've seen them. This track is only around 2.5 to
3km long so, given my list, it's not too bad at all. As stated above,
the abundance is the best on the northern beaches in my view but you
need to get there before the cicadas strike up in the warmer months.
Right now the Stringybarks and some Sydney Peppermints are in flower
so the treetops right across the forest are alive with masses of
honeyeaters and many acanthizids are taking advantage of the
increased insect numbers too. Try it soon, you'll like it.
Australian Brush-turkey
Australian White Ibis (flying over)
Brown Goshawk
White-bellied Sea-Eagle (flying over)
Little Eagle (flying over)
Peregrine Falcon (flying over)
Masked Lapwing (flying over)
Glossy Black Cockatoo
Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (flying over)
Galah (flying over)
Rainbow Lorikeet
Crimson Rosella
Eastern Rosella
King Parrot (flying over)
Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Horsefield's Bronze Cuckoo
Koel
Channel-billed Cuckoo (flying over)
White-throated Needletail (flying over)
Laughing Kookaburra
Sacred Kingfisher
Dollarbird
Superb Lyrebird
White-throated Treecreeper
Superb Fairy-wren
Variegated Fairy-wren
Spotted Pardalote
Rockwarbler
White-browed Scrubwren
Brown Thornbill
Striated Thornbill
Red Wattlebird
Little Wattlebird
Noisy Friarbird
Noisy Miner (flying over)
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
White-eared Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
Eastern Spinebill
Rose Robin
Eastern Yellow Robin
Eastern Whipbird
Varied Sitella
Crested Shrike-tit
Rufous Whistler
Golden Whistler
Grey Shrike-thrush
Grey Fantail
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Olive-backed Oriole
Grey Butcherbird
Magpie Lark
Pied Currawong
Australian Raven (flying over)
Red-browed Finch
Welcome Swallow (flying over)
Silvereye
Happy Birding
Ricki Coughlan
Belrose, Sydney
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