Birders,
I've just moved into a house in Canberra, after spending the last 4
years or so in Lapstone in the Blue Mountains. Lapstone was an
incredible place for birds, with 90 birds on the house list in 4
years. Lots of dry bush birds, and the odd sighting of one of the
wetter/high altitude specialists. And a terrific array of raptors and
owlish things. I doubt we'll get the same diversity here (Downer,
suburban inner north Canberra), but at first guess the number of birds
seems pretty comporable.
The first thing I've noticed is that there's lots of big black birds,
particularly Pied Currawong, but also magpies and Aussie Raven. Not
many pigeons either, which I like. They penetrate the heart of the
City, with the morning magpie chorus in the City Walk surprisingly
nice. There are also a lot of big parrots around, and again they're
all through the city. Quite fantastically a flock of Gang-Gangs flew
over us in the Aussie National University bar one friday night, only a
couple of blocks from the CBD. Galahs and Sulphur-Crested Cockies are
absolutely everywhere, usually in flocks of 30-40. The street trees
are chock full of Crimson Rosellas and King Parrots, and LB Corella
south of the lake. Bec's seen a couple of YTBC's over toward Woden.
I quite like that the open-spaces birds here are quite different.
There's a big flock of Straw Necked Ibis right near Old Parliament
house; in the Mountains they would have been Australian Bin Ibis.
There's also a flock of Choughs pottering around the lawns and in the
pines; in the mountains they would have been Miners, or more likely
Mynahs. Come to think of it, I've hardly seen a Common Mynah here at
all.
Around the house there's some great changes. I have not seen a Noisy
Miner since we moved in, but, I haven't seen any raptors either. The
Miner's alerted me to some beauties at Lapstone, and I expect to see a
couple here, but not likely the Peregrines that so regularly caused a
stir. Only a couple of Grey Butcherbirds too, which were very common
in Lapstone. Flocks of Silvereye fly through molesting the fruit trees
regularly, Starlings do much the same, but spend more time sitting on
power wires than anything else. It took me about 10 minutes to
correctly ID some Yellow-Rumped Thornbills the other day (ahem), a
clear sign that I'm out of practise, and that they weren't common back
up the hill. I've heard YFHE's and White Plumed HE's, same for Superb
Fairies.
In general I'd say there's a lot more parrots down here, but the big
ones mostly, and less honey birds, like Noisies, Rainbow Lorries. It
might be seasonal too, so I guess I bette wait a little while before I
start making too many declarations.
--
Evan Beaver
Downer, ACT
lat=-35.24, lon=149.15
Or sometimes, Marrickville, Sydney
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
