Hello everyone,
I have just returned from my annual 2-week stint of bird surveying with a group
of 10 volunteers at Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary (a vast property owned by
Australian Wildlife Conservancy 350km NW of Alice Springs). The birds there
were just amazing. I haven't had a chance to work with the figures yet, but
there were several times as many birds as last year - which was itself a bumper
year. We confirmed three new species for the reserve - White-browed
Woodswallow, Red-chested Buttonquail and Square-tailed Kite - but it was just
the sheer abundance of the bird life that was so extraordinary. Most remarkable
were the many sightings of Spinifexbird in a variety of spinifex habitats. This
was a bird we had recorded at only one small old-growth location in 2009 and
2010. Other 'goodies' were Freckled Duck, Black-eared Cuckoo, Ground
Cuckoo-shrike and one flock (amongst many) of 60 Pied Honeyeaters. Strangely
not recorded were Grey Honeyeater, Grey Falcon and Redthroat, but these are
always rare species in the area. I am sure the reserve managers Joe and Danae
would love to welcome birders to share the current abundance. We encourage
those with some experience of outback birds to do some 20-minute surveys at a
selected sample of our sites - both for the the benefit of the BA Atlas and for
AWC. Danae can give you the details.
Best regards, Richard
Richard Jordan
PO Box 449
Bellingen
NSW 2454
tel (02) 6655 9456
mob 042 838 5677
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