G’day all,
My daughter is “house-sitting” in Amaroo at
present (where she is sitting has 2 cats). This morning she rang me at 0730 to
say she had just picked up a bird she had never seen before from the houses’
back patio. She dropped the bird off at my house on her way to work. It turned
out to be an adult female Little Button-quail and was in good condition despite
loosing a few feathers from its head when (I assume) it flew into a window, and
a few deranged wing feathers where one of the cats briefly tried to grab it. Knowing
what I generally do to injured birds I was placed under strict instructions
that if the bird was ok I had to let it go. This I did (with my wife as a
witness) in the grasslands near the vet hospital behind Holt. It ran off quite
happily.
The area where the bird came from is, according to my
daughter, about 400 meters from the grasslands in Forde. Like the Zebra Finches
at Dunlop, this looks like another refugee from the drier conditions further
inland. A report will be done for the Rarities Committee.
Mark
