Sat 26th March
Warden head: Sat afternoon I visited
Warden Head Lighthouse and stumbled across an osprey!! It flew up from the
lookout with a large mammal (for it to carry) in its talons, possibly a young
rabbit. Although I only saw it for ~8
seconds, it was only 10m from me and I got good views of the chest collar of
brown speckles, the white throat and belly, the black stripe extending back from
its eye and the small crest. This bird had brown flecks though its white crown
and more brown specks on the chest than I remember from other birds I have seen
and I suspect it was an immature bird. I walked along a newly made trail
creeping through tea tree and startled a small mammal, most probably a bush
rat.
Ulladulla: Heathland
Reserve. Main flowers
were red tubular flowers of native fushia and also a Pimelia and yellow Banksias including coastal
banksia (Banksia integrifolia) and 'saw' banksia (B.serrata). All these flowers
supported a large number of honeyeaters, mainly dozens of New Holland
Honeyeaters and Brush Wattlebirds, plus a couple of red wattlebirds. two huge white bellied sea eagles were
circling the whole time (2 hours), One bird was noticeably larger, probably a
female, this bird was also darker and in Simpson and Day (1996) it says birds
get lighter with age. A brown
goshawk also flew over. Other birds seen 15 red browed finches and a whipbird up
close.
I had almost given up on seeing the
southern emu wren, which was the main reason I went to the reserve, and was
about the leave the heathland for the car, when I heard a wren alarm call, tziit
tziit. I waited for a minute and a male appeared out in the open, the rufous
crown actually caught my gaze and allowed me to see the bright blue face and
throat and incredibly long tail held erect. I didn't get to see the shy female,
but could hear it close bye. It was good to see these birds again, after many
years.
Benj
Whitworth
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