I cannot feel the dry thickening heat in a Canberra December without
thinking how much hotter it must be to our west. Bird-seekers are wise to
avoid Round Hill, Yathong and such places just now.
Nonetheless, having visited Binya, near Griffith, in November for the
Painted Honeyeater nesting, I found I needed to return in early December to
see the start of the fledging. This was on schedule, although many nests
had not survived the high winds. On the second occasion, with the luck of
the cycle, it was not too hot. The height of the insect-eater breeding had
passed, for example for the trillers and the woodswallows.
To me, three species are typical of those parts, and in a good year for
them - like this one - they are about in numbers, wherever there is suitable
habitat. These are budgerigars, white-browed woodswallows, and crimson
chats. I suppose I should say 4 species, because the WB Woodswallows often
are - and were - accompanied by a few Masked.
The hordes of woodswallows were enjoying emergences of large insects. In one
woodland area it was cicadas. At other places it was plague locusts, with
juveniles joining in the locust-bashing, particularly along the roads where
they might have been picking up disabled or freshly-killed insects.
As for the chats, I am convinced that, for some reason, these insect-eaters
like to be around scattered - not dense - Paterson's Curse. As I recall, on
the occasion a couple of years ago when Joe Forshaw found the chats at
Yerrabi Pond they were also feeding in patches of 'Curse'. It might just be
the structure, or it might be a good insect attractor. Trillers, too, seem
to like to forage in it, both in Canberra and elsewhere, so perhaps it's a
larva host for something common.
Geoffrey Dabb
email :
ph/fax : 02 6295 3449
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