Black Honeyeaters, Masked Woodswallow, Little Friarbirds

["Marnix Zwankhuizen" <>]

I had good views of the female Black Honeyeater for 5 minutes from 7.30pm today. It was perched again in the large Blakely's Red Gum SW of the dam. As before conditions were warm, sunny and dead calm. I watched it sally forth three times to catch insects and in between it sat preening.  With the sun's rays on it I could see a vague brown or dirty smudge down its breast tapering to a point, like that of the male's black breast. This was about 10-15 minutes after I had briefly seen the male bird some 100 metres to the NE in the top of a dead eucalypt among mistletoe.

 

Other birds in addition to all those already mentioned by others included a female Masked Woodswallow and a young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo being fed by a Buff-rumped Thornbill.

 

There was also a pair of vocal Little Friarbirds in eucalypts along the reserve fenceline only some 150 metres north of houses in Gungahlin and the traffic of Horse Park Drive.

 

Cheers

Marnix