Corellas and night happenings in Callum Brae

["Geoffrey Dabb" <>]

The ibis roosting seems to be both a seasonal and a cyclical thing.  One year there were regularly 200+ birds in a single tree in the old ‘zoo’, a marginal and now-defunct tourist attraction excised from the CB rural lease.  (This might have been in the telephone chat days.)  Then they extended more into Callum Brae proper, and then began to degrade the upper limbs of the roost trees very seriously, creating some of the dead limbs now used as vantage points by Dollarbirds etc.   I suppose the numbers of ibis must depend on what food is available in local foraging grounds.  There were certainly large numbers of this notorious scavenger in the Mugga Lane tip at the same time as the roosting concentrations occurred.   I had assumed that current waste management practices had reduced that bonanza, but perhaps not.    

 

From: Julian Robinson [
Sent: Tuesday, 28 August 2007 6:16 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Corellas and night happenings in Callum Brae

 

I was with Cassandra Morrow last night at Callum Brae and we observed some wonderful sights. In chronological and wowness-to-us order -

- a mixed sp pair of Long-billed and Little Corellas, back in the same tree as last year.

- the same (? presumably, can't be too many around) trio as last year, two Long-bills and a Little Corella 'attendant', also in their same tree as last year.

- we happened to see one of the long bills sitting at the entrance to their hollow, looking out at the world with the near-full moon directly behind.  It was wonderful to see, a kind of story book thing and after gaping I got busy with camera. 

- I've often wondered where exactly all the corellas roost at night, so it was interesting to see that as we stayed later, the whole bunch appeared to turn up and start settling down near the entrance to Callum Brae.  But no sooner started than the most astonishing sight of wave after wave of White Ibises coming in from all directions and settling in the same general area, so that the Corellas ended up dispersing to some extent.  The Ibises were great to watch, each wave of 30+ birds would attempt to settle in the same inky-black trees that were already full, there would be a temporary agitation and lots of noise, some birds would fly to other trees, thing would quieten to general shuffling and croaking until the next wave arrived.  We saw 7 of these flights arrive, and there were actually some in place before we first noticed what was happening, so estimate 300+ birds roosting right at the entrance to the nature park.  I've never seen anything like this close to home before, it was spectacular and strange in that setting, such big birds in dry woodland trees, and so many.

If anyone is reading this soon after I post it, remember there is total moon eclipse starting around 6:30 tonight and the weather looks good.

Small pics - bigger ones on flickr...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/1255448449/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/1256309472/