Yesterday morning I had a dollarbird at my GBS site in Hawker and on
Tuesday morning had a Common Koel and about 50 silvereyes flew through from the
N East heading South West. A couple of weeks ago I had a noisy
friarbird.
Other than that my recording of new GBS species has been minimal
recently.
This may be due in part to a super aggressive magpie that swoops me as
soon as I get out into the front yard. I haven’t been seriously swooped since I
was 16, but this bird swoops me even when I am looking directly at it (highly
unusual)! I think it got very angry that I was focussing on its nest with my
binoculars- trying to see inside the nest. It doesn’t seem to swoop anyone else,
and it has made surveying my GBS site dangerous and miserable over the past 2
weeks.
Last Thursday, a currawong in our yard gave the chuck wee call from 4:30
am to 6:45pm, every 10 seconds. I think this is the call John Leonard heard
although disagree with Geoffrey, I think it is a different call. After over 14
hours of constant calling, very loudly, I wish I had a gun, either to kill the bird or
myself- I had such a headache. The call continued in my head for quite a while
after the bird stopped. When it started up again the next morning I was not
happy. But, by the next day most of the currawongs had left. I have recorded
22-28 currawongs in my GBS site for the past 3 or so months. But numbers are
now only about 5 or 6.
Benj Whitworth.
