canberrabirds

Early birds at Campbell Park

To: "Canberra Birds" <>
Subject: Early birds at Campbell Park
From: "John Layton" <>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:42:21 +1100
"Yes, if you call me at 0500 tomorrow, we can go birding at Campbell Park by 6 o'clock," I said in response to an overture at dinner last Friday evening, thinking that would be the last I'd hear of it. But no.
 
0450 hours Saturday, a petite twit entered my sleeping quarters and beat a mega-decibel reveille on the base of an empty biscuit tin. "Surprise! Surprise! Wakie, wakie, shine and rise!" she hollered. I reached down for a boot to chuck but the perpetrator scarpered.
 
Campbell Park proved bountiful by dawn's early light. Ten White-winged Choughs with 4 begging young in tow. Pallid Cuckoo. 'bout 7 Brown-headed Honeyeaters. An apparent crèche of screechy young Galahs, probably 'bout 20. Three King parrots. A lone Musk Lorikeet in a Yellow Box tree, it wasn't feeding or calling, just sitting still although it changed perches three times during the 5 minutes we watched before flying off towards Mt Ainslie. A Restless Flycatcher hovering and grinding its scissors. Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike on minuscule nest.
 
Near the horse bars, a White-throated Treecreeper working up a tree. "Augurs well for Brown Treecreepers that used to be hereabouts," a junior authority on such matters ventured. Then, bless my binos, 5 minutes later, on a dead windfall, we saw a single Brown Treecreeper. Junior Audubon was extremely choughed ... I mean chuffed.
 
Three Speckled Warblers ground feeding accompanied by Yellow and Buff-rumped Thornbills. A Leaden Flycatcher feeding 2 fledglings. Three Southern Whitefaces, 2 Common Bronzewings and a few very vociferous Grey Shrike-thrush.
 
A cacophony of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos began hurrying hither and thither as Pied Currawongs sounded the war tocsins. "Raptor alert! Check the skies," I advised. And so it came to pass, Papa Audubon was right, and we watched a Wedge-tail Eagle fly over on high.
 
A Rock Dove flapped by, about four metres above the deck. It seemed to be having engine trouble. Then its navigational equipment failed as it collided slap-bang with the foliage of a Blakely's Redgum, making no discernible attempt to execute a proper landing. It tumbled down and squatted on the ground looking very much under the weather. As we approached, it staggered into the air and weaved away, scarcely clearing the top of a fence. Then it appeared to buy the farm as it dove (well, it was a dove) headlong into the grass. We wondered what local building managers were spiking the pigeon bait with of late.
 
A fox trotted down the track and didn't notice us until it was 20 metres away. It fled, ran up a fence stay, jumped off the strainer post and disappeared into the undergrowth. "Foxes have very poor eyesight and that one was careless 'cause it approached with the breeze coming from behind so it never saw or scented us until late," a brat, who claims some expertise in the field of foxes, explained. She recently read Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon. Loved all the horse talk but not so the parts where the hounds caught Reynard, tore him asunder and left him strewn about like a bowl of spilt raspberry yogurt.
 
John K. Layton
 
PS. Noon today seven Superb Parrots flew across the extreme north-western sector of Holt heading south-west.
 
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