|
Recently, someone asked where they might see Ground Cuckoo-shrikes in their
"natural" environment. We've seen these birds at the Ingalbar (I think that's
how you spell it) Nature Reserve, a few kilometres from Temora, on the Ariah
Park Road, in November 1997, September 1999 and again in September 2006.
On the last occasion, we were accompanied by a Temora cockie (wheat farmer)
who became quite excited because he mis-identified the Ground Cuckoo-shrikes as
pratincoles (!). It took Simpson & Day to convince otherwise. Subsequently,
Farmer Ralph swallowed (ground-swallowed ?) his pride, splashed out and bought a
field guide.
Last winter, my younger teena-brat photographed a Black-breasted
Buzzard perched in dead branches atop a cypress pine tree at
Ingalbar. Samantha snapped it with my 35mm SLR film camera, loaded
with supermarket ISO 400 print film, hand-held with 200mm primary lens from
about 60 metres away. Although a bit fuzzy around the edges , it's a nice
pic. In fact, it's a dead-ringer of the Black-breasted Buzzard depicted on the
spine of the dust jacket of HANZAB Volume 2.
John K. Layton.
|
