I spent about 4 hours kayaking around Burley Griffin bird
watching this morning: several Australian Grebe, a pair of Dollar Birds, a
cackle of Noisy Friars, Eastern Swamphens with three very small self-propelled
young, several groups of Yellow Tailed Blacks, a flight of 25-30 black
cormorants (but they were too far away for me to get a good look), and the
usual darters, Silver Gulls etc (No Bitterns!)
There were two sets of bird calls that I’d like people’s
suggestions as to what they could be.
I was near a clump of reeds near the Acacia Inlet sites where
the Little Bittern has been seen.
I heard this odd call coming from a clump of reeds over a
period of 10 minutes. The call consisted of a short, melodious whistle that
went up in pitch then down (a continuous call, not separate notes like a Cuckoo)
followed immediately by an insect like rasping noise. The whistle
call lasted about 1-2 second, and the insect noise for a bit longer. I saw
several Eastern Swamphen in the area, but it didn’t sound
like any of the calls I had associate with them.
The other call consisted of a click sound followed by two
(mournful) notes each of the same constant pitch. This was repeated over and
over, with an occasional break. On one occasion there was a single call, and on
another the pitch of the two notes was a bit higher than the usual call. This
was one of the few stretches of reed where I I didn’t see any Clamorous
Reed warblers (but it didn’t sound like any of their calls).
Any suggestions on what birds these could be?
Roy
was further towards
