Currawong Highway

["Jack and Andrea Holland" <>]

Geoffrey/Julian, your observations certainly agree with mine.  I recall a number of times jogging through the former Narrabundah Hill pine plantation late on a winter's day and noticing the Pied Currawongs gathering around in the tall eucalypts scattered in between the pines.  Even though it was quite late they didn't seem to have settled yet.  I suspect that when they did do so it would have been individual birds rather than huddled together a la woodswallows.  The former is certainly my experience with Satin Bowerbirds at the pre-fires roost site in Chauvel Circle; while they milled around before suddenly settling I could never find more than one bird together.  In fact it was very hard to find even a single bird, even though you knew up to 80 were roosting over a couple of gardens.

 

The morning flight was quite spectacular, with the birds filling the sky calling loudly often in quite a narrow band, settling briefly before moving on.  I have also seen them doing a similar thing anytime during the day, again mainly autumn/winter, though usually not as many or always in the same direction, and often milling about in the trees for quite a while.  Again this is mainly in the past, Chapman seems to be relatively Pied Currawong free these days, seeing more than 4 together is quite rare (and as I've noted in the Gang-gang with poor nesting success in 2007-8).

 

Jack Holland