canberrabirds

Black Mountain Nature Reserve 6 April

To: "Canberra Birds" <>
Subject: Black Mountain Nature Reserve 6 April
From: "John Layton" <>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 20:25:04 +1000
We arrived at Frith Road (rear of ANBG) at 7:30am yesterday for a bird walk in the Black Mountain Nature Reserve. Soon as we got out of the ute we saw three Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos rowing along overhead, then four Gang-Gang Cockatoos creaked down from up the mountain and descended into the gardens.
 
Throughout one-and-three-quarter hours we saw 33 species. Further highlights: 3 Scarlet Robins, two more Gang-gang Cockatoos, two Tawny Frogmouths perched on a dead branch. After the brats got over their initial fascination they started, "Is it frogmouths or frogmice? [!] And they are not tawny, they're grey so are they a sub-species or a morph? And I know a girl who thinks Owlet Nightjars are baby frogmouths, what do you think of that? Does a frogmouth take frogs? Does ..." "Pipe down!" I growled kindly, "and look at HANZAB when we get home." I'll never take them birding again, they drive a poor bloke nuts.
 
Four Speckled Warblers feeding with seven Yellow-rumped Thornbills, three Buff-rumped Thornbills and two White-browed Scrub Wrens. A seemingly large party of 17 White-winged Choughs. A pair of quail scrambled out of a patch of dead fall and zoomed away keeping low (~ 1.5m)  to the ground. We bet they were Painted Button Quail but have never seen the species in the ACT except on Mt Ainslie/Mt Majura. Three male Golden Whistlers and, at various places, six Rufous Whistlers, all males. A lost-looking Diamond Dove. Seven King Parrots. Grey Fantails seemed ubiquitous, saw about ten and, back at the car park, a "ballerina bird" i.e. a Rufous Fantail pirouetted within a metre of the bitumen. We saw twelve White-naped Honeyeaters foliage-foraging together with three White-eared Honeyeaters and a few White-plumed Honeyeaters but no Yellow-faced Honeyeaters.
 
During our walk we saw numerous Meadow Argus Butterflies passing through the area. We understand they're a widely spread species but wonder if they're migratory to some extent.
 
Crested Pigeons are now an avian fixture in Canberra, but during the past two weeks local numbers seem to have increased markedly. It's not unusual to see groups of 30-plus perched on power cables out back of the house. Then, at 4:30pm today, I counted 52 on the cables and there were about another 20 sitting on neighbouring roofs.
 
John Layton
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