Was delivering goods to the soon to be opened Juvenile Correction Centre on Wells Station Rd, Mitchell today when a not too common call got my attention! Unfortunately, the perimeter fencing does not conduce to birdwatching, nor escaping and a subsequent lap of the outside perimeter track did not visually confirm the species. Call was definitely that of the Brush Cuckoo, a spp I would not expect to find here in straggly box woodland NW of the centre, but a nice morning surprise nonetheless. There are also some shallow (ephemeral?) ponds around the centre which may be worth watching in future...
Regards
Stuart Harris
PS happy blitzing for the weekend!
"Everything is relative, everything is valid!"
From:
To:
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:42:04 +1000
Subject: [canberrabirds] First recorded Common Blackbird in ACT
I note that the first recorded sighting of a Common Blackbird in the ACT
was in August 1949 (Wilson 1999) and seem to recall – source now forgotten – it
was reported from an Acton garden by Mrs.Ratcliffe wife of F. N. Ratcliffe, who
was with the then CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research, and I think he
became chief of the Division. Does anyone know a reference that would confirm
this as I'm planning an essay about the Common Blackbird in Australia and
may like to include this information. Ratcliffe also wrote what became a bit of
an Australian classic, Flying Fox and Drifting Sand.
John K. Layton
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