Seasonalish and other observations

[martin butterfield <>]

This morning there was a steady stream of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters over my GBS site.  As is usual for the site the groups were small: 3 - 5 birds, heading SE towards the Hoskinstown Plain.  Mid-morning I went for a waddle to Captains Flat Road (effectively running three sides of a rectangle, totalling 4km) and similar movements ocurred throughout the "run".

Three Grey-shrike Thrushes appeared to be, very noisily, addressing issues of teritoriality in the cypress trees adjacent to our house.  The interaction was occurring low in the trees and on the ground.

Later in the day, while I was perched on our roof 5 Dusky Woodswallows appeared.  This was a first for my GBS site this year, and an addition to my all-time gutter-cleaning list.  They were hawking for insects and slowly moved off to the NE.  Before they had cleared the boundary of the site another group of 20 of the same species emerged from a neighbour's Yellow Box and entered the site, so the tally was 25!  The later flock also moved off NE and, interestingly in view of Geoffrey Dabb's comment to my post about migration of this species, well below the height of the trees on our block.  This may be an accident of topography if they were following the course  of Whiskers Creek.

In mid afternoon we were returning from Queanbeyan and Frances noticed a Laughing Kookaburra perched on an ex-kangaroo beside Captains flat Road.  While it would be tempting to say the bird was adding carrion to its diet, a review of the appropriate entry in HANZAB suggests it was probably munching on the invertebrates (and possibly reptiles) availing themselves of this food resource.

Martin