2) Rufus Songlarks, 1) White-winged Triller at ANU [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Anthony Overs <>]

Just to add...

A horde of woodswallows, mostly White-browed,
some Masked, descended on my aunt's place in Griffith, NSW for a few
hours last week. One shot shows at least 400 birds in the air. They
spent their time flying in and out of a gum and a bottle brush. Must
have been feeding, but my aunt could not see on what. Not sure if any
pairs stayed. 

Two pics attached.

Cheers
Anthony

2009/10/23 Geoffrey Dabb <>

Yes Marnix  -  trillers and songlarks are good examples.  Perhaps the best example is the W-browed Wswallows (sometimes with Masked) when they appear  -  maybe every 3 years.  On 4 occasions  in S Canberra esp Callum Brae I have seen large numbers suddenly arrive and feed in company, before they move on abruptly, leaving maybe a dozen nesting pairs in a good year and in a poor year only a couple.  It is as if the main cohort exhausts the readily available food and has to move on to maintain itself.  I wonder if the stayers represent more mature bids or more strongly bonded pairs.  There are a few relevant obs noted in HANZAB including from Canberra.   No sign of a woodswallow horde as yet this spring.   One view is that such influxes are pushed by dry conditions to west, which might not exist this year.

 

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