Had a few good days in the COG Area of Interest within Deua National
Park where we camped in Berland Campground. Surveyed 7 grid cells. Some
of these were repeats of April 2007 and it was great to see the migrants
in full swing this time around.
Best birds were: Pilotbird, Wonga Pigeon, Satin Flycathcher, Rufous
Fantail and Olive Whistler. The singing of the Lyrebirds was a treat.
The single Painted Button-quail was 200 metres to the south of the COG
area of interest. chiz. Breeding: Eastern Yellow Robin (dy) and (ny),
Satin Flycatcher (on), Red Wattlebird (on) and (dy), Pied Currawong
(ny), Welcome Swallow (on) Striated Thornbill (dy) Eastern Spinebill
(dy) Scarlet Robin (on) Magpie (dy) and Brown Thornbill (dy). Two of
the Rufous Fantails were defending a territory but we could find no sign
of a nest.
From our tent we heard: Owlet Nightjar, Boobook, Tawny Frogmouth and
Powerful Owl. We think that the farm dog we heard was a farm dog and not
a Barking Owl.
The Welcome Swallows are practically engaged in colony nesting
behaviour in the Big Hole - we saw several examples of birds (on).
We got quite close to a pair of Lyrebirds. Finally, the female flushed
emitting a loud shriek-type noise. Almost immediately afterwards, the
male rushed out, emitted a shriek-type noise and it then ran up the
hill, away from us, repeated the shriek-type noise and fanning his tail
everytime he did so.
We came across a pair of Spotted Quail-thrush. They were behaving as if
we were very close to their young or to their nest. They did not
disappear rapidly in the distance but stayed within three or four metres
of us. The female executed three stagey 'flushes' landing a metre or so
further each time. There was a lot of high-pitched but quite low decibel
calling between the male and the female. We did a quick search but no
luck on the breeding record side. We did get beautiful close-up views of
both birds.
We noticed quite a few weekenders in the area which were closed and were
amused to see that the letterbox of one of these was being occupied by a
Common Starling.
There were plenty of goannas including one so large that it gave 'fight
or flee' some serious consideration. To our relief it chose 'flee',
albeit grudgingly. There were many Swamp and Red-necked Wallabies,
several echidnas and a humungous group of down-hill crashing quadrupeds
- (deer, pigs, goasts?) . Quite near the camp we saw in our torchlight
what was very probably a Yellow-bellied Glider.
It was good to see that the farming country was still green with good
stands of grass. More sobering, the African Broom tragedy that will
overwhelm the Shoalhaven Valley is well-advanced on where it was a few
years ago.
Con
*******************************************************************************************************
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra
Ornithologists Group.
Please ensure that emails posted to the list are less than 100 kb in size.
List-Post: <>
List-Help: <>
List-Unsubscribe: <>
List-Subscribe: <>
List archive: <http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds>
List manager: David McDonald, email
<>
|
