Eye of the hylacola. This was an adult bird, I believe.
From: Tobias Hayashi
[
Sent: Thursday, 17 December 2009 10:29 AM
To:
Cc: Dan Mantle; Julian Robinson
Subject: [canberrabirds] Two Elusive Birds
I
went looking for the Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens at Pierces Creek forest early
this morning and was rewarded with one decent view.
I
headed out nice and early, and was out there looking for them by 6am. I saw one
within 20 minutes, low down in a bush in the general area that they have been
seen before. It was a very lucky sighting: I thought I detected some movement
in the bushes ahead, and upon lifting my bins to investigate, I was rewarded
with about 5 seconds view of a nice CRHW. This was around 10m away, through
many intervening branches and foliage.
After
that, around 6:30am, several birds started calling, although most of them only
called with snatches of song, not very long or loud. In fact, a lot of them
were doing mimicry, and I'm pretty sure they gave Silveryes and E Goldfinches a
go, both very expertly mimiced. I ended up having 2 or three more glimpses of
the birds as they either flew away or bounced out of view. No more views
through the bins. This calling lasted for about half an hour, before all went
silent again and I couldn't locate them again.
Throughout,
no call playback used.
Whilst
searching for the CRHW, I also stumbled across several Painted Button-Quail (there
were at least two). In fact, once I was moving so slowly and quietly (chasing
CRHWs) that a PBG walked straight past me, giving me very nice views of this
elusive bird. I flushed it/them several more times, and from around 6:20-7:10am
they were calling as well.
I
was very pleased to get to see these two elusive birds, both extremely hard to
get good views of in this area. The heathwren was a lifer for me, which was
great.
Just
one question: do some CRHWs have dark eyes? (as in juveniles, or some
individuals?) The bird that I got good views of certainly looked like it had
dark eyes, although all the material I can get my hands on suggests that they
normally have pale eyes. I am certain it was a CRHW, no doubt about that. Maybe
it was the low light or the distance or the many branches in between?
