As indicated earlier by others on the chat line and now by Sandra Henderson, we have seen quite a bit of movement of White-browed-/Masked Woodswallows through our region and also first reports of birds staying to breed.
Some of my recent visits to a couple of sites outside the ACT indicated the following pattern:
Near Gundaroo: in October larger feeding flock (300), species absent until End of November when just 2 birds were present, mid December 20 pairs, each holding a small territory, and warning when approached; over 5 days numbers dropped to 7 pairs which are still present, birds are now feeding young in nests.
In the Lake Bathurst area one site had 3 pairs in late November, and 8 pairs in late December, and a further 20 pairs distributed over 4 other sites where the species was not present before. The largest group was composed of 12 pairs, all busily nesting in pines; also 2 pairs of Masked Woodswallows with them, although I could not work out whether they where also trying to nest.
Michael Lenz
