lots of white browed woodswallows elsewhere also

[Julian Robinson <>]

And at Roger Curnow's Western Border country (Dunlop) today, much the
same as Bibaringa . i.e. ... 

-- 5-10+ breeding pairs of White-browed Woodswallows including at least
two current nests with young, and many mobile and immobile juveniles
(frozen in position by parent's alarm calls); 
-- 3+ juv Diamond Firetails; 
-- 1 pair + 1 male WW Triller (though I didn't see any young); 
-- one trio of juvenile just independent(?) Dusky Woodswallows and a few
adults.  

Roger said there were some Masked Woodswallows there earlier in the
season, but I don't think they bred.

Julian Robinson


At 08:38 PM 5/01/2010, Stuart Harris wrote:

A morning walk around 'Bibaringa' (private property adjacent and west of mt stromlo) revealed no less than 5 breeding pairs of White-browed Woodswallow indicated by their dependent young some of whom are now flying/perching in their motley garb.  Also at Bibaringa, dependent young of both Diamond Firetail and White-winged Triller.
 
Stuart Harris
 

"Everything is relative, everything is valid!"

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From:
To:
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 20:13:16 +1100
Subject: lots of white browed woodswallows at NVC today

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