canberrabirds

Easter camp-out (4)

To: <>
Subject: Easter camp-out (4)
From: "Geoffrey Dabb" <>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2010 12:42:25 +1000

Over recent years many COG members have enjoyed the Spring Forest property of Ross McInerney.  It has many associations.  One of only two reasons why the hamlet of Koorawatha appears in The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia is that:  “Ross McInerney, eponymous farmer of Geoffrey Lehmann’s Ross’ Poems (1978) lives here at Spring Farm.”

 

Sadly, the house is untenanted at the moment.  Under the shady trees at the back a number of nesting boxes have been attached to the fence posts.  They resemble the boxes on posts found in parts of the eastern US to enable bluebirds to nest somewhere that starlings cannot enter.  I suppose, really only a guess, that they were intended for grass-finches.  John Goldie tells me that on one visit he found Ross surrounded by a host of finches that he was feeding.  I didn’t know finches nested in such things, but one of the several well-informed finch-keepers on this chatline will no doubt know all about this.

 

There are certainly a few finches still inhabiting the derelict garden, more than a dozen red-brows, mainly juvs, and a few double-bars.  The below snaps were all taken there, except for the diamond firetail, which preferred the open woodland about 1km away behind our camp.

 

little guests.jpg

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