Finch Central today

[martin butterfield <>]

I took myself off to Finch Central this morning.  First call was the clump of trees in which Margare Leggoe saw a lot of robins last week.  They were still there, and still all FLAME ROBINs.  I counted 6 (2 males and 4 bown birds) flying around the trees.  Going through the gate (and turning upstream for a change) I found a further 4 Flame robins (2 male and 2 brown).  Also in this area were some small flocks of Red-browed Finches: probably a dozen in total, mainly rather young birds.  9 Yellow-faced Honeyeaters flew downstream chipping as they went.  A Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike also flew by.  Some European Goldfinches were also heard.

Shortly after climbing back over the fence I flushed a couple of largeish quail.  This was followed by a lot of squeaking around my feet as at least 4 very small (I would guess 5cm long at best) chicks headed for the nearest bramble patch.  So I think that solves Margaret's issue of small quail: they were indeed young ones as Philip suggested.  

About halfway between the fence and the nearest eucalypts the same events were repeated: I am confident that this was second covey however, since the chicks could not have got that far in the time.  On this occasion the chicks couldn't get into a thicket so the parents rushed back and forth shepherding them away from me, and in so doing giving me most excellent views of BROWN QUAIL.  Interestingly one of the adults did a broken-wing distraction display (not noted in HANZAB).  HANZAB also notes that the chicks may be seen March - May so this lot are within, albeit it only just, historic limits.  As a result of this I have become uncertain what sort of quail I saw there a few weeks ago and have removed them from the Atlas record for that trip.

Getting back to the euc's the Flame Robins were still there.  So were 6 DUSKY WOODSWALLOWs and at least 4 DIAMOND FIRETAILs..

Martin