My last visit to Callum Brae was a week ago. Also, no small honeyeaters, but I did
spot and see a white-throated gerygone and actually managed a bad photograph of
a varied sittella. BFCS were
carrying nesting material.
There is a small grove of flowering young eucalypts on Mt
Wanniassa that I intend to visit when the weather is a bit more reliable. Perhaps the HEs are there.
From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Monday, 1 November 2010 11:07 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Blitz - what I didn't see
Having got a bit carried away and walked myself to extreme
footsoreness on previous occasions, I just did a few mini-surveys at central
locations. The problem with all these things, as with life generally, is
to separate the anecdotal from the significant. At Norgrove Park, I not
only saw no crakes but no swamphens. At 3 previous goshawk locations, I
not only failed to raise a swoop, but not so much as a ‘kek-ek-ek’.
Curious, as the pair in Swoop Valley at Callum Brae which were certainly in
evidence earlier in the season failed to appear. Also at Callum Brae I
recorded but one pair of starlings, rather odd as when I did that area a few
blitzes ago they were the most abundant species after the two rosellas.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the absence of honeyeaters,
for example none recorded at Callum Brae apart from Noisy Miners and
friarbirds. The only small honeyeaters I came across were a few New
Hollands at Norgrove Park. What I did see –
-
Two workers at Norgrove Park shovelling out Azolla
from a channel, employment for life most likely
-
Many hares, running with insolent slowness
-
A Brown Snake disappearing into one of those
in-ground telecom boxes at Campbell Park South
-
The Painted Snipe Safari setting out, no doubt
with appropriately modest expectations, from the Kellys car park
-
Julienne patrolling the margins of the
Q’beyan Sewage Works
-
Peafowl to the number of 10 at home yesterday
afternoon, while the Narrabundah/Griffith koel gave voice in the near distance,
just recordably.
