Further to Martin's comment, I have seen the first few stragglers (leaders?) of the Yellow-faced Honeyeaters coming through Robertson. Remember, this species is not a resident in Robertson (no Eucalypt forests here). So any YfHs I see here are moving through from somewhere.
Also mixed feeding flocks, especially Silvereyes and Superb Fairywrens, Scrubwrens, with Grey Fantails dancing in the air above them. Olive-backed Orioles (also non-residents) are calling in the distance.
Interesting, my summer resident Rufous Fantails and Black-faced Monarchs are still present. I anticipate they will both drop off my lists shortly. Trouble is, they migrate silently, and not in large groups (unlike the YfHs) so one has to observe an "absence". So in advance I am reporting the Rufous Fans and the Monarchs are "still here".
Cheers
Denis Wilson
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On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 7:09 AM, martin butterfield
<m("gmail.com","martinflab");" target="_blank" href="/mc/compose?to=">> wrote:
Bob Dylan was a little more certain than me. My pondering about about the times -or at least the seasons- changing was caused by a couple of recent observations.
On Wednesday while walking the Settlers track in the Deep South of Namadgi I noticed that most of the birds were in mixed feeding flocks. I tend to think of this as being a Winter phenomenon.
Winter is also the season when parrots and cockatoos gather in larger flocks. So it was somewhat of a surprise to have our rustic peace and quiet disrupted yesterday morning by a flock of at least 16 Gang-gangs. There might have been as many as 20 - they didn't hang around for long and flew off as a somewhat unstructured flock which made counting difficult.
From what I saw around the Queanbeyan River and Burra Creek on Tuesday Mr Dylan certainly started his song on the money when starting his ditty "Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown"
Martin
