torulosa heaven?

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Well I don't know about torulosa but the birds you list are mostly open country inhabitants or aerialists, except grey fantail, and I suggest maybe the isolation is important, as some such as grey fantail, rufous whistler & western gerygone, are at least partly migratory and could have just arrived there and stayed for a while because there is lots of open country as a bit of a barrier against travelling to something better. Beyond that the diamond firetails and southern whiteface are uncommon species, except that the former is doing much better in recent years than normal.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: jude hopwood [
Sent: Wednesday, 23 November 2011 6:14 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] torulosa heaven?

Dear Birdies,

 

Just to the south-east of Goulburn - Komungla - there is an ancient torulosa stand, maybe six trees, half derelict and home to many rabbits.  Today, stopping to investigate what appeared to be a strangely coloured parrot (didn't spot it again, but will now watch for it closely), in and around this old stand with less ancient radiata to the rear of it, I spotted in ten minutes of watching;

a pair of diamond firetails, a southern whiteface, rufous whistler, western gerygone, yellow tailed thornbill, a willy wagtail, grey fantail, magpie and magpie-lark, tree martins, dusky woodswallow.

 

Is this an unusual habitat for such a variety of native birds?  There are no significant stands of older natives nearby, just a few stragglers and a few ten year olds a paddock away, but nothing much to indicate that there would be such a variety in an exotic evergreen.  There are, of course, paddock dams around, and Mulwaree ponds two kilometres away.

 

Opinion, anyone?

 

Ta,

Jude Hopwood.