Wednesday Walk to Kama

[martin butterfield <>]

14 members and guests visited the Kama Reserve, between William
Hovell Drive and the Molonglo River this morning.  The weather was
great: sunny and low 20s with no rain and a gentle breeze.

Overall we recorded 36 species with 6 of them breeding records.  A full list of species will occur on the Trips page of  the COG Website in due course.  

The undoubted highlight was a dependent young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo interacting with its parent Superb Fairy-wren. This should count as two breeding records since the cuckoo was DY (Dependent Young) while the fairy-wren was CF (Carrying Food).  Other contenders for bird of the day were 5 Varied Sitellas, at least 4 Brown Treecreepers (two being very young and noisy birds rated as as DY), 3 Superb Parrots which overflew the Reserve heading to the fa side of the Molonglo and a female White-winged Triller.

An occupied Red-browed Finch nest was located and many Tree Martins and Red-rumped Parrots were seen inspecting hollows. 

Despite the heavy blossom on many Eucalyptus rossiithese trees did not seem to be attracting many birds or insects.  Honeyeaters were scarce with only White-plumed Honeaters in numbers, together with a single Noisy Friarbird and a single Red Wattlebird when back at the cars.

It was disappointing to note the amount of St Johns Wort, Saffron thistle and other invasive weeds in the Reserve.  It is to be hoped that Canberra Nature Park gets them under control as soon as possible.

Some relevant images (and some irrelevant ones plus a few humourous quips) are on my blog.

The next Wednesday Walk will be on 18 January 2012 and will probably visit a property at Burra.  Further details will be emailed to these addresses and included on the website closer to the time.

Martin