Today during a triller check this corner threw up a small surprise in the form of 18 Diamond Firetails. DFTs are present every time I go there this season and I’d previously settled on 6 as the provable number, until by accident today l flushed an easily countable flock of 18 as I walked through them feeding in long grass.
I think only one family of trillers remain, though absence is a bit harder to prove than presence. This family is the one I hadn’t seen until glimpsing last visit – clearly different because the juvenile is still dependent. If the others have actually gone it seems to indicate that in this instance a) they head off as soon as their young are capable, at 6 or 7 weeks (the juv I was watching since a nestling would now be nearly 7 weeks old), and b) they all travelled together i.e. didn’t leave the juveniles or males to travel separately.
The corner is an interesting spot. This season there are ten species now regularly present that I’ve never seen there before (in six years of variably spaced visits). All of them except maybe the goldfinch are present in other parts of the reserve, but this is first year for me in this 100x100m plot:
- Speckled Warbler
- E Goldfinch
- D Firetail
- Red-browed Finch
- Sittella (only twice)
- Noisy Miner
- Superb Fairy Wren
- Spotted Pardalote
- Rufous Whistler
- Jacky Winter
There was seeding grass in the first couple of my seasons that could have supported the finches then, but I never saw any.
The Noisy Miners have been expanding towards the patch for the last year or so. There’s now an active nest in the trees 50m from the creek and I heard them today actually in the creek area trees east of the track, for the first time.
Fecundity is in the Campbell Park class for small birds. I missed Spring entirely, but just in late summer have seen the following species breeding, either nesting or juveniles hanging around for weeks,
- E Goldfinch*
- D Firetail*
- Striated Pardalote
- Willie Wagtail
- Noisy Miner*
- Jacky Winter*
- Dusky Woodswallow*
- WW Triller*
- Magpie
- Grey Fantail*
- Magpie-lark
- Starling*
- Kestrel
* young still around today.
Conspicuously missing are the White-Plumed Honeyeaters that used to nest there. Because I missed spring I don’t know about corellas, rosellas, dollar birds, black-face cuckoo-shrikes that have nested there before.
Several Red-browed Finches were carrying grass (roosting nests?). Also, I was surprised to see the currently resident Black-shouldered Kites mating last week. Something about that corner…
From: Julian Robinson [
Sent: Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:04
To: 'canberrabirds'
Cc: 'Elizabeth Compston'
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Late-breeding Trillers
I spent some effort yesterday trying to work out how many Trillers there were, just for curiosity. I thought there was likely more than one family because they often nest colonially and bec there seemed to be more than three, though I could never see more than three at one time. I finally found five hawking from one tree, so there are at least five and more likely 7 (two families) or 10 (three families).
There’s at least two juveniles, one was being fed yesterday so may be younger. I’m hoping to observe when and how they depart: Hanzab says sometimes they all go together, and sometimes young birds go separately later. Also the sexes can depart and travel separately so hopefully this might be observable.
Elizabeth Compston asked me to keep an eye out for the recently fledged WW Triller at Callum Brae. The youngster and I think both parents were still there on Saturday 10th. I actually got a photo of all three in one shot, assuming that the left hand bird is the male already out of his breeding plumage.
The juvenile fledged on the 18th Feb give or take a day or two, so would have hatched on about the 6th Feb and on Saturday was nearly 5 weeks old.
