Chris Tzaros, Recovery Officer for Swift Parrots, BirdLife Aust is in the
area and I received an email from him on May 22 with the following news - and
they were still on the hunt at that stage.
We got 470
swifties all up between Bodalla and just north of Bateman’s Bay. All birds
were in spotted gum-ironbark forest associations.
At that time they had not
reached further south of Corunna.
Along the Far South Coast
we too have flowering Spotted Gums and thousands of Musk Lorikeets but so far
only small groups (6 - 10) of Swifts have been reported. We are waiting for an
influx.
Barbara
Jones
From:
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 11:41 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] South Coast reports of Swift
Parrots?
My
brother reports that he was told of a "large flock of Swift Parrots - about 250
birds" at Narooma recently.
So it is a 3rd party report (now a 4th party
report).
Being a good sceptic, he has asked me to check for any similar
reports.
His information is that the Spotted Gums on the South Coast are
having a huge flowering this year (now).
But that has brought in large
numbers of Musk Lorikeets (as well as exciting the resident Rainbow
Lorikeets).
He is inclined to attribute the report of "Swift Parrots" to Musk
Lorikeets, mostly on roughly similar size and general colouring (as distinct
from the Rainbow Lorikeets) which are more distinctively coloured and more noisy
than either of the other species.
The question is, has anyone heard of
reports of large numbers of Swift Parrots on the far South Coast?
Grateful
for any reports, please.
Denis Wilson
"The Nature of
Robertson"
www.peonyden.blogspot.com.au 