COG's bird blitz

[martin butterfield <>]

I knocked off 6 sites in the Kowen area yesterday and today.

1. The Sparrow Hill site has been subject to a lot of forest activity, either felling to leave an unvegetated area or thinning to let light in to encourage the growth of brambles, thistles, St Johns Wort and serrated tussock.  Should be a great area for finches in a while!  13species
2. The Geophysics site (opposite the Defence facility) produced 17 species: effectively the usual suspects.
3. It is difficult to get into the Kowen Pound site now as the road has been closed and rather stringent fences have been put in.  It is basically a 1km walk from the Sparro Hill MTB parking area or about 700m  up the road from the Defence end. I got in eventually and found 18 species of bush birds.
4. Blue Tiles was very quiet, but I recorded 12 species.  Eastern Yellow Robin (EYR)  the highlight.
5. The Peninsula to the east of Blue Tiles generated 15 species including another EYR, 1 Varied Sitella and a Whistling Kite soaring overhead.
6. The final site about 2km East along the River was similar to Mark's sites with 6 very common species the haul there.

There were a few Banded Lapwings visible as I came through Bungendore but I suspect they were mainly sheltering fromthe cold by sitting down in the grassy areas and thus invisible.  In NSW so of no Blitz value.

Martin

On 28 October 2012 09:56, Julian Teh <> wrote:

Just got back from our second of two sites, Matt and I scored three sacred kingfishers between shepherds lookout and ginninderra creek!!

Julian Teh

Sent from My iPad

On 28/10/2012, at 6:56 AM, "Mark Clayton" <> wrote:

I hope everyone had as good a day as Barbara.  I did two grassland reserve sites in the Gungahlin area and in one reserve recorded a total of three species flying over  - myna, starling and magpie - who were not actually using the reserve as such, and in the second reserve scored a kestrel that initially overflew the site but returned to circle near me. I’ll take this as using the site. I’ll do the third grassland site this morning if it is not full of cattle. There’s nothing like being bored out of your brain in a totally unproductive landscape!!

 

Have fun blitzing!

Mark

 

From: Barbara Allan
Sent: Saturday, 27 October 2012 7:59 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] COG's bird blitz

 

Well I hope everyone who went out counting birds had a glorious day. We couldn’t fault the weather, for once. I was delighted to come across two special species: a Spotted Quail-thrush (Gibraltar Rocks); and 2 Bassian Thrush (Fishing Gap). Hope tomorrow is as productive. b

--
Martin Butterfield

http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/