I needed to make my annual visit to Geelong last week, which unfortunately meant forgoing the excitement of Canberra’s blitz weekend, but everything does seem to happen in Spring. My first stop, as usual, was in the vicinity of Chiltern, childhood home of Henry Handel Richardson (1870-1946). I checked out various spots in the famous box/ironbark forest, which was rather birdless until I located a little possie marked by much activity in the blossoms by Fuscous Honeyeaters. Surely the Chiltern area is the heartland of that species, which by contrast is seen only occasionally around Canberra. I overnighted there and in the space of a few hours found within 20m restless flycatcher, turquoise parrot, little lorikeet, w-bellied c-shrike, and a pair of painted honeyeaters. Most species were feeding in the flowery canopy, although the trees there are of only medium height. The c-shrike was of the more common ‘hooded’ variety, and once again it showed the grey pate along with quite a bit of grey mottling on the breast. The mark of this morph is the complete black collar, making it easier to ID from the back than the front, so I have chosen a snap which illustrates this. The turq was a handsome solitary male.
