We visited our son on his property "Highfield" in the Mt Adrah area just off
the Snowy Mts Highway a few km east of the Hume Highway on Friday, where we
took these photos of a dusky woodswallow with young in a crevice in a fence
post.
Main reason for going was to join a group checking out birds that morning
under the guidance of Sean Dooley, managing editor of Australian Birdlife.
The property (mostly box woodland) is largely under a conservation trust
covenant, with a large number of birds having been recorded. Sean was a
terrific guide, instantly recognising myriad bird calls and helping us find
and see nearly all the birds. He had been guest speaker at a Landcare
dinner in Tumut the previous evening, where he entertained us with a
humourous account of his having spent a year successfully breaking the then
record number of different bird species seen in Australia (including island
territories) by the one observer in a year. (We didn't write down the
number he found, but it was, we think, just over 700 - which has since been
increased by someone else). He has written an account of this in "The Big
Twitch". We can highly recommend him as a speaker and as a guide on any
kind of birding excursion.
Gwenyth and Kevin Bray
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