A noisy and sunny morning at Callum Brae this morning – noisy from cicadas. Few bush birds, and highlights mostly in the large birds, including:
- One long-billed corella with the little corellas. The long-billed was perching close to, interacting with, and generally flying with, one particular little corella – behaving to me like a pair. Good to see and compare the two species in a single field-of-view of the binoculars, and see the extra pink between eye and bill in the long-bill, the stronger pink chest-patch, and its ferocious, curved, long bill.
- Excellent views of two peregrine falcons, seen separately but I think they were different birds. The first was carrying a dead bird in its talons - a starling, or maybe something larger as it was flying heavily – and disappeared through the trees towards the north. The second, seen 5 minutes later, also came from the south, slowly soaring and wheeling as it moved towards the north.
- About 60 little ravens, in a loose flock, generally “mucking around”, including spending time in a number of trees a km or so SE of the main entrance. When a pair of wedge-tailed eagles appeared, no fewer than six of the ravens took off to mob them. I am 90% sure of the identification – the birds were calling “Caw-caw-caw” and sometimes “Caw-caw-caw-caaaw”, but none of the calls ended with the classic Australian raven long dying gargle-note, and they had few or no throat hackles. Many had pale eyes. Only issue was that the birds did not appear to flick their wings in the way little ravens can do when calling – does anyone know if there is a range of such behaviour in little ravens?
Steve
