Early Spring makes us think of a little excursion or two to the west before the weather gets too hot. I have just done a little 3-dayer to see what was about. Martyn Moffat had mentioned the new wetland between the bustling West Wyalong and the appendage curiously named ‘Wyalong’. This is an adjunct to the treatment plant with newly excavated ponds and a substantial boardwalk. There were a few waterbirds there but the site is rather bare, yet to acquire a margining of aquatic veg. Worth a stop and a look, though, and can only become more productive as it matures. Monday night was spent beside the well-known Lake Cargelligo ex-sewage ponds, and there was plenty of stuff there. Many stilts (perhaps 100 overall) and a single avocet. There were about 20 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, and on the way past again (next day) they had been joined by 10 stints, possibly just arrived.
Next night spent at Round Hill near the old railway quarry. The veg around there is degraded, but a good spot for the odd Major Mitchell (just one appeared). Pair of Red-backed Kingfishers with a nest hole in a gravel bank. There is a good patch of mixed mallee/broombush/acacia south of the rly line at that point – so outside the nature reserve. Difficult walking but the usual stuff, plus a fleeting glimpse of a scrub-robin.
The next day I went looking for birdy spots in the state forest complex on the road to Forbes. I camped in a secluded spot where there was old mixed and anciently cleared veg. Within a couple of hectares there was quite a rich suite eg – western gerygs, red-capped, hooded and yellow robins, jacky winter, trillers, brown trcper, singing and spiny chk honeyeater, yellow and chestnut-rumped thblls, ringnecks, variegated fairy-wren etc
It was VERY cold at night. The icy conditions continued into the early morning so it was a couple of hours after sun-up before the bird life became fully active.
