Visited Campbell Park this morning with my son Lachlan. I was a little worried about the condition of the trees near the horse gate – the canopy of some was in poor condition, and a couple of others had fallen or been blown over. The Owlet-nightjar was in its usual tree but in an east-facing hollow (a broken branch-end) where I have not seen it before.
Several reasonable flocks of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters drifted through the canopy, over 100 birds in total. Other highlights amongst the 32 species seen included a group of Dusky Woodswallows (I thought I had seen the last of these for the season); a pair of birds we tentatively identified as White-winged Trillers with the male in eclipse plumage (much later in the season than expected, but if they weren’t trillers then I have no idea what they could be); and a large and untidy Red-browed Finch nest low down in a hawthorn bush, being visited regularly by two adults and (from the sounds when an adult entered the nest) containing a brood of several nestlings. The adult finches appeared to be feeding on the seeds of dock growing in a dry dam. I presume this is also rather late in the season for an active nest.
Steve
