Just a quick update to my post from yesterday in case anyone is heading out
to the Eastern side of Callum Brae in the morning, which I assume would have
some overflow from the adjacent paddocks that I look onto. I witnessed the
proverbial explosion of bird life for a 5 minute period around 11am this
morning. Even the people in my office who wouldn’t usually notice a missile
landing in the field outside were impressed.
When I got to work there were a couple of dozen swallows working the tree
tops for most of the morning and 2 pairs of Flame Robins sitting on the fence.
At 11am they were joined by another 3 pairs Flame Robins and 3 individual
Diamond Firetails. The Diamond Firetails were briefly joined by a single Red
Browed finch, who decided they didn’t quite look right and flew off. The Flame
Robins sitting on the fence were then dispatched by a single White-plumed
Honeyeater, who was in turn dispatched moments later by a Red-rumped Parrot. At
this point a very large flock of Starlings flew over the trees and performed
some impressive formation flying. The Restless Flycatcher that I saw last week
suddenly appeared and expertly hovered about 4 ft away from us at the top of our
window cleaning bugs from the web. In case this wasn’t enough, 2 Wedge-tailed
Eagles then landed in the adjacent paddock and proceeded to pull apart some
unfortunate cadaver in the tall grass. As a stills photographer, it was one of
those rare moments where I would have been flicking to video mode in order to do
the scene justice. This only lasted about 5 minutes before all of the excitement
attracted the resident (ludicrously large) raven fraternity who intervened on
all fronts.
An hour later the 5 pairs of Flame Robins returned and remained for the
rest of the day. At 3pm someone walking outside inadvertently herded 12-13
Diamond Firetails into the tree in front of my window. They appeared to be a
different composition to the group from yesterday, whereby almost all of them
were sporting spots.
Cheers
Phil
From:
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2015 2:26 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Fire and flames
There are currently 7 pairs of flame robins sitting together on the fence
outside my window. They appear to be travelling with 9 diamond firetails. Only 2
of the firetails have spots, so I'm not sure if that means the others are
immature, or female (or both). Something to look out for if you are near Callum
Brae.
Cheers
Phil
Sent from my HTC
