Walk to Red Hill

[Martin Butterfield <>]

The editors of Gang-gang may wish to use the following as the trip report.

25 members and guests gathered in Buxton St Deakin for a prowl around the NW section of this element of Canberra Nature Park.

 

It was already warm and I was regretting not moving to an 8:30 start.  The first third of the walk was uphill, to a lesser or greater extent, through bush with not a great deal of understorey.  There was not a great diversity of birds either: while a number of birds were evident they were nearly all Noisy Miners!  A pleasing exception was a Speckled Warbler seen by several members.

 

Where the walk went parallel to the Golf Course (only one Raven-sown golf ball was found): the understorey became more evident; the number of noisy Miners decreased; and the diversity of birds picked up.

 

 
Particularly good sightings along this stretch included a Common Bronzewing feeding a fledgling and a pair of Gang-gangs changing duties in a nest hollow (thus an 'ON' breeding record).  Other parrot species recorded breeding here included Eastern Rosella and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos sitting in spout.  A pair of Laughing Kookaburras were carrying food - a spider in at least one case) into a hollow from which the dulcet tones of nestlings could be heard.  (As the birds seemed reluctant to enter in our presence we left them to it - which was good for for the Jackasses, but bad for the spiders.)

Smaller species observed in this section included both local species of Pardalote, Brown and Buff-rumped Thornbills, and Weebill.  A single Dusky Woodswallow was seen flying over the canopy: this species seems to be in lower numbers this year.  Although not really small a Dollarbird was seen in the area, where the species has nested in recent years.

 

Two Pacific Koels were heard calling: one somewhat distant in Hughes while the other was amost certainly in the Reserve and thus countable on the trip-list.  Our final notable bird was a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike carrying nesting material.

 

In total we recorded 29 species, of which 8 were observed at some section of the breeding continuum.  Of interest were the Missing In Action: 

• no Cuckoos, other than the Koel; 

• no Honeyeaters other than the big aggressive 3 - Noisy Miner, Noisy Friarbird and Red Wattlebird; and 

• no Finches of any species.

Possibly this is a logical outcome of the understorey being eradicated.

A copy of the bird list is attached and it would be appreciated if this could be added to appropriate section of the website.

I have put a few images of this and that in my blog report

The editors of Gang-gang may wish to include the following in the Future trips section and add it to the trips section of the website.

The Wednesday Walk for December will be to London Bridge Homestead.  Meet at 8:30am (note earlier time) on 16 December 2015 at the car park at the end of London Bridge Rd Googong..  The basic walk will be 3km return but there is a possibility of returning over the Bridge which might add another 0.5km.  It may be warn and there isn't much shade so carry water!

Martin Butterfield

http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/

151118 COG Red hill.xlsx
Description: 151118 COG Red hill.xlsx

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