Although the weather was a touch on the bleak side, with a cracking frost
(everything was as white as snow), conditions could have been a lot worse for
birdwatching this morning at 7.30. There was no fog on the sites we were
surveying, and a little after sunrise it was quite clear visibility wise, but
under a fairly low cloud cover. There was no wind at all until 9 am, and that
was a very gentle breeze. The wind did get up around 10.30, but by then we had
finished the survey.
We say a three Red-knecked Wallabies, a hare, two Swamp Wallabies, and oodles
of Grey Kangaroos. The kangaroos looked in immensely good shape, and you could
see how the little ones have been growing over the past few months. In certain
open areas the grass was cropped very short, and I think it won’t be long
before the awful C(ull) word will be extant once more.
Nevertheless, it was not a great morning’s birding, with little brown birds
being notably absent from view at nearly all sites. The usual suspects were
about, Crimson Rosellas, starlings, a few noisy miners, kookaburras, and a
solitary Scarlet Robin. A couple of Wood Ducks were inspecting real estate. We
were encouraged by seeing 27 Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos flying through one
site (the only birds we saw there) and 28 Choughs at another site. There were
Choughs at several sites and at a couple of points in between. At our last
site we caught a couple of glimpses of a mystery bird, that we first thought
might have been a Common Bronzewing, but then it looked (as it strutted away
along the ground, then flushed briefly) more like a quail (not quail country
really). So we then thought it could be a Painted Button-quail, but by then it
was long gone, and we have no real idea what it might have been.
Paul Fennell
Editor, COG Annual Bird Report
0407105460
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