On only my second relatively limited search of the local area since I got back to Canberra a couple of days ago I found my first fledgling for the year fed by a Red Wattlebird this morning.
It was on the Rivett side of Darwinia Tce in an area where I have not previously found them (around 200 away from the closest). It is also an area where I found little, if any, Koel activity so far in the 2017-2018 season. However, this is not unusual,
my experience is that fledglings aren’t necessarily found where there has been much previous activity.
It certainly is a much earlier fledgling season, in my now five years of finding many fledglings locally this is the earliest by nearly a week. It was also quite an advanced one, with a well formed tail and flew >10 m following its host, though it was
begging surprisingly softly (I had dismissed it as an RWB fledgling at first).
Adult activity was very quiet locally until about a week before Christmas. This has continued once back with up to 4 birds around my house giving mainly whoas and kek keks (Geoffrey another dark bird seemed to be giving the latter), but there also has
been some koeling in amongst that.
Jack Holland
