Walk to Umbagong District Park

[Martin Butterfield <>]

About 30 members gathered on the Western bit of Dalley Cr, Latham for a "figure of eight" tour of this reserve.  The initial stages of the walk were pretty quiet with a family of Willie Wagtails and a small flock of Red-browed finches being highlights as we crossed Ginninderra Creek for the first time.

After using the stepping stones to get back across the creek we got into bushier country with a much more diverse avifauna.  As well as quite a few of the usual bush birds along this stretch those at the back of the group scored a Collared Sparrowhawk while (some of) the front runners saw a female White-winged Triller.  

Although there still seemed to be water in the creek waterbirds per se were very few.  Two Great Cormorants and 2 Straw-necked Ibis flew over and 2 Australian White Ibis landed briefly.  In the stretch to the west of Florey Drive the highlight was the relatively large number of Sacred Kingfishers observed .  At one point 4 of this species were visible at one time (and 7 were recorded for the whole walk).

Returning to the cars a low point was a flock of 11 Common Mynahs - many of the group noted this to be a very large group in recent times.  This was balanced by the pleasing sighting of 3 Double-barred Finches.

Overall members of the group recorded 44 species.  A full list is at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S52946964

I have compiled a blog post with a few extra comments and some photos.

Next months walk is to Gigerline with hope that the Honeyeater migration will have started and that we'll be able to find the Yellow-Tufted Honeyeaters at the River.

Martin Butterfield

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