Yes, I can vouch for the corellas in Nowra. Was there for a few days recently and they descend on the town daily late in the afternoon in the hundreds, if not thousands.
Lindsay Hansch
From: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Sent: Friday, 21 June 2019 9:56 AM
To: ;
Subject: [canberrabirds] Corellas
We are going to hear a lot more about corellas. The below link is to a recent SMH piece about corellas at Nowra.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nowra-a-luxury-waterside-resort-fit-for-the-birds-20190613-p51x8z.html
I have previously mentioned the large winter flocks now being seen about the Symonston area. Their daily occurrence is not as regular as last year.
An unresolved question is the origin and trend with respect to the Long-billed. One photo in the SMH piece is of Long-bills. Distribution reports of the Long-bill fit the ‘escape’ theory rather than the expansion theory. They have been
reported regularly around Canberra over many years, in small numbers.
Another issue concerns hybrids. Unless I am reading the eBird map wrongly, no-one has taken advantage of the LC/LBC hybrid category to report an example anywhere near Canberra. There may be an identification issue. The difference between
the 2 species largely turns on the length of the upper mandible and amount of red on throat/breast. As with all ‘relative’ considerations it is open to an observer to assign a specimen that does not obviously belong to one species or the other to either species,
rather than conclude it is a hybrid.
Followers of birding-aus might remember an issue in 2014 about apparent hybrids in the southern highlands (which I have seen myself) to which Philip Veerman contributed in relation to birds around Canberra.
http://birding-aus.org/more-hybrids-corellas-this-time/
Apparent LC/LBC pairs have been seen at Callum Brae. Hybridising was perhaps likely among aviary birds or perhaps many years ago when there were escaped birds of both species in small numbers.
I have photos collected over the years of local birds I consider to be probable hybrids, although they are not certainly so.
I give one example below.
