Autumn migration

[Steve Read <>]

Interesting mix of migrants and other birds at the ANBG this morning. Three (possibly four) Rufous Fantail, two in the rainforest gully and one or two elsewhere. And, similar to this time in previous years, numbers of Grey Fantail and Golden Whistler, mostly at the very top of the gardens. I counted a conservative 15 Golden Whistler, all brown birds but many with rufous edges to their wing feathers, so young.

The rainforest gully and the native bush above it were both hit hard in the hailstorm so now have a very open canopy, although with lots of epicormic shoots in the eucalypts. 

Steve

On Sun, 15 Mar 2020 at 11:15 am, Nicki Taws <> wrote:

I spent a couple of days in the Cabramurra area last week. The green shoots of grass and ferns have slightly softened the bleak blackened landscape. It is eerily silent most of the time. The most frequently seen birds were Little Ravens, mostly around the remains of the township, and the occasional Pied Currawong.

 

However during the beautiful crisp mornings there was the start of the autumn migration. Small flocks of Silvereye, Spotted Pardalote and Striated Pardalote moving in a north-easterly direction, probably only a total of 50 of each over a 3 hour period. And even a handful of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters and a couple of Wattlebirds. It’s hard to imagine where they were coming from given the extent of the devastation to the south-west, and even harder to imagine where they might end up for winter. In the direction they were heading it would be at least 25km to find an unburnt leaf in the canopy.

 

Other moments of joy interspersing the silence were hearing a Lyrebird calling, a Flame Robin and a Crescent Honeyeater. It could be a very different autumn migration through Canberra this year.

 

Nicki Taws