In my dog-eared birders diary there’s an entry from April 1980, viz,
Two Gang-gangs high overhead calling while flying south to north. That was the first and only time I’d seen Gang-gangs in West Belconnen until 09:30 this morning when I noticed a female and an immature bird clambering about on our large feijoa shrub.
I returned to the house, fetched my binos and watched from the porch. Scarcely had I focussed when the red war-bonnet head of a male emerged from the foliage. A striking synecdoche of far-flung mountain forests in a Belconnen suburban garden!
Apropos flocking birds, at 10:30 today there were 38 Straw-necked Ibis feeding on the Holt Playing Fields close to the border with Higgins.
At 2:30 pm yesterday I counted 130 Galahs feeding on Holt Oval and reckon I had maybe another 50 to go when around 50 more came wheeling down causing a reshuffling of
those on the ground. So I quit counting to give my eyes a rest.
John Layton
Holt.
