Some subscribers may remember that several years ago I published in CBN about the up to 60 Magpie-larks which roosted in and around my GBS site in Chapman and flew W in the morning over to the Chapman horse paddocks and returned each evening.
This was during 2015 and 2016 after which the roosts and roost flights pretty much disappeared, possibly because of the wet spring of 2016. In this time it was very rare to see any birds doing these flights, and more recently up to about
the end of June 2020 often only one of the resident pair could be recorded on my GBS chart each week.
This started to change last July when I would see small groups of up to 3 or 4 together. Gradually over time they seem to have increased, including outside of my GBS site, and for the past month or so they have been the most conspicuous
species in and around my garden area, surpassing even the Red Wattlebird. The exact numbers in my GBS site has been hard to estimate as they seem to occur in small groups anywhere throughout the site. Yesterday morning I had 7 together for the first time.
The interesting thing is that they are present throughout the day, with no sign of any movement other than very local. Where they have come from is unclear, certainly not from local breeding. The nest in my GBS site in early December
was abandoned after a couple of weeks, and I have only on a couple of occasions heard begging young in the local area.
Jack Holland
