The spring bird survey in the southern half of Goorooyarroo was done by Prue and I this morning. It was mild, clear and sunny, with light to moderate winds. It was very wet underfoot with plenty of native
and introduced forbs in flower, and lots of water in dams and creeks. We recorded a total of 56 species with 43 of those during our 10 minute counts, about average for our spring survey.
Amongst the interesting species recorded were a pair of Nankeen Kestrels,
Speckled Warblers in a couple of places, a Brown Goshawk at site 4, a
Grey Currawong heard at site 8, and a Sacred Kingfisher calling near site 5. There were a reasonable number of summer migrants recorded -
Mistletoebird, Noisy Friarbird, White-throated and
Western Gerygones, Dusky Woodswallow, Shining and Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoos and
Rufous Whistler. There was quite a lot of flowers on the Yellow Boxes and quite a few honeyeaters feeding in them, including
Brown-headed, White-naped, White-plumed and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters. Breeding was noted for
White-winged Choughs (at least 2 chicks in a nest), Buff-rumped Thornbills
were feeding chicks in a nest in a hole in a tree stump, and Yellow-rumped Thornbills
were feeding fledglings. Superb Parrots were checking out hollows.
Other fauna included a Shingleback, a very large
Common Bluetongue, 3 common species of frog calling and 6 species of butterfly including both
Spotted and Imperial Jezebels.
Steve
