Report of the COG Woodland Survey at Majura , 21 March

[Kim Farley via Canberrabirds <>]

On Thursday 21 March, Sue Beatty and I visited the Majura Defence Training Area for the quarterly COG Woodland Survey. It was a perfect sunny and calm morning. The sunshine was very welcome as it was only 5 degrees when we started.

Overall, we saw 35 species at the seven sites we were able to survey. As can happen at the Training Area, one site was inaccessible due to Defence activity on the day.  

For the most part the species seen were the expected ones for the location and time of year. It was nice to record a male Rufous Whistler at one site, and an immature Golden Whistler with brown-edged primaries at another. Scarlet Robins are always good to see and we recorded them at four sites (a total of five birds). We also recorded both Western and White-throated Gerygones at several sites. Honeyeaters were low in number with only a few Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, a couple of White-eared Honeyeaters and one Brown-headed Honeyeater.  Noisy Miners were again in very low numbers at sites where they were common in past years. A group of five Black-faced Cuckooshrikes were gathered at one place between sites.  Our only on-site raptors were one Black-shouldered Kite warming itself in the sunshine atop a dead tree and a Nankeen Kestrel doing much the same thing on another tree at the same place. No Cuckoos or Orioles were heard or seen anywhere. Our last bird of interest was a single Diamond Firetail on the power line by the Range Control Office. Alas, this spot is not a Woodland Survey site so the bird didn't make it onto our survey sheets. 

Kim Farley and Sue Beatty

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