Hello birding-ausers
My wife and I took a quick trip (Dec. 30-31) from Melbourne up to Deniliquin
NSW just before New Years day. I had been up there once before on Phil
Maher's Plains wanderer trip but have since lost my notes and couldn't
remember directions to most of the places that we had visited. I had to use
Thomas and Thomas to supplement what little I could remember.
At Gulpa Is. state forest just south of Deniliquin the Calitris was still
fruiting so there were several superb parrots around. We saw a total of 7
including a great look at one male which flew in with 4 females to a point
just above our car. I couldn't find any Gilberts Whistlers but we did see a
rainbow bee-eater at its nest in the sandy ground amoung the Calitris. The
whole forest was also thick with crimson rosella.
On the way to the swamp on Avalon road we saw 4 Australian Bitterns in a rice
field. One of the bitterns was clearly a male since it was performing
courtship behaviour with its neck inflated and jumping in the air. The rice
was much shorter than the last time I saw the bitterns so excellent views
were possible. I found the directions in T & T a bit hard to follow in terms
of where the Avalon rd swamp was and how you could even walk up to it since
there seemed to be fences everywhere.
At our caravan park around sunset there were 50+ long-billed corella
literally fighting for perching space with white-faced herons and ibis in
several dead trees in the middle of a lake.
Finally the highlight of the trip was the Moira forest bird observatory. We
drove in as far as our station wagon would allow then we walked the rest of
the way to the hide. At numerous points the water was just below knee deep
so our feet were pretty wet. Along the way we saw 2 buff-banded rails and 4
Aust. bitterns. Along with uncountable white ibis we saw about 5 musk duck
in the open water amoung the reeds. Continuing along the trail past the bird
hide there was a huge colony of nankeen night-herons roosting in the trees
along the road/path. I visited this area twice during my trip and missed on
the Little bitterns in both visits.
P. Scott Chandry
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