|
A couple of pieces of birding info gathered
recently while on non-birding activities in Western Australia.
Firstly, taking non-birding visitors for a
weekend visit to the Margeret River region a couple of weeks ago, we visited a
small winery called Black George located about 10km east of the Great Western
Highway some 15km south of Manjimup. I was very surprised to see a small group
(5-6) of Red-eared Firetails feeding on the grass outside the tasting room as
confiding as House Sparrows in Hyde Park - sometimes inside the minimum focus of
my 10x40's. This may be of interest to anyone that would like crippling views of
this exquisite finch or who would like good photo opportunities of same.
Secondly, I was in Broome last Friday and
Saturday for a long-planned sail-fishing trip. We fished about 22 nautical miles
offshore between 08.00 and 16.30 both days. The number and variety of birds was
extremely disappointing. For the two days, I recorded 500-600 (50) Brown
Booby, 40 (3) Wilsons Storm Petrel, 1 Storm Petrel (sp), 1 Red-tailed
Tropicbird, and 3 Lesser Crested Tern. The Storm Petrel (sp) was
disappointing in that it showed up while I was actually connected to a large
sailfish so I did not have an opportunity to use my binoculars. I observed a
bird at a distance of 100m which was distinctly larger than a Wilson's, flew
with a much more leisurely action and certainly had no white on the rump. I
would be interested to receive any info on the known occurence of Matsudaira's
Storm Petrel in this location.
Roger McGovern
| 