We have just returned from a very hard-working stint in Sydney doing
renovations on a house in Australia Street, Newtown, an inner city suburb
where most buildings are about 100 years old and fortunately only a few
have been re-developed into modern home units or town houses.
We arrived there about lunch time on Thursday 8 April and that afternoon
saw a great number of Musk Lorikeets, in fact, some of them perched on the
rather large pot-plants on the balcony. We thought they must have been
common in that area, although we did not see them again during the 10 days
we were there.
Other species seen were Peregrine Falcon, Rainbow Lorikeets, Red
Wattlebirds, Noisy Miners, Welcome Swallows, Tree Martins, Australian
Magpie, Silver Gull. Australian White Ibis, Australian Raven, Yellow-faced
Honeyeaters and Silver-eyes. We also heard Little Ravens and Black-faced
Cuckoo-shrikes calling. There were smaller birds flitting around but we
did not have time to identify them.
Introduced species were Common Starling, Common Myna, Rock Dove, Spotted
Turtle-dove, House Sparrow and Red-whiskered Bulbul. Quite an interesting
list, we thought. there are some large, attractive trees in the area
including several huge eucalypts, calistomons and melaleucas but the most
popular by far with the
nectarivors was a very tall (possibly 4 metre) "Umbrella tree" which was in
full bloom. The Wattlebirds, Lorikeets and Noisy Miners argued incessantly
for the right to
eat from the flowers.
I read somewhere recently that there is a move to have Rock Doves
eliminated from St Mark's Square in Venice as they are transmitting
Salmonella bacteria and other nasties. I wish there could be a move to
eliminate all those nasty introduced species from Australia Street and, in
fact, Australia.
And now we are back in lovely sunny autumnal Canberra and the first birds
we saw this morning while having breakfast was a flock of about 70
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. Lovely, lovely birds but what a noisy they
made when they circled over-head and wheeled around towards the
Murrumbidgee River, which is about 5 kms south of here.
And on Saturday we are going to Hong Kong and Southern China with Chris
Doughty to see some more wonderful birds in their natural habitat.
Hazel and Allan Wright
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