I got home from participating in the first week of the QPWS bird survey
round Princess Charlotte Bay yesterday [Amanda Freeman posted a call for
volunteers on birding aus a couple of months ago].
We had good weather [relatively mild and dry], some interesting chopper
flights, and some good sightings.
The main motivations of the survey was to monitor star finch activities
and get a handle on what species were present rount PCB in December.
After a bit of poking around, we located quite a few star finches and
had some good views [and got to see what they were eating]. Steve
Garnett banded a couple and attached a transmitter to one - only to see
it promptly scarper off and out of transmitter range in short order.
We also located yellow white eyes in a number of mangrove locations
around the place, which was interesting since there don't seem to be too
many records or YWEs on the eastern side of the Cape. We got our
jollies having a look at the golden shouldered parrots, and a few caught
up with some palm cockatoos and black bitterns etc. I was quite pleased
to be able to ID some broad-billed flycatchers near the Annie River.
For most of the group, however, the highlight of the first week was
finding a family of red goshawks.
The main conservation issues in that neck of the woods would appear to
be the presence of large numbers of pigs, and vegetation change, as a
result of grazing pressure and altered fire regimes.
Regards, Laurie
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