I did a bit of atlassing round Mt Lindesay {on the NSW border}
yesterday. I went for a wander up round the base of the bottom tier of
the "wedding cake" - not too many birds up there, but nice views of Mt
Barney as well as northern NSW. There was also a nice spring bubbling
out of the base of the cliffs about 1/3 of the way round from Vidler's
grave.
However, there were plenty of birds on the walk in along the border
fence from the Lindesay Highway. Although there was the odd koala in
the trees, I think the "hammered" appearance of the trees in some of the
schlerophyll was due to the teeming hordes of bellbirds. It was a bit
of a change to walk through a eucalypt forest and not see one noisy
miner - heard some calls that sounded like noisy miners, but were
probably younger bellbirds.
There were also large numbers of topknot pigeons around the rainforest
margins. I am more used to looking down at topknots from cliff tops [as
they circle around the canopy] so it was interesting to look at them
from below. From this perspective it is apparent that they have very
skinny heads and hence confined cranial cavities [which may explain
their behaviour].
In one of the patches of rainforest on the way in, I came across a
couple of green catbirds and a paradise riflebird [doing his treecreeper
thing]. I also came across a pair of "groundthrushes". I watched them
for a while and couldn't see any white in their tail tips, so decided
that although the altimeter indicated 400 metres they were bassian
thrushes (after all Pizzy & Knight say they are "mostly" found above 500
metres). Several hours later as I passed through that area on my way
back to the car, I caught a tail end glimpse of what appeared to be a
ground thrush disappearing into the scrub, and which appeared to have a
distinct white panel in its tail, suggesting a russet-tailed thrush.
Damn the taxidermists who split the ground thrushes!!!
Round 6.20 pm [eastern solar time] on the way home, I passed through a
flock of low flying needletails working the hills between Laravale and
Beaudesert. The joys of birdwatching at 100 km/h.
On a separate matter, I've noticed a pair of juvenile turkeys
[presumably from the mound beside my back fence] moving around together.
I'd guess they are a 1-3 months old. My question - is common for young
turks to "flock together"?
Regards, Laurie.
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