Last Thursday afternoon (9 March) a storm swept through Dubbo with very
heavy rainfall from about 3:45. Once the rain stopped (about 4:20) I
decided this would be a good time to call it a day. Arriving home in East
Dubbo it was apparent that no rain had fallen but the storm could be seen
sweeping around to the south.
I went inside, said G'day to the wife and kids and went out into the back
yard. Immediately obvious were half a dozen or so White-throated Needletail
moving quickly at about roof top height coming from the north. These birds
were not seen where I parked in the front drive. This number very quickly
turned into several hundred swifts. I ducked inside to ring Judie Peet and
let her know they were on their way (she missed the last big flock I saw in
East Dubbo). Judie was outside with the cordless phone "No swifts here,
hang on there's one, two, half a dozen, THERE'S HUNDREDS OF THEM!!". I got
off the phone and went back out into the yard to see the last few fly over
the house. They had passed over in just a matter of minutes. Around to the
front of the house I could see the flock to the south over where Judie's
house would be. Judie's estimate when I later called her agreed well with
my estimate of a minimum of 300 birds.
Mike Tarburton: Is Dubbo the swift capital of Australia right now? Is this
likely to be the same large flock I saw a few weeks ago? How "resident" are
swifts at this time of year and are these large numbers merely a
concentration of birds near storm fronts, ie are they more spread out when
the weather is fine?
Also saw 10 or so Wh-thr. Needletail with Andrew Fisher at Hartley Vale just
east of Lithgow on Saturday afternoon. Weather heavily overcast but no rain
at this location (raining further west).
David Geering
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus"
in the message body (without the quotes)
|
