15 to 20 White-backed Swallows this-morning, hawking around in a thermal
while three Wedge-tailed Eagles and a Black-shouldered Kite rode it above
them.
Our influx of Plum-headed Finches has waned, but this-morning we came across
a party of six birds, including several juveniles, busily feeding in and out
of a crop of tomatoes.
A few Channel-billed Cuckoos remain around, though mostly silent - generally
quiet on the cuckoo front.
Still good numbers of Pink-eared Duck on the valley's lagoons, several
Shoveler in the last few days, and
many Great-crested Grebes in just one or two localities, with synchronised
mutual displaying going on yesterday. The five or so Cotton Pygmy-geese near
Lake Clarendon appear to have shaken off the lone female Green Pygmy-goose
who spent much of the summer with them - unless she's sitting quietly
somewhere on a clutch of something new and different! But there haven't
been any reported sightings of her for a few months, so she may well have
left the valley.
White-throated Nightjars have become fairly regular at Abberton in the
evenings of late, gradually getting earlier by the clock but still just on
dusk. No calling, just hawking over the creek and the garden about the same
time as the Nankeen Night-herons stir.
So, as ever, the move into Autumn is close to complete, marked for the most
part by an awareness of absences as we come to realise that Dollarbirds are
fewer and further between, cuckoos are silent, the Red-tailed Black Cockies
have stripped the available White Cedars of their seed and moved on. There
aren't even any Sacred Kingfishers darting across the garden - although
Azure Kingfishers remain very much in evidence, as they do the year through.
All it takes to close the door firmly on summer, while at the same time
nudging just an opening crack in the doorway to winter is the arrival, any
day now, of a Grey Fantail.
Bill Jolly
"Abberton",
Lockyer Valley, Queensland.
Visit our website at http://www.abberton.org <http://www.abberton.org>
Email: <>
Ph: (+61) 7 4697 6111 Fax: (+61) 7 4697 6056
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