mulga trip

[(Richard Johnson)]

G'day all

Call me Pollyanna if you will, but all's not lost in the mulga country. I had a nice trip to a property about 120km SW of Charleville last week and had some very pleasant birding in mulga shrubland and riparian coolibah/red gum country.
Lots of breeding/prebreeding goings on, probably spurred on by warmer days and a bit of rain lately. It seemed I was never out of earshot of the excited 'PINK!' of Brown Treecreepers and saw one nest at eye level in a hollow stump. Two very young nestlings lying in a bed of wool (courtesy of the sheep). Also newly-fledged Southern Whitefaces, and another bird seen furtively sneaking into its nest hollow under the watchful eye of a Pied Butcherbird. A Jacky Winter was nest-building on a dead tree while its mate watched. It always surprises me that they manage to raise young in the exposed sites they favour.
Other special sightings included a wonderful eyeful of male Splendid and Variegated Fairy-wrens, in full breeding plumage, side by side on the same mulga twig; a recent study on the two species in South Australia found that they co-existed happily due to differences in foraging and nesting behaviour (Tibbetts & Pruett-Jones, Aust. J. Zool. 1999 ( 47: 317-326) for those interested).This was certainly the case as the two males, each with two 'brown birds', intermingled without obvious strife, the Splendids bouncing about on bare ground while the Variegateds foraged in grass and fallen timber. I also saw a flock of about 60 Plum-headed Finches feeding in short grass; a pair of Diamond Firetails, which must be close to the western extremity of their range in Qld; a single fully-coloured and probably lonely Crimson Chat; and possibly best of all, a pair of Square-tailed Kites lazily soaring by on what was presumably a courtship flight.

Richard

--
+----------------------------------------+
Richard Johnson
Roma District
Tel: (07) 4622 4266  Fax: (07) 46 22 4151
E-mail: