I went atlassing along the border fence east of Richmond Gap today. One
of the gatekeepers kelpies decided to tag along for the day, and was
remarkably well behaved - its only indiscretion was to nose after a pair
of logrunners. [I walked on the Qld side of the fence most of the time
so it wouldn't follow me into the bush]. The humour highpoint of the
day came when the dog disturbed a carpet snake - there was a great yelp
and the snake climbed the rabbit fence and started to crawl along the
top strand of barbed wire.
The dog also flushed an alberts lyrebird, which flew across to my side
of the fence and hopped up a tree beside the track, providing me with
nice views of the female. An hour later I had a couple of glimpses of a
20-30 cm juvenile lyrebird running across the track. It was a good day
for the rainforest regulars - ground thrushes, logrunners [I actually
saw one pair logrunning], satin bowerbirds, green catbirds, rufus
fantails, king parrots, spectacled monarchs and the odd paradise
riflebird calling in the background. The highlight, however came while I
was eating lunch. There was a flash of gold in the corner of my eye,
and there, sure enough was the MMI blackbird [the regent bowerbird has
to be one of the prettiest birds in the bush].
Woodland birds present included white-throated warblers, sitellas, a red
wattlebird [don't see many in SEQ], a pair of wedgetailed eagles flying
together, and a squadron of little lorikeets on a low level bombing run
into NSW.
Ah well, after all that walking, time for a few laps in the Olympic
swimming pool.
Regards, Laurie.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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