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Hi All,
I was in Melbourne a couple of weeks back at the Vertebrate
Pest Conference. After the conference, I went to the Botanic Gardens to
see the scale of the fruit bat 'problem'. I was absolutely amazed at the
number of bellbirds in the gardens. As soon as I hopped of the Toorak tram they
were there pinging away and I was delighted to get such a good look at them. By
the time I left the gardens I was thoroughly blasé about them. They seem to be
'occupying the niche' that noisy miners do around here, and they were just as
bossy, even harassing a raven that deigned to land in a tree they considered
theirs.
I haven't done much exciting bird watching around home lately
since a lot of my birding time has been spent doing surveys for the Toowoomba
Council along Gowrie Creek which runs through the city. The Council is
cleaning up the creek and rehabilitating the flood zone. It is a long-term
project and Toowoomba Bird Observers is doing baseline bird surveys at the
start. (Hopefully the surveys will be repeated in five, ten years
etc time.)
In the year the survey has been going, we have scored 95
species. The highlights for me have been firstly the brown goshawk that works
the creek from the rural areas in the north right into the centre of town. I
had a fantastic view of it last week only 10 m away sitting in a
bottlebrush on the edge of the creek - so good to be able to check out the
characteristics. The second highlight has been the peregrine falcon that
probably roosts in the malting works, close to the centre of town. Last weekend
it was gliding along, scoping the land below, and a mob of starlings
approached it wheeling and flying in their squadron formation. They drove it
downwards and it landed briefly in a tree along the creek until the
starlings resumed their songfest on the powerlines, then it took off to harass
the rock doves that hang around the flour mill.
Cheers
Judy
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