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Stayed overnight in Castlemaine, central Victoria,
with work, and got out in the -1 degree dawn for a bit of therapeutic
birding. Plenty of Thornbills - Brown, Striated, Yellow and Buff-rumped,
plus Weebills - in the canopy of the heavily modified woodland a couple of
kilometres north-east of town beside the Midland Highway (road to
Harcourt). Then a familiar call to a Melburnian, so familiar that the
first couple of times I barely noticed it, before realising that the "tink" of
Bell Miners didn't belong up here. After a bit of a search I tracked them
down in some roadside woodland with a dense shrubby understorey, next to a
drainage line. I had clear views of at least a pair, and I'm fairly
confident there was one other bird, and possibly even two. Anyone in the
area might like to go and check - the site was just north of the intersection of
Midland Highway and Sawmill Road, on the way towards Harcourt. The birds
were on the west side of the road (opposite the 129 km post on the adjacent
railway line), and were visible from the road verge (and audible from well the
far side of the railway line. I will be submitting an Atlas sheet and a
USR.
Has anybody else recently come across Bell Miners
to the north of west of their regular range?
Regards,
Jack
Krohn
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