G'day,
There have been one or two postings recently about sightings in the Lockyer
Valley, SEQ. Whilst some obsevers have been seeing some exciting stuff,
others seem to have been missing out - so I thought I'd follow up with a
quck review of a couple of hours birding in the area yesterday, Sunday
August 19th.
After a late lunch, I emerged with Bill Jolly to have a look around a few of
the local wetlands. Amongst nearly 100 species, with hardly any bush birds,
there were many highlights. It's always good to see Glossy Ibis,
White-necked Heron and Yellow-billed Spoonbill, and yesterday all three
species were seen in several locations and in larger numbers than I can
remember. 10 species of raptor included very close Spotted Harrier, Brown
Falcon and Australian Hobby, and both Whistling Kite and White-bellied Sea
Eagle at the nest (different ones!) near Lake Clarendon. Interesting waders
included over 50 Red-necked Avocets at Seven Mile Lagoon, with 3 Red-capped
Plovers nearby. And Black-fronted Plover and Red-kneed Dotterel are always
a pleasure. On the way to Atkinson's Dam there were 10 Banded Lapwings with
2 very small chicks. A couple of Ground Cuckoo Shrikes were in the same
fields.
Duck were around in impressive numbers with Pink-eared Duck and Australasian
Shoveler everywhere. We arrived at Atkinson's Dam quite late but still
managed to see about 80 Cotton Pygmy Geese. There were probably more in the
large rafts of floating silhouettes that were disappearing into the dusk.
Apparently, Chestnut Teal, we saw 2 at Lake Clarendon, are not so common in
the area.
A Blue-winged Kookaburra was at its usual spot near Lake Clarendon, and back
at Bill's place, a pair (presumably!) of Azure Kingfishers spent some time
bobbing and posturing on their perch in the creek.
Not too shabby, eh?
Trevor.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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