Hello Birdos,
I spent the weekend braving gale force winds at Loughnan NR and then at
Yathong NR both north of Hillston in central west NSW. No doubt due to the
difficult conditions I didn't record a lot of birds but I did find Yathong
NR to be a fascinating place.
Some of the more interesting birds on the weekend were:
Superb Parrot (2) near Goolgowi
Shy Heathwrens- 2 spots in Yathong NR
White-backed Swallow- 2 spots in Yathong NR.
White-fronted Honeyeater- 2 spots in Yathong NR.
Yathong is a large reserve with expanses of spinifex understorey, mallee
overstorey especially on the sand dunes. At some of these spots Striated
Grasswrens have been recorded in the past. However, recent records seem to
be a bit thin on the ground. I'd love to hear from anyone who has recorded
Striated Grasswrens in Central NSW. It would be good to know exactly where
they are so that they can be monitored to assess how they are doing. I
haven't scanned through Australian Birds yet but there may well be records
that haven't made their way into the usual journals and anyway fairly exact
locations are needed especially when you look at the size of Yathong NR!
My favourite sighting on the weekend was a loose flock of over 240 Pink
Cockatoos in the Roto district. I've never seen Pink Cockatoos in numbers
like this before. I saw single birds on quite a few occasions over the
weekend, but my breath was taken away by the 240+ They were feeding on
seeding and flowering herbs in groups of 5-20 birds separated by about 50
metres, on both sides of the road in open plain country with only scattered
trees. Unlike corellas and galahs which tend to take flight when one bird
calls the alarm these birds behaved as largely separate groups. If I
approached one group too closely it would fly but the neighbouring groups
would ignore them. There were probably more but I only counted those that I
could see from standing on the bumper of my troopie. Considering how many
birds there were they were really quiet.
Cheers,
Mick Todd
Griffith, NSW
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