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The Tamworth Birdwatchers sponsored a group in the
Twitchathon for the first time this year. The group comprised Jenny
Norton, Jane Morris, Louise Baker and myself. I don't have the
amount we raised in front of me, but it must have been in the vicinity of $500 -
almost 50% of that coming from our club funds.
We started our run at Quipolly Dam near
Quirindi and got off to a very good start. The dam supports a wide
range of water birds including a sea eagle. Within a few minutes we
had all the grebe and all but one cormorant possible up this
way. A smaller dam nearby added blue bill ducks to our duck count
and the adjacent bushland was full of bush birds, the best being the crested
shrike-tit.
Then we headed to Gunnedah where we camped on a
property near the Kelvin forest for the night. As I used to live
over there we drove along a road where I used to see lots of barn owls and sure
enough, there was one in exactly the same spot. We didn't get
any other night birds. That could have something to do with our not
being dedicated enough to stay up! Instead we enjoyed a wonderful
night sleeping under the stars in brilliant moonlight.
Lots of birds greeted us next morning however, and
by the time we left Kelvin we were approaching 100. Borah Creek near
Manilla was our next stop. It is always a good spot and turquoise
parrots and a hooded robin were our best additions there. We also
had a lovely sighting of about five little lorikeets perched on a branch down at
water level.
Our club members were having an outing that day to
find the regent honeyeater near Barraba, so we made that our destination for
lunch. They hadn't found the bird when we arrived, but the discovery
of three birds about ten minutes later gave us our best sighting for the
trip.
A brief stop near Bundarra added the yellow-tufted
honeyeater to our list. We don't often see these honeyeaters, so
we lost a little time enjoying watching a group of them fly all around
us.
Dangar's Lagoon near Uralla yielded more water
birds and some whiskered terns just coming into breeding dress. We
were surprised to see a brown quail there at the water's edge behaving rather
like a crake, and we had a very good sighting of the little grass
bird.
Our trip ended at Jenny's place at
Kentucky. We quickly added a few common birds that she always has
there and then had a much needed cup of tea. Our total was 128 birds
- very pleasing when you consider that we didn't have access to a great range of
habitats.
It could have been 130 though. Being
rather tired, we hadn't checked Jenny's dam, as we already had the
waterbirds she usually gets. Just after five o'clock she discovered
we could have added a night heron and a spoonbill. Never mind, at
least we found the regent honeyeater. It was a new bird for
Louise which made it even better.
Cheers Annabel
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