I was out the Connondale Range way [~26 34S, 152 40E] on Sat poking
around the spots Greg Roberts suggested, to see if I could stumble on
the light rails and yellow-eyed candy snatchers he had reported seeing a
few days ago. No joy there, though for Mike's records, there were a few
Needlepoints circling over Little Yabba Ck around 8.30 am. Four-eyed
monarchs, log scratchers and noisy patters were otherwise as interesting
as it got.
So I headed up to Moy Pocket [east of Kenilworth Bluff] to have a gander
at the country Greg had been in. As I was poking about in a spot of
'gallery' forest [black beans, piccabeens, camphor laurels, fig trees,
sundry vines etc] on the bank of the Mary River, I flushed an owl sized
bird, which flew about 20 metres.
"You beauty" I thought, and crept up to and peered around a large
campher laurel. It was groucho bird with an orange-brown eye, strangely
perched mid-way along a 3cm diameter branch [with one foot placed by
upward branching twig] about 6 metres above the ground. Whoo-hoo, a
marbled groucho bird. It looked bigger than a cacklingbarra, had a
distinct whitish band above its eye and an inverted black V above the
white band. It had mottled brown wings [a bit like the photo in
Reader's Digest guide] and a pale downy looking chest. It had delicate
smallish feet and very large pupils. It seemed a bit nervous early on,
moving its head about a bit as it studied me. Eventually over the half
hour in which I studied it from various angles, it relaxed into the
classic groucho bird posture.
Amazing what you can find in a chopped up, weedy area like the Mary
River Valley.
Regards, Laurie.
.
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