Our first Yellow-faced Honeyeater of the season turned up in the garden
yesterday - a very welcome sight. Graham Pizzey used the epithet 'charming'
for this little bird, and although it's hard to pin down what exactly that
means in this kind of context, I know that I agree.
This particular bird might just be an altitudinal migrant, along with the
Grey Fantails, from nearby Toowoomba up on top of the range to our immediate
west. It need not have come all the way from Carole Probets. All our
Abberton records are between May and September.
Yellow-faced Honeyeater numbers certainly increase along the escarpment in
these 'winter' months, which I suspect could well reflect the movements from
the south which have been discussed recently.
Our first Little Eagle for the year appeared on Monday, another bird which
is strictly an autumn/winter visitor for us.
There are two raptor 'peaks' here, April/May and Aug/Sept/Oct/Nov.
Maybe it would be easier to say that there are fewer raptors in mid-summer
and mid-winter.
In May and October we often record 13 raptor species during the month, with
the lowest monthly species counts in recent years 6 to 8 in Dec/Jan/Feb.
This could stand a lot more analysis - I've got monthly records for Abberton
back to 1988, so I'll give it a go when time allows. Just for the record,
species counts by month for 2001 were:
Jan: 6 Feb: 8 Mar:10 Apr: 9 May:13 Jun:10 Jul:10 Aug:11
Sep:12 Oct:13 Nov: 9 Dec: 8
Bill Jolly
"Abberton",
Lockyer Valley, Queensland.
Visit our website at http://www.abberton.org
Email:
Ph: (+61) 7 4697 6111 Fax: (+61) 7 4697 6056
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