Timely comments Edwin!
We had a Diamond Dove here at Abberton today (Friday), about 20km east of
the divide - only our third ever record. In an interesting overlap,
Spectacled Monarchs were back on the Toowoomba escarpment this-morning,
about 20km west of the Diamond Dove.
I can't compete with the breath-taking, record-breaking finch, parrot, or
rail 'packages' that people have been reporting lately, but today we really
enjoyed a group of Chestnut-breasted Mannikins joining Zebra, Double-barred
and Red-browed Finches which were already feeding around the garden, and we
added just three Plum-heads a few minutes later. Only five 'finch' spp, but
stunners the lot of them!
How about trees with high scores? There are just two dead trees within sight
of our verandah - one we call 'the big dead tree' (good for raptors), the
other gets called 'the cuckoo-tree' because over 14 years here we have seen
all 11 available species of cuckoo in it - ie all of mainland Australia's
cuckoos save for the two far-northern species, Chestnut-breasted and Gould's
Bronze.
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
-----Original Message-----
From:
Behalf Of Edwin Vella
Sent: Friday, 27 September 2002 7:14 PM
To: KEITH BRANDWOOD; Timothy Hyde; Birding-Oz
Subject: Diamond Dove in Blue Mountains ?
The furthest east I have come accross Diamond Doves in NSW is in the
Capertee Valley on two occassions (along the western side of the Great
Dividing range and only about 40km from the Blue Mountains). Both sightings
were of single birds (as they often can be). It is quite possible that
others may turn up on the eastern side of the Dividing range with the
drought.
Edwin
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