After trying to give up birding for a day, I've had a non-stop week back
into it.
The fires on the Toowoomba Range closed the escarpment forests, and the
rainforest at Ravensbourne National Park was put out of bounds too, so we
haven't been able to get into those habitats for a while, but we still
managed to pick up 158 species around the valley since my day off.
A couple of immature Musk Duck have turned up on a local farm dam. What
water there is sitting around has attracted a good assortment of inland
waders and terns; Marsh and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers have been on the fringes
of most lagoons for a few weeks now, this week we added Curlew Sandpiper,
Red-necked Stint and Black-tailed Godwit - all around 100km inland. And a
few Latham's Snipe here and there.
In the driest and most forlorn paddocks, Banded Lapwings and Ground
Cuckoo-shrikes are somehow managing to eke out a living, and to raise young.
Plum-headed Finches too. It seems to be a bonanza year for Rufous Songlarks.
Woodswallows are still around, mostly White-browed and Masked intermingled,
but a few Dusky in the woods. Leaden and Restless Flycatchers are always in
the valley at this time of year, but the other day we first heard and then
saw a male Satin Flycatcher - I can't remember when we last had one locally,
a few years at least for me.
Plenty of cuckoos - Channel-bills, Koels, Fan-tailed, Shining and
Horsfield's Bronze, lots of Pallid. Pheasant Coucals were whooping away at
Abberton after the rain the other day. I guess they'll be feeling depressed
again soon.
Tawny Frogmouths are nesting at several locations around the place, Barn
Owls have been roadside sightings in the early evenings.
Variegated Fairywrens have returned to their full, magnificent plumage -
easily the best-looking fairywren for my money. We watched all three local
fairywren species showing off in two adjacent trees at Abberton the other
morning, Variegated, Superb and Red-backed. It was spectacular!
Another good year for White-winged Trillers. The males don't really desert
their females and young, they just go into eclipse very quickly after
breeding.
Rainbow Bee-eaters and Striated Pardalotes are nesting in the creekbanks.
We've been seeing the occasional White-backed Swallow, but we've never had
them nest at our place. The two local nesting sites that I know of are both
in very high creekside banks - maybe 20 or 30 feet up. We've got a sandstone
cliff-face that high across the creek from the house, but the soft loamy
banks on this side are only 6 to 7 feet at their highest point. Maybe that's
a variable.
Late on Tuesday, we were lured into a fruitless 15 minutes trying to track
down a 'whoomping' button-quail near Lake Atkinson. It was a bit like
Sleeping Beauty following the cuckoo deeper and deeper into the woods. We
didn't find the whoomper, but we did score a bonus Koala draped high in an
ironbark. Holding on with one hand while the other just hung down, he was
the very picture of nonchalance, half-watching us through half-open eyes,
but not really interested. Put a cigarette-holder in the dangling paw and it
could have been Noel Coward.
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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