Last Sunday, 10/11/02, we visited Archerfield, Brisbane's Airfield for small
aircraft and saw 2 Australian Pratincoles. Also of interest was a Peregrine
swishing by and a Pallid Cuckoo giving a good view on a fence line.
The pratincoles were seen in the northern part of the airfield, turn off
Boundary Rd next to the BP truck servo, after a few hundred metres,
turn into Wirraway Ave past a Fighter Museum and a "Mig on a stick",
and when the road ends check the fields in front of you. The birds we
saw were about 150-200 m in.
The previous week, Richard Thomson told me he saw a Little Curlew at
Archerfield when he was leaving a small plane in front of Gill Layts flying
school. We didn't see it on Sunday but the area is difficult to see from
the road.
I did a 3 year survey of the birds of Archerfield (1995-98, reported in Sunbird
29 (1999): 29-40), and recorded Little Curlew only once. However, prior
to that
Gynther et al. (Sunbird 1995, 25:93-96) reported Little Curlew, Oriental
Plover
and Aus Pratincole from Archerfield, with the suggestion that the presence
of the latter two in Nov 1994 was the result of the severe drought in much of
Australia that year.
It seems that the drought might again be pushing some of these unusual birds
to Archerfield.
Peter & Leith Woodall
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
