Autumn birding, with mixed species flocks
moving slowly through the garden, is an absolute joy.
Yesterday, at one time, in my coastal
garden at Sorrento, Vic there were so many birds that I almost had to duck my head to allow them to pass from shrub
to shrub to tree.
The 'onslaught' started with 3 very vocal Golden
Whistlers - male, female and immature. Don't know if they were moving as a group
or just happened to meet up in my garden. Interestingly the female was quite
agitated/excited - was she thinking, as some of my plants are, that spring has
sprung.
Two Yellow
Robins were observed feeding with many forays to the ground and completely
ignoring my very near presence. Singing
Honeyeaters and Eastern Spinebills were moving through the correas and other
plants together. New Holland Honeyeaters, always nearby but rarely in my
garden, visited for a short time. The resident Brown Thornbills, whose number at
this time of the year I can only guess at, were on a windless day also
quite vocal. Even the sometimes shy White-throated Scrubwrens were
making their presence felt.
The 'resident' Pink Robin 'ticked' away in the
background, from perches fairly high up in the tea-tree, a Little
Wattlebird chose to do its own thing in a nearby gum tree and 2 Grey
Butcherbirds watched from next door .
As Michael Norris wrote:
"May with its marvellous weather - warm and clear -
is the best month for birds around here".
Cheers
Val
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