OBP update

[Russell Woodford <>]

The Orange-bellied Parrot seen near my home yesterday has not reappeared.  This is much as expected, as  all three records for this same area are from the same time of year, and are thought to be birds nearing the end of their autumn migration from Tasmania (although there is nothing to verify this).

The bird was seen by 3 observers - 2 adults, and only one a regular birdwatcher.  However, the description of the other observer (my wife!) is the one on which I place the most reliability, because she saw the bird at very close range for several minutes, describing the key features to me over the phone.

The most interesting thing about the sighting was that the bird appeared to be feeding on seed pods from "Mustard weed".  There are several plants with the name (is this Arabidopsis thaliana ?): this one is the rather sparse, straggly bush with yellow flowers and pale, elongated seed pods.  It grows singly and in small clusters all around this part of the bay.

About 50m from where the parrot was yesterday is a small saltmarsh, complete with flowering Bearded  Grasswort, a line of salt bush almost on the shore, and a long clump of Sword Sedge, which has disappeared from most of the bay.  Basically, this sounds like reasonable OBP "winter resort" habitat, so I'll be keeping my bins trained on this little saltmarsh whenever I can.  Luckily I can see part of it from my back steps - starting to really like this new house!

Cheers

Russell Woodford
Geelong