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Hi All,
As part of attending the Birds Australia members
day on 31-5-2003 and a holiday over ten days in Tasmania (Tasmania really is a
lovely place to visit.) I went to Port Arthur Area on 3-6-2003. On the way, I
went to the Tasmanian Devil Park (about 10 km north of Port Arthur). They
have a wetland bird area on an estuary basically in their backyard. Not a lot of
birds there at the time but what was surprising was a collection of at least 8
White-bellied Sea-Eagles within an area of about 2 or
3 hectares. This included at one stage five individuals in binocular view at one
time. I am familiar with pairs or sometimes three of these birds together but
this seemed really odd to me. In the group was one adult female and the rest
were in variously juvenile or immature type plumage. Apparently lots of fish
have died nearby and got washed up into the bay, it was like the scenes on TV of
the Bald Eagles at the salmon spawning season.
Another
highlight of the trip was the pelagic trip on 1-6-2003, a whole day with almost
glassy smooth seas and oodles of big, medium sized (and even little - Diving
Petrels) salty-wet birds.
Philip
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