What a marvellous time of year! Birds everywhere!
I've managed to get in quite a bit of birding during the first two weeks of
Spring - finding 178 spp in the Lockyer Valley with just one day-trip up the
range included.
So many birds are breeding - and a lot are already feeding young, with
White-naped Honeyeaters and Brown Thornbills both seen feeding young
Horsfield Bronze Cuckoos.
Ground Cuckoo-shrikes, Banded Lapwings and Tawny Frogmouths are all nesting
conveniently enough to be photographed, and I'll be putting those images on
the Abberton website shortly.
One bird ready for breeding, but in the wrong place, was a brightly plumaged
Double-banded Plover at Lake Atkinson. This is only the second Lockyer
Valley record of this bird, which should really be on its way to New Zealand
by now instead of feeding at an inland lake in Queensland the company of
around 300 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers newly arrived from the Arctic, 40 or so
Marsh Sandpipers (from the inland Palearctic?), a couple of Pacific Golden
Plover (Northern Asia?) and a handful of Red-capped Plover (a full-time
Aussie wader for the most part). Male and female Black-necked Stork were
nearby, with Swamp Harrier, White-bellied Sea-eagle and Whistling Kite
cruising the lake, frequently coming low enough to scatter everything
smaller than a pelican or a stork.
Koels are back around Abberton, Pallid Cuckoos too, but I'm still waiting to
hear my first Channel-billed Cuckoos of the season.
Friends have just moved to a new home (an established house, but a new home)
up near Mount Tamborine and they're getting a regular Albert's Lyrebird in
the garden! But, there's so much happening that I'll leave the passerines to
another posting - and in the meantime I'll try to get the website updated
with some new photos of what we've been seeing.
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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