birding-aus

Capertee Valley survey & maintenance weekend

To:
Subject: Capertee Valley survey & maintenance weekend
From: Carol Probets <>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 19:19:16 +1000
Hello birders,

Last night I returned from a "maintenance weekend" in the Capertee Valley
(NSW). The purpose of this weekend was to get a few people in the valley
doing follow-up work on some of the recent tree-planting sites, removing
tree guards where they are no longer needed, adding fertiliser, weeding,
monitoring survival of trees, general tidying up, etc. This was combined
with Regent Honeyeater surveys at some of their regular breeding sites on
Saturday morning.

For my survey site I was allocated one of my favourite birding spots in the
valley - a site along the Capertee River on private property which is
normally not accessible to the public, with access only for official
surveys and research. It has been a very poor year for Regent Honeyeaters
in the Capertee Valley but I had heard of a couple of recent sightings in
other parts of the valley (including one seen by Timothy & Lynda), so our
hopes were high for finding them at this site. As I arrived at the river
bank with my fellow surveyers Tim and Simon, I immediately heard a Regent
calling a little further downstream, just off our survey site. With such a
great start I immediately assumed they were going to be in good numbers all
along the river. But this was not quite the story. Much of the
Needle-leafed Mistletoe in the River Oaks has been killed off by drought
and frost last year, but what is left was flowering quite well and wherever
this occurred there were Noisy Friarbirds and White-plumed Honeyeaters
taking advantage of it, and these were the areas where we looked extra hard
for any Regents. We eventually heard, then saw, two more about halfway
along our site, busily feeding on the mistletoe. This was a new bird for
Tim and Simon. Try as we may, these were the only Regents we ended up
seeing.

We did however see many other great birds, including a couple of
White-backed Swallows frolicking in the air just above us. Bee-eaters have
arrived in force and were common at this site and elsewhere in the valley,
giving us glorious views in the sunlight. A Brown Goshawk, Wedge-tailed
Eagle and Little Eagle were all seen during our survey, a Horsfield's
Bronze-Cuckoo called from the other side of the river, and Rufous Songlarks
were performing their song-flight. Five native finch species, including
Plum-heads, were easy to find. Unlike my last few visits, there was
actually water flowing down the river, enough for an Azure Kingfisher to
make an appearance.

During the course of the survey we also counted about 20 Budgerigars spread
out in little groups. Since the budgies appeared in the valley around May
2002, they have remained consistently at this site and appear to have been
breeding here. I find it interesting that they have become so localised at
this spot and yet haven't been seen anywhere else in the valley apart from
the first few weeks after their arrival last year. What is it they like
about this site? Anyway, it was great to see them again.

I believe there were 5 other Regent Honeyeaters seen by those surveying
other sites, including 3 at a site very close to ours. Most of the survey
sites however, turned up nil birds.

Although these couple of hours were the only concentrated birding I did
over the weekend, there was plenty of interesting bird activity to keep us
entertained as we worked at the planting sites during the rest of the
weekend. Throughout the valley, large flocks of Noisy Friarbirds were
moving through, as were flocks of Yellow-faced and White-naped Honeyeaters.
At Brymair in the northern part of the valley, Yellow-rumped Thornbills
were feeding young in a nest right above us as we sat in the shade eating
lunch. White-throated Gerygone in full song and Rufous Whistler were also
seen here. On Sunday at the Glen Davis planting site there were Bee-eaters
everywhere, as well as Dusky Woodswallows, Diamond Firetails, Black-chinned
Honeyeaters, White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike, Crested Shrike-tit, White-browed
Babblers and Jacky Winter. A short distance up the rocky hillside behind
the property I found Rockwarblers. A couple of Little Lorikeets flew over,
though generally lorikeets were scarce in most parts of the valley.

After we'd had enough of working, we restored our energy with a "cuppa" at
the cottage where some of the group stayed, watching Fuscous and
Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters at the birdbaths. My advice to anyone wanting to
experience the "real" Capertee Valley, is get involved and participate in
the tree-planting and associated activites! There will be two tree-planting
weekends as usual next year and perhaps another maintenance weekend (though
it was suggested by some that we'll have to change the name to something
more macho than "maintenance weekend" in order to attract more blokes - as
the male volunteers this weekend could literally be counted on the fingers
of one hand. Suggestions welcome!)

Cheers

Carol


Carol Probets
Katoomba
Blue Mountains NSW






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 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Capertee Valley survey & maintenance weekend, Carol Probets <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU