The 2 Little Curlew were still at Lake Atkinson yesterday. Trevor Ford and
Neil Bowman saw them just a few minutes after arriving there yesterday
morning, when some of the cattle grazing at the western end of the lake went
for a run and conveniently flushed both birds.
At Abberton, for the last week or so we've been hearing a new to us
nocturnal call; an insistent, repetitive call coming from the creek bank, or
close to it. I searched through all the night birds on the BOC tapes,
without success, and then, just on a whim, tried Bush-hen - and there it
was! Like clicking the final piece into a well-made jigsaw puzzle, a perfect
match!
Not being familiar with Bush-hens I hadn't realized their crepuscular and
nocturnal tendencies. (Is there a single word that encompasses both
night-time and dawn-dusk activities?)
When the bird began calling late yesterday afternoon, Trevor, Neil, Eileen
and I went down to the creekbank to try for a sighting. At one stage it was
calling very close by from a point directly opposite us on the other side of
the creek, whereupon a darkish rail, smaller than a moorhen, flew from the
target undergrowth opposite and across to our side of the creek, and
somewhat further upstream. The calling then recommenced from the new
location.
It was indubitably the Bush-hen, but that was the best view any of the four
of us got of it - and wouldn't have been enough to id it from in the absence
of the call. I managed to get it on audio-tape, but a photograph might prove
a lot more difficult to achieve.
It carried on calling for most of the evening, returning quite close to the
house, and was clearly audible from the bedroom at 4 o'clock this-morning!
Bird #202 for the Abberton list, and the first record of Bush-hen for the
Lockyer Valley.
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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