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Hi All
On Saturday, I dropped into the Audley end of Lady
Carrington Drive in the Royal National Park. As soon as I arrived at the car
park adjacent to the entrance gate a juvenile Brown Goshawk swooped into a
tree roughly 10 metres from my car and proceeded to continually lunge at and
swoop on a Willy Wagtail who remained in the tree (HIS tree actually - as
all regulars will attest to). The Wagtail repeatedly scolded and returned attack
on the young offender, who was clearly out of his depth as he was only 15
times the size of the Wagtail. After 10 minutes or so the wearied and slightly
battered Brown Goshawk departed, leaving our Wagtail to get on with more
important matters: ie. flushing out insect prey.
Once on the trail, I noticed an unusually high
level of Lyrebird activity and quickly came upon a male who was in full display
to two females. I sat and watched the magic for at least half an hour before
proceeding on the trail. On my return, I came upon a group of four
males who were displaying. Two were juveniles, with only partial adult tail
growth and two were in full adult plumage. Their displays were not so constant
as the male's which I had encountered earlier, but this time there were no
females showing any interest. This is the first of this behaviour which I
have seen this year and I am wondering if anyone out there has witnessed this
sudden onset of full display in their area.
Another pleasing thing is the great improvement in
numbers of Crested Shrike-tits along the trail. These beautiful "bark crackers"
have been in somewhat short supply until recently. There are one or two places
along the drive where they are now quite common.
We have a nesting pair of Brown Cuckoo-Doves
who are also breaking with tradition along the Drive. They are nesting on a rock
shelf to the side of the trail rather than among the "Birds Nest" plants and
"Stag Horn" epiphytes throughout the forest which is their usual choice. Numbers
are also certainly up with this species this year with many calling along the
trail and singles and pairs also regularly flying along the trail just above
head height.
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