Marj and I had great views this morning of a Dollarbird, Eurystomus orientalis, hawking over the Yarra River
at Wilson Reserve, Ivanhoe, 9 km from the Melbourne GPO. The bird was
seen from the main walking track, just upstream of the reserve and downstream
of Horseshoe Billabong. It was using a dead tree at the bed of the river
as a perch.
Dollarbirds are very rare this far south and I have never
previously seen one in Melbourne.
There is a December 2001 record from Bett Mitchell in the birding-aus archives
of a bird at Cranbourne Botanical Gardens in Melbourne’s south-east.
Neville Pamment
