Inland Koels

Twitchathons will not be mentioned in this e-mail.

The central-west of NSW is experiencing quite a good season with the drought declaration now officially dropped.  Some interesting birds (for us) are starting to show up.  There is a resident Koel in South Dubbo at the moment (keeping those in the leafy south of town awake at night) while another was heard at my place (10km east of Dubbo) on Wednesday morning.

The last Koel in Dubbo (to my knowledge) was in 2000, which was also a wet year.

Several weeks ago there was also a Channel-billed Cuckoo hanging around my place for about a week.

Interestingly, just to the west of us (well, north-west) there appears to still be plenty of birds around that were probably pushed east by the drought.  Crimson Chats are still common in the Macquarie Marshes (as well as elsewhere) as are Diamond Doves.  It could be that these were pushed east by drought and the current good conditions have them breeding up in numbers.

Anyway, the bottom line is that, with water just reaching the Macquarie Marshes, that area would be a great place to visit in a couple of weeks!

Cheers

David Geering
Regent Honeyeater Recovery Coordinator
Department of Environment & Conservation
P.O. Box 2111
Dubbo  NSW  2830
Ph: 02 6883 5335 or Freecall 1800 621 056
Fax: 02 6884 9382



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