White-throated Needletails - Strzelecki Ranges (Vict.)

A nice week (7-11 November) spent birding & riding the mountain bike (loaded with camping gear) up into Victoria's Strzelecki Ranges in South Gippsland east of Melbourne.

Lots of Rose Robins calling each day in the tall wet forest gullies (Balook area, Tarra Bulga National Park), lyrebirds, black-cockatoos roosting in the trees above the tent site and the lovely, often mournful call of Olive Whistler's coming from roadside vegetation off the Grand Ridge Rd.  This is what bush birding is all about and few other tourists around.

This is a great area of tall forest remnants not far from Melbourne and accessible by bicycle from the Bairnsdale rail line where we alighted at Morwell.

The weather tended to be windy with a few showers and sunny breaks.

We recorded a flock of White-throated Needletails foraging high above the Bulga Park Information Centre on the Grand Ridge Rd. as follows:

No. in flock: about 50
Locality: Balook, Strzelecki Ranges, South Gippsland, Victoria.
Grid ref: Map 8221 grid 623465
Lat/Long: 38 deg 25 min 30 sec, 146 deg 34 min 00 sec
Map name (1: 25 00 VicMap) - Carrajung, 8221 - 3 - Sth
Altitude: the birds were at least 200m above the ridge which was just over 600m in height
Weather: cool after rainy weather a few days before.

Martin O'Brien
Melbourne

PS.  Russell, has this got through to the list?