-----Original Message-----
From: Dion Hobcroft
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Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2006 5:01 PM
To:
Subject: NSW Alpine Birding and Orange Chat
Arriving back from Argentina I had time
to check the birding-aus archives. I was amazed to hear of the Orange Chat at
Malabar. Two hours later on 25 Jan I was at the site and after a bit of
navigational confusion combined with jetlag I found the bird and enjoyed good
views for twenty minutes although it was a bit flighty from dogwalkers. It was
near the southernmost flag pole (without flag during my visit) about 70 metres
NE on the old vehicle track. I accessed from Fisherman’s Road but it is
quite a maze to get to the site.
What a great record-thanks to Frank Hemmings for this one.
Next I led an Australia Day five day tour for “Follow
That Bird” to the NSW High country. It was an excellent trip. One of the
major highlights were two male and a female Pink Robin along the Thredbo Creek
trail about half way between Thredbo and the Gap on 27 Jan. At the Gap carpark
we enjoyed an Olive Whistler. Other good alpine birds included Stubble Quail
(three sightings) and Latham’s Snipe. We stayed at Bimblegumbie, a good
birding site with 40 species around the rooms including excellent Satin
Flycatchers and daily Gang Gangs. At Thredbo Creek near Jindabyne we enjoyed
Platypus. The alpine reptile fauna was on full display in the warm conditions and
we encountered two Copperheads, White-lipped Snake, the endemic Snowy Mountains
Rock Skink Egernia guthega that was a lifer for me. Also of interest was a
road-killed female Fallow Deer near the Ski-Tube. While checking the
road-killed deer for ID we found some Emus gorging on the berries of some
Epacris-like shrubs.
We finished the trip with 102 species of birds, 5 native
mammals and 12 reptiles. This combined with the wildflowers and great food made
for a good time.
Cheers
Dion
