Freckled Duck and other SE Queensland highlights

["Daniel Mantle" <>]

Hi all,

Seb Pardo and I managed to avoid most of the Brisbane rain this weekend (that cancelled my cricket match) and get to a few sites around Brisbane and the Lockyer Valley. On Saturday we started off at Sherwood Arboretum where a Barred Cuckoo-shrike put in an appearance in the figs near the river before I headed off to play cricket (more fool me!). We then met up again and decided to introduce Seb to Tom Tarrant's 'Death March' through the tall grasslands near the Lake Samsonvale cemetary. This resulted in one Brown Quail being flushed in the first 2 hours of marching. We did however get typically brief views of one King Quail later on and a further Brown Quail. We heard others but I think the extremely long grass at the moment is making it easy for the birds to disappear without flushing. Samsonvale also provided us with the one that got away for the weekend - a Little Bronze-cuckoo (not calling and backlit) but still pretty sure of its id. Picked up Fuscous Honeyeater at the Scout Den near Lake Kurwongbah (not many sites in Brisbane) and several Lathams Snipe at the ponds near Bullocky Rest.

An early start on Sunday saw us out in the Lockyer Valley for first light. We saw two Ground Cuckoo-shrike and a couple of Plum-headed Finch near Murphys Bridge (Back Flagstone Creek road near Helidon). The real highlight of the day came mid morning in the form of a single Freckled Duck on the small marshes along Old Ropeley Road (thanks to Bill Jolly's tip off - I think up to 8 birds were seen a month or so ago). As usual raptors put in an appearance in the Lockyer with a Swamp Harrier helpfully waking the Freckled Duck from its slumbers, a Peregrine Falcon briefly chasing some pigeons around before deciding that sitting on top of the Forest Hill Silos was less taxing, several pairs of Brown Falcon, and a perched Brown Goshawk amongst others. Another fun sighting was when a particularly ambitious Whistling Kite tried to give chase to some White-throated Needletails that had just mobbed it.

Cheers Dan

---

Find just what you're after on your PC with Windows Desktop Search. FREE download! 

--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
'unsubscribe birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to