G'day birders,
Just back from a wonderful few days birding and camping in the Killawarra
Forest, Warby Range State Park, north-east Victoria. Mick Ramsey posted
some interesting records from the region earlier, and I concur with him that
conditions are certainly very good for bird-watching in the area at present.
We camped at a small forest dam in Killawarra and completed an atlas survey
(within 500m) which tallied-up at 58 species over three days - quite
impressive for the dry woodland environment. Much of the forest was in
reasonable flower - Grey Box and Mugga Ironbark were attracting very high
numbers of Noisy and Little Friarbirds. There were many summer migrant
hangovers (White-browed Woodswallows and a few Masked thrown-in), and it was
amazing to watch the squabbling flocks of these birds feeding close to the
ground following heavy rain on Good Friday. Other summer migrants included
Olive-backed Oriole, a female White-winged Triller and two of the biggest
trip highlights - White-throated Nightjar seen on two evenings hawking over
the dam, and a Painted Honeyeater hanging around the dam. As an added
bonus, lots of the winter migrants were also on offer - Swift Parrots (a
conservative estimate of 30-40 birds), Flame Robin, and Yellow-faced and
White-naped Honeyeaters. We were astonished at the number of Jacky Winters
in the forest - almost every stop resulted us sighting these birds. Nice
too to see Red-capped and Hooded Robins, and all the usual box-ironbark
suspects like Fuscous, Yellow-tufted and Black-chinned Honeyeaters, Little
Lorikeets, White-browed Babblers, Peaceful Dove, Dusky Woodswallow, Brown
Treecreeper and Crested Shrike-tit. Ahh, gotta love those woodlands!!!!
Best wishes,
Chris Tzaros
(Melbourne)
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