g'Day John
Thanks for your reply. It appears this Dollarbird is a first record
for Tasmania and it will probably stay in the area for a while judged by
the approachable, relatively calm behaviour. Let me know if anyone
wants to come and have a look as i can show them the spot.
Regards
Ian May
St Helens, Tasmania
0428337956
(03) 63761966
John Tongue wrote:
Hi Ian,
We have only been in Tassie four years, but have certainly never seen
a Dollarbird, nor heard of their existence in that time. We'd be
interested to know what others think on the subject.
John & Shirley Tongue
Hobart
On Monday, March 5, 2007, at 08:16 PM, Ian May wrote:
g'Day All
An immature Dollarbird was observed at Scamander, Tasmania today (5th
March 2007) at about 4 pm.
While driving east along Upper Scamander Road with my wife Patricia,
our attention was drawn to a medium sized dark coloured bird with
distinctive "roller" flight showing white "dollar" under wing
flashes, flying adjacent and about 50 metres north east of us.
Flying about 10 metres above the ground and following along the
undulating forest margin where it meets the road, it settled on a
horizontal limb about 25 metres from us illuminated by bright
sunlight shining from behind us. By it's characteristic appearance
the bird was immediately identified as a Dollarbird.
We observed the bird in perfect conditions perched and preening for
more than 3 minutes before it flew a short distance to the north
settling again into an isolated Blackwood tree growing within a
lightly timbered farm paddock near the southern bank of Scamander River.
Weather conditions: Mild temperature, approx. 2/8 middle level cloud
with low humidity and a light south west breeze. Weather for the
past few weeks has been warm to hot and humid with mostly east/ north
east and north winds
Location
Upper Scamander Rd at a point 5.9 km. west of Tasman Highway where a
power line crosses the road 100 metres west of a red letterbox
displaying 100 mm black numbers 599 on white reflective
background.. The area is unburned little more than 1 km from where
severe bushfires passed in late December 2006
Description
Medium sized bird, strong broad dusky grey bill with a hooked tip,
dark grey coloured legs, grey brown head and neck, paler blue upper
breast and deeper blue wings with dark grey primaries back and tail.
Rolling flight with strong purposeful wing strokes showing
conspicuous white under wing patches. No red visible on bill or
legs indicating immature bird.
As I have no access to relevant texts at present, would someone
confirm status of Dollarbird in Tasmania please?
Regards
Ian May
St Helens, Tasmania
0428337956
(03) 63761966
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
