Hello All,
Recently I was speaking to a local farmer who occasionally sees
Plains-wanders on his Nth Vic property. Awhile back while driving through a
sparse grassland paddock he observed a Plains-wanderer hurrying away from
him. He turned aside to get a closer look at it and was intrigued to observe
the bird lay completely prostrate on the ground, with its neck and head
stretched out. It made the bird very difficult to see. It was behaviour a
bit similar to what I have seen Bush Stone-curlews do at times too. Both,
with their cryptic markings seem to be 'absorbed' into their surrounding
habitat when they adopt this posture.
On a visit to Narawntapu National Park (Asbestos Ranges) north of Launceston
in Tasmania a couple of weeks ago, I was walking on the beach section of the
Park during a time of strong wind blowing a heavy concentration of sand
about 40-50cm high. I came across two families of Hooded Plovers - adult
pairs with three juvenile young in one case and two in the other . If the
birds flew, the wind would have been so strong, it seemed to me, as to make
it very difficult to have controlled flight and to keep the family group
together. Also the sand was so dense it also made it hard for birds on the
shore to observe their surrounds. I was struck with how both families dealt
with these circumstances. They not only faced into the wind, but in their
little family flock were in the shallow water hunkered down so that they
were at times submerged int the water to almost over their backs. I was
stuck with this intelligent behaviour as a way of coping with difficult
environmental conditions.
Narawntapu National Park is a very nice area, with lots of wildlife. I saw
about 50 species of birds during my couple of days there. Flocks of the
Tassie sub-species of the Silvereye were also flocking ready to migrate
across the Strait. It was fascinating to see flocks of between 50-100
massing and having trial 'runs' as the swooped together flying around the
dune vegetation and briefly out over the ocean, before returning to roost
briefly in the shrubbery before another foray into the air and out over the
ocean.
Regards,
Chris Coleborn
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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