Hi Carol and all
I can add a great afternoon's birding on Friday behind Oska's with
the highlight there being surrounded by Brown Treecreepers, White-
throated Treecreepers and a Red-browed Treecreeper with a number of
Varied Sitellas overhead. Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters abounded.
Saturday arvo behind Oska's turned up Crested Shrike-tits - just to
complete our weekend bark forager roll call. Sunday arvo on Crown
Station Road was not too shabby either where, among many others, we
also got Turquoise Parrots, plenty of Striped Honeyeaters and Fuscous
Honeyeaters in breeding plumage/mode.
Like you, I also got Little Eagles at the survey site I worked over
on Sunday morning (behind Glen Alice School). A little earlier we
also had fantastic views of Diamond Firetails carrying nesting material.
I left the valley around 4:00pm on Sunday and whilst driving down a
long slope, caught sight of a Square-tailed Kite being pursued by two
ravens. I stopped the car for a better view and the birds passed
within metres of me several times, affording the best views of this
kite species that I've ever had.
Thanks to yourself and everyone who organised yet another fantastic
opportunity to do good things for the environment and a great
Saturday night nosh-up.
Ricki Coughlan
Sydney
http://www.redtail.net.au
On 21/08/2007, at 4:17 PM, Carol Probets wrote:
Last weekend about 80 volunteers descended on the Capertee Valley
NSW for another tree planting weekend. This time we worked on two
properties on Port Macquarie Road, in beautiful soft soil made damp
by recent rain. On Monday morning the owner of one of the
properties recorded another 46mm in his rain gauge, so all those
trees will be off to a good start!
As always, there were numerous bird highlights. For me the good
birds started while I was having breakfast on the verandah of my
cabin, with 3 Turquoise Parrots dropping by.
The stream of planters arriving at the first site on Saturday
morning didn't deter a pair of Red-rumped Parrots from visiting a
hollow fence post at the car parking area. Also here, a Pallid
Cuckoo was calling persistently and an all-too-brief session of
song from a Pied Butcherbird filled the air. Nectarivore numbers
are low this year but a small flock of Musk Lorikeets moved through
at one stage.
Those laying out the plants on Friday were rewarded with the sight
of a Square-tailed Kite flying over the first planting site. On
Saturday morning it made another appearance. Later in the morning a
Peregrine Falcon also flashed by.
At the second planting site I heard Turquoise Parrots in the
adjoining woodland while having lunch. (This site is very close to
an area where Gilbert's Whistler has been seen in the past.) The
owner of this property was very excited to have seen a Regent
Honeyeater on his verandah a week earlier. It must have known what
was planned! These plantings will be a fabulous extension of
habitat for Regents and other species in this very interesting part
of the valley.
All 2000 trees were in the ground and watered by Saturday
afternoon. On Sunday, several people participated in Regent
Honeyeater surveys at various sites around the valley. As far as I
know, only one site produced Regents with 18 counted there. They
appear to have just moved into the valley in the last week, after
several months with no records. During the coming weeks more should
arrive and hopefully be setting up territories where there is
flowering Needle-leaf Mistletoe.
I surveyed a site on private property where the highlights were a
pair of White-backed Swallows swooping low over the grassland, a
pair of Little Eagles and very close-up views of three fence-
sitting Singing Bushlarks.
The next tree planting weekend will be held on 3-4 May 2008.
Cheers,
Carol
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carol Probets
Guided birding in the Blue Mountains & Capertee Valley
PO Box 330
Katoomba NSW 2780
Web: http://www.bmbirding.com.au
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================
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:
===============================
|
