After moving to the Gold Coast and unpacking what seemed like an inordinate
number of boxes I finally got my first opportunity to do some birding yesterday
afternoon.
I decided to start local and visited the park area directly behind my new abode
in Varsity Lakes which yielded some great habitat that is slowly being
destroyed by the local developer contrary to the signs which said ?Bushland
Regeneration in progress?(!) the ambience wasn?t helped by the constant stream
of quad-bikes and two stroke dirtbikes tearing up and down the tracks until a
security car did the rounds of the area.
The area includes some remnant stands of paperbarks and some nice shallow ponds
with water lilies surrounded by dense reeds and grass banks. There are also
some patches of lantana and tangled undergrowth in the more forested areas.
The hour I spent wandering around yielded the following:
Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, King Parrot, Galah,
Australasian Grebe, Hardhead, Black Duck, Chestnut Teal, Darter, Little Pied
Cormorant, Jabiru (Black-necked Stork doesn?t do it justice when you see the
neck shimmering green and purple in the afternoon sunlight and that beautiful
yellow eye ? it?s a bit like saying a bottle of Grange Hermitage is nice grape
juice!) White-faced Heron, White Ibis, Dusky Moorhen, Swamphen, Silver Gull,
Red-backed Fairy-wren, Black-shouldered Kite, Osprey, Willie Wagtail, Spotted
Turtle-dove, Laughing Kookaburra, Rainbow Bee-eater, White-throated Honeyeater,
Blue-faced Honeyeater, Noisy Miner, Brown Honeyeater, Pied Currawong, Magpie,
Torresian Crow, Grey Shrike-thrush, Spangled Drongo, Magpie-lark, Black-faced
Cuckoo-shrike, White-breasted Woodswallow, Tree Martin, Silvereye.
I also heard a flycatcher of some sort but I?m not willing to make a call as to
which one it was.
37 birds identified in a bit over an hours birding on my back door step - not
bad! And I know I shall add to this list ? I suspect it is only a matter of
time before I add Crake, Bittern, Finches and Button/Quail to the list.
If there are any birders on the Gold Coast that can shed some light on good
places to visit I would really appreciate an email. At this stage I am sitting
at 599 birds and I?m hoping to make the Rufous Scrub-bird number 600! In the
meantime I know there are going to be plenty of other great places to explore
in the area.
Cheers,
Carl
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