birding-aus

Birders on the Gold Coast?

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Birders on the Gold Coast?
From: Carl Billingham <>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:42:47 -0700 (PDT)
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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