Everyone,
This years race had me nervous. Oiling trips out west
and up into the rainforest resulted in few birds being
found, and with two main race 'virgins' in the side,
lead to much worrying by an already stressed out
leader.
Liz Livanos, Liz Huxtable, Nick Livanos and I headed
to our starting point bright and early Saturday
morning, listening to all those tricky bird calls on
CD as we went.
The woodland was eerily quiet on arrival at Borah TSR
(north-west of Tamworth), but as we walked around
birds popped up from no where. We sat by the creek and
watched Plum-heads, Diamond Firetails and Turquoise
Parrot drinking whilst White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike and
Musk Lorikeet flew overhead. Ideal start you're
thinking....wrong....it was 2:50pm! Come 3pm
everything had gone.
We stumbled around for a while ticking White-browed
Woodie, Shrike-tit, Peaceful Dove, Pallid Cuckoo,
Little Friarbird and Brown Treecreeper. Eventually the
Plum-heads and Diamonds came back and Fuscous
Honeyeater called. As we headed back towards the car
the cry of 'Turk' had everyone running to see this
beautiful bird. Dusky Woods, Wedgie, Horsfield's
Bronze and Double-bar were late arrivals.
We left Borah fairly happy. A few km's down the road
we ticked Apostlebird, Hooded Robin, Bee-eater,
White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike, Tree Martin, Singing
Bushlark and more Plum-heads.
Our Crimson Chat spot resulted in no chat but a single
White-backed Swallow made up for that. Luckily our
Painted Honeyeater spot resulted in Painted Honeyeater
as well as Brown and Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater,
Red-capped Robin and Red-winged Parrot.
White-winged Triller and fairy-wren, Brown Songlark,
Yellow-throated Miner, Grey-crowned Babbler,
Cockatiel, Blue Bonnet and Mallee Ringneck were seen
before entering our final stop, Leard SF near
Boggabri.
It was getting late and the forest was starting to
settle down for the evening. Leaden Flycatcher,
Speckled Warbler, Striped Honeyeater, Inland Thornbill
and Masked Woodswallow made appearances but
White-browed Babbler and White-throated Needletail
slipped through the net, only just.
As night fell we dipped on Nightjar but saw up to 5
Barn Owls and good spotting by Liz L gave us a
Frogmouth on our way to Tamworth for dinner. Thanks
must go to the Maccas staff who served us after we
slipped through the locked doors :-)
Part 2 coming soon.............
National Bingo Night. Play along for the chance to win $10,000 every week.
Download your gamecard now at Yahoo!7 TV.
http://au.blogs.yahoo.com/national-bingo-night/
===============================
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:
===============================
|
