Dear Birders,
I had the pleasure on Monday and Tuesday of taking Darryel 'Biggles' Binns to
Gloucester Tops in search of Rufous Scrubbird. We arrived at Kerripit Road at
around midday on Monday in perfect weather conditions. We stopped at the first
creek across Kerripit Road and immediately heard scrubbirds calling. We headed
into the bush on the northern (upstream) side of the road for 50m until quite
close to the calling bird. We sat and waited for 5 minutes and then set the
call playing softly about 10m in front of us beside a large log in a relatively
clear area. After a couple of minutes a female bird appeared on the far side of
the log and then came around the log and moved into a bush about 3 m away from
us providing excellent views at about 12:20 pm.This method of finding the bird
is incidentally called the 'Moorhead technique'.
We then walked the length of Kerripit Road and a bit beyond the gate. We heard
at least a further 5 birds calling including one beyond the gate but did not
sight any one of these.
Having got the principal target bird so quickly we decided to return down the
hill to camp at the Gloucester River camp ground in the hope of finding other
birds. After dinner we headed up the road looking for nocturnal birds. A Tawny
Frogmouth flew up from the road just a short way up the hill. A bit further up
the hill while driving quite slowly beside a steep hillside Biggles gave a
Sooty Owl 'bombwhistle' call. To our mutual amazement it was answered. We
immediately stopped and after a bit of encouragement from Biggles making
imitation bombwhistles and my playing a call the owl came into view on a branch
right beside the road. After a brief showing it took to wing and I presumed
that that was end of that. The bird had the good grace to alight on another
branch just a bit further away but in absolutely clear sight where it sat until
we eventually tore ourselves away. This was another tick for Biggles and a
wonderful viewing. Still further up the road we found an Owlet Nightjar and a
greater glider.
We went back up to Gloucester Tops the following morning and did the Beech
Walk. We heard 2 birds calling within 100 m of the start of the walk and
Biggles got brief views of both a male and a female bird. We then realised how
incredibly lucky we had been the previous day in finding the scrubbird so
quickly and relatively easily the previous day.
The road is in very good condition and this is certainly a good time to find
Rufous Bristlebird as they are very actively calling.
Regards
Peter Marsh
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