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query

To:
Subject: query
From: meg mcmahon <>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 10:59:56 +1000
Dear Birding Oz.

I am a new subscriber with a query.

My husband and I are buiding a native garden from scratch adjacent to The 
Gully, in Katoomba, NSW, which we are hoping will make for an extra bit of 
wildlife corridor and a pit-stop for native birds. So it is with the greatest 
self- restraint that I refrain from fulminating upon the extraordinary lax 
attitude by domestic cat owners in this World Heritage area to ask advice about 
a lone bird spotted in my perpetually flowering 2 yr old grevillia week or so 
ago. 

Without a camera I was able only to make a mental note before going to my bird 
books, where was unable to identify it. A neighbour across the road has 
confirmed he saw the same bird around the same time in his garden, flitting 
about in a native shrub. His description matched mine: 

Slender bird about 160 - 170mm, predominantly pale grey (upper feathers) and 
pale orange/rufous? (breast), with a longish, possibly curved beak; behaving 
just like a honeyeater, occasionally flipping upside down to gather nectar. My 
neighbour confirmed the colouring and longish beak, reckoning the beak was 
curved, but I can't be certain of that.  My first thought was "what an 
unusual-coloured honeyeater!".

The colouring was similar to the fan-tailed cuckoo or rufous whistler 
(according to Baker & Corringham's Birds of the Blue Mountains) but definitely 
had a longer beak than these birds according to my memory of it.

Just wondering if we were seeing things or not!

Many thanks,

Meg


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