Heyfield Birdwatchers head west

Six folks interested in birds met in Moe and visited two locations, both within the town boundary.

The first was Ollerton Avenue Reserve. This was a pleasant stroll along paths with our total bird list of 16 over 40 minutes.

The undoubted highlight was getting views of an Eastern Whipbird. They are easily recognisable from their call, of course, a "ringing whipcrack" Simpson & Day and suddenly we spotted it diving across a path into a bush on a corner, crest erect with its bold white cheek stripes. We quietly approached as the scrub [eucs, manuka] was a tiny bit isolated on the corner and we didn't see it fly out of the other side into the contiguous vegetation. Sure enough, there it was in the manuka, just quietly doing its foraging business. I snuck up on the bush side of the manuka but was too close to take a photo!! However the bins focus down to one metre so great views were obtained. The others were all on the path on the other side of the bird and images were snapped. This was only the second time in my life I have seen a whipbird so I was dead chuffed. Perhaps the site frequented by lots of people and their dogs has made this particular individual just a bit human-habituated.

We then headed to the Edward Hunter Heritage Bush Reserve on the Coalville Road.

After filling the carpark with our six cars, we had morning tea then decided on a plan of action. Essentially we went down to the lake then did a wide clockwise circuit to the south bringing us back to the carpark for lunch. Here is what we expected to see.

It is a very pleasant spot for either a walk or a bird safari with plenty of flora [orchids] to keep all happy. We passed families with young kids, bike riders, runners and other walkers.

Heyfield Birdwatchers closely studying something.

At one point we were stationary for quite a few minutes as Bev gathered life ticks in one rowdy, clamorous area with fan-tailed cuckoos, golden whistlers, large-billed scrubwrens, white-browed scrubwrens, thornbills plus background musical accompaniment from crimsons rosellas, whipbirds, grey fantails, pardalotes, currawongs etc. It was a great birdwatching smorgasbord. Of the 58 species on the board, we saw 28. Additionally we saw 10 not on the board. Wood Duck, Purple Swamphen, Dusky Moorhen, Little Black Cormorant, Eurasian Coot, Rainbow Lorikeet, Eastern Whipbird [voice!! hard to get lucky twice in one day], Mistletoe Bird and two extra specials -- Large-billed Scrubwren and Brown Gerygone.

The Brown Gerygone [no image, sorry] has a range variously cited as "down to the NSW border" Simpson & Day, "north from eastern Victoria" Slater, "south to Morwell" Slater and similar in the Morcombe app. Members of the party who had seen the bird before were able to positively identify it and have experience of it being sighted further to both the south and west of Moe.  What a day.

Here are just a few images I took.

Spotted Pardalote
Pardalotus punctatus xanthopyge

Adult Spotted Pardalote below, offspring above

Olive-backed Oriole
Oriolus sagittatus

Red-browed Finch
Neochmia temporalis

Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Cacomantis flabelliformis

Golden Whistler
Pachycephala pectoralis

Magic. f8 and be there.

Pardalote Central I -- Eagle Point

For many years I have failed to take even a half decent photograph of either of the Victorian species of Pardalote, Striated or Spotted. In Gippsland, I hear them all the time just about everywhere I go. I even hear them at home [waking up, having breakfast, gardening] in the surrounding trees or across the road in the Sale Botanic Gardens. They are hard to spot despite their loud and distinct call. One factor is their size, Spotted 8 - 9 cm and Striated 9 - 11 cm. A second factor is their speed. A third is their habit of feeding in the outer canopy high up in eucs thus they are on the topside of the canopy when I am on the bottom side thus they are always on the other side of the leaves and always in a direct line between me and the sun. They are true bird dots.

Here is one effort from January 2014 in FNT [far Northern Territory] at a drying ephemeral creek puddle where son Heath and I had a flurry of life ticks including the Black-headed Pardalote.

Striated Pardalote
Pardalotus striatus uropygialis
"Black-headed Pardalote"

So .... at Eagle Point, on the BLEG weekly outing, I was able to observe, at relatively close quarters Striated Pardalotes feeding their nestlings in a tree hollow only six/seven metres up a tree AND, at the Bluff, see the comings and goings of Striateds from their nest holes at the top of the Bluff overlooking the Mitchell River to the bushes about two metres from where all the boys with their long lenses were standing. A 100mm macro would have done just as well! Enjoy. I certainly did. An auspicious day for this bird watcher.

"I need a bit of help here"

"Come on. You can see my beak is stuffed"

Incoming ... Undercarriage lowering.
[How often do you see a bird stumble?]

Striated Pardalote
Pardalotus striatus ornatus

Magic. f8 and be there.

Eric and Ethel Dithers

I was watching a male Eastern Rosella exercise due diligence while selecting a potential nest site. A fellow observer [on the BLEG outing today] commented that, at their property, he and his wife frequently watched Eastern Rosella pairs take so long to decide on the nest site that other species "nabbed" the spot.

Hole 1: Hmm.

Hole 2: Hmm. So hard to decide. Need to see more.

Hole 3: Hmm. I'm still not sure.

Hole 4: The female checks out a crack in the trunk.

She was just casting the last of her immature plumage. The rosella boffins opined that, in this case of a pair with one bird fully plumaged and the other still immature, they are usually male and female respectively.

Having exhausted the holes [mostly full of starlings] on one tree, he moved thirty metres to another gum. A bit of a look around then pause for a rest. The female had not come over. The male made a quiet chirrup and waved his tail at her several times.

Hole 5: That's not a bad one down there.

I'll signal Ethel to come on over.

Holes 7 and 8: The Dithers continue their house hunting.

We then had lunch. The boyo was still selecting when we left after lunch!

Magic. f8 and be there.