A HUGE thank you to all who participated in COG’s bird blitz. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did, though I ended up so tired I resorted, like some others, to drinks in the garden and an early night. I was surprised by the relative lack of fantails and whistlers, especially in the urban areas, but was mightily relieved that the Brown Quail, Superb Parrot and Rainbow Lorikeet put in appearances. There is nothing more frustrating to this blitzer to check her local patch for a known resident and not find it! Thanks are due to Barrie Pennefather, who so ably navigated the Naas fire trail with Catriona, a lame Stuart Harris and me in tow, enabling us to watch in awe as a Hobby knocked off a Starling before our very eyes, and to enjoy excellent sightings and hearings of four cuckoo species, plus two “vulnerables” in the form of Brown Treecreeper and Hooded Robin. Thanks too to all the other behind-locked-gates blitzers who all managed this year to let me know they were back safely. I await your datasheets with eager anticipation. Either drop them in to me, put them on COG’s electronic data input system (and tell me, please), mail them to COG, PO Box 301, Civic Square 2608, or let me know you’ll be taking them to the November COG meeting. I’ll provide updates on the COG Chatline as I process them.
Barbara Allan