Campbell Park

Sun 04 May 2014 08:30am

Bruce Lindenmayer

This outing will commence at 8.30 am. Campbell Park is one of Canberra’s best preserved native woodlands, and wonderfully close to the city. It is habitat for a great variety of woodland birds.
Travel north along Northcott Drive until you reach the Campbell Park Offices. Turn right into the car park and then left, and go to the extreme north end of the car park.
Bring sturdy boots, sunblock and water to drink. We will walk for about 2 hours.

Bruce Lindenmayer.

Post event report

Despite a dire forecast of rain and winds, 4 May turned out to be a cold, reasonably still and delightfully sunny morning, attracting 11 COG members plus two visitors from Brisbane. However, we had a very ordinary start in the reserve area just north of the Defence Building, encountering a large (and very) Noisy Miner flock which had displaced all but Crimson and Eastern Rosellas, a few Magpies, Galahs and Red-rumped Parrots. Away from the Noisies, things improved, with good views of a perched Common Bronzewing, and then some flocks of small birds, mainly Spotted Pardalote, Buff-rumped Thornbill and Weebill, and subsequently Golden Whistler, Grey Butcherbird, Grey Fantail, White-eared Honeyeater and Superb Fairy-wren.

Nearby  were several intact White-winged Chough nests, clearly not in use in this season, but eventually we came upon a flock of more than a dozen choughs themselves. These could well be the progeny of the ones filmed ‘kidnapping’ at Campbell Park by David Attenborough’s team for the BBC “Life of Birds Series”.

Coming out onto Telecom Road we walked for about 400m, but after recording only a single Laughing Kookaburra, we returned to the forest to be greeted by a spectacular mixed-feeding flock of Buff-rumped, Yellow-rumped and Brown Thornbills, Varied Sittella, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote and a Scarlet Robin pair. Coming back to the very eastern edge of the reserve, a large fallen log in grassland just outside the boundary had a Willie Wagtail pair, Australasian Pipit, four Flame Robins and, perhaps the morning’s highlight, a Jacky Winter. A species total of 35 is a good result for this season.

Bruce Lindenmayer

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