July Walk to ANBG

The walk for July will be to the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Meet outside the Visitors Centre at 0900 on 17 July.

If you are a member of the Friends of ANBG don’t forget to display your permit.

21 members and guests gathered at the ANBG Visitors centre on a pleasant morning for a Winter Walk. We were alerted to the place being likely to be crowded due to a dinosaur event bringing in a horde or two of small people. Fortunately Lindell and Marion were able to devise a route that missed most of these for which I thank them.
Our first excitement was locating a Male Satin Bowerbird displaying to his lady friend. She was later observed transporting leafy material to a nest almost directly above the bower, thus upgrading the breeding event from “display” to “nest building”. Something to keep an eye on.
More excitement swiftly following with a sighting of a very cooperative Bassian Thrush feeding on the ground about 3m off the path in section 26. Somewhat later in the bushland above the boundary of sections 70 and 73 a second Bassian Thrush was noted – unusually flying up to a branch several metres off the ground. When that bird departed it was joined by a another, making it a 3 thrush walk.
Eastern Yellow Robins were frequently seen, from the Sydney Gully upwards with a final count of 10 for the outing. As we came down outside the Rainforest Gulley a beautiful male Rose Robin was seen. It was very active and my photos were ungood, but everyone good a fair look at him.
Honeyeaters were a tad light on for diversity, despite quite a lot of blossom, but we saw/heard decent numbers of Red Wattlebird, New Holland Honeyeater and Eastern Spinebill.
Overall we recorded 28 species which with some of them being corkers was a fair outcome for a mid-Winter walk. As well as the Bowerbirds breeding was also firing up for Australian Wood Duck (Inspecting hollow) and Australian Magpie (nest building).A full list is here