Wednesday Walk to Urriara East and Stoney Creek NR

Meet at 8:30 – note earlier time – at the South end of the Urriara East Car Park. The exact format of the outing will be determined by the weather.

20.5 Members gathered at the Southern end of the Uriarra East Reserve for a foray into the Stoney Creek Nature Reserve. It was already quite warm as we departed.

We had not progressed far along the track before the front persons in the group spotted a Pied Butcherbird perched in a dead tree. Unfortunately it took itself off to the riparian Casuarina cunninghamiana before many of the group could spot it. That was one of our target birds done and dusted. Unfortunately the second target species, Painted Honeyeater did not present itself.

The most prominent species seen was Mistletoebird. The checklist has 20 birds but this is a very conservative count of the many birds of this species busying themselves in the Casuarinas. Dollarbirds (4) and Rainbow Bee-eaters (6) were both evident perching high on dead stumps. Most other species were present in small numbers.

It was surprising that we did not see a single Woodswallow on this track. It was also surprising that we didn’t record a single cuckoo, nor Rufoous Songlark or Sacred Kingfisher. However 41 species were recorded on this list which isn’t too bad. Our only breeding record was a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo emrging from a hollow

As it was beginning to get a tad warm and the flies, while present in numbers, were not fanning hard enough to generate a cooling breeze so we retreated to the shade of the Casuarinas at the Reserve. A new checklist was started for this part of the outing. Many tales were related of past sightings of rarities, but alas no novelties were present today,

The least common bird was Yellow Thornbill spotted dodging around in an Allocasuarina. As we were heading back to the cars a Collared Sparrowhawk was seen in some eucalypts. It was being swooped very vigorously by a Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike. The calls of a Leaden Flycatcher led to a brief search resulting in both male and female bird being seen sitting on a nest.

The checklist for this second site contains 29 species and contributed to the day’s total of 50 species.