Walk at Tidbinbilla

Meet in the car park at Tidbinbilla NR at 9:00am. It is intended to do the 3km Birrigai Time Trail Walk with particular hopes of sundry Robins! The walk is rated as “easy”.

27 members and guests gathered at the carpark at Tidbinbilla on a fine and (initially) calm morning. A breeze came up later in the proceedings but not dramatically.

The facilitator had suggested that lotsa robins would be on offer. Such was indeed the case with 16 Flame Robins (more males than brown birds), 9 Scarlet Robins (5 males, 4 females)and 8 Eastern Yellow Robins being recorded. The latter two tripped an eBird alert for large numbers. Unfortunately, despite much looking the number of Hooded Robins (0) matched recent records for the site.

2 Emus initially were seen, and then 4 in the fenced off area near Birrigai – again as expected for this site. They together with the 42 Yellow-rumped Thornbills triggered alerts due to high numbers. This is surely due to having a large group of motivated observers.

7 Speckled Warblers were a highlight of the rest of the smaller birds seen. Common Starling were in fair numbers (32) and 27 Red-browed Finches were welcome.

For larger birds, the largest was a Wedge-tailed Eagle while the most numerous were 32 White-winged Choughs.

In total 35 species were recorded in two and a half hours.