Wednesday Walk to Hume

The August Wednesday Walk will be to Hume. Meet on Couranga Cres. Hume at 9am on 15 August.

28 members and guests gathered at the appointed spot and time. It was to say the least a little draughty and the prospects for a long list were not great. The aim was to circle the area, expecting this to cover about 5km (in fact we did 4.74km).

We began by touring some paddocks which produced 5 Australian Pipits (surprisingly the only ones we saw all day) some Red-rumped Parrots and 3 Common Starlings.

The first pond encountered had 1 Coot, 2 Pacific Black Ducks and 1 Little Pied Cormorant as visible waterfowl. It is possible that others were lurking in the reeds but such hypothetical birds do not get counted.

Skirting an industrial site we entered a large wooded paddock where Eastern and Crimson Rosellas were added to the list. The former were closely inspecting a nest hollow. Common Mynahs and Noisy Miners were both in the paddock, enjoying the good live and dead-with-lots of -hollows eucalypts.

Passing the site of the former homestead 38 Australian Wood Ducks were grazing on the roadside before flying to another pond. We then progressed up an “improved” Dogtrap Gully without seeing a bird. The best birding was along the Cooma railway line where we found a pair of Scarlet Robins, at least 3 Speckled Warblers and 20+ Red-browed Finches.

We totaled 31 species which was felt to be quite good given the revolting weather.