Joint outing with ACT Landcare for Canberra Festival of Nature
Meet at 8:30 am at the Meredith Circuit/Learmonth Drive entrance to Urambi Hills Nature Reserve.
This walk will explore the lower western slopes of Urambi Hills to Tuggeranong Creek. Then on the return route to Meredith Circuit we will visit a few of the sites Michael surveys*, as well as other ‘birdy’ spots and note a few interesting plants in UHNR.
Registration essential mrobbins (at) home.netspeed.com.au, with your name and phone number, and name and number of an emergency contact. Maximum 20 attendees.
Please bring binoculars, a hat, water, sunscreen, morning tea and wear sturdy shoes
* Michael has been helping the Urambi Hills Park Care group by conducting bird surveys each three months using the Woodland Bird Survey protocol at 8 sites in UHNR since 2017.
Four members of COG joined with 5 members of Urambi Hills Parkcare Group at Urambi Hills on a sunny, windy morning. The walk began at the small grassy car park area where the western section of Meredith Circuit meets Learmonth Drive.
This 4.5 km walk followed the fire trail heading southwest and then south along the creek line on the west edge of the Nature Reserve, keeping south-west of the Urambi Hills trig point. We left the fire trail to explore the grassed area to the east and the dam with bulrushes just north of Tuggeranong Creek. We returned along the grassed management trail to the west of the Urambi Hills trig point. This took 3 hours return. To avoid long grass in summer, you can instead follow the fire trail to Tuggeranong Creek and return the same way, or via the grassed management trail. This would be about 5 km.
Species of interest were: 2 Yellow-faced Honeyeaters flying over, 3 Southern Whiteface (at the north, furthest west end of the fire trail in a mixed feeding flock with at least 8 Yellow-rumped Thornbills all feeding on open ground which seemed to have been where mulch had been dumped), 5 Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, 1 Pied Butcherbird (singing and seen slightly west of the fire trail in both a large gum and wattles), 20 Tree Martins flying and feeding, 1 Red-browed Finch in low scrub along fence. We had good views of Nankeen Kestrel, probably a pair, and probably a pair of Australian Raven with one feeding the other on their nest. In the pond at the southern-most point we heard (but did not see) 1 Golden-headed Cisticola and 2 Australian Reed-Warblers. There are usually some duck species here in both the dam and the marshy lower points, but only 1 Australian Wood Duck was seen. We finished the walk with 1 Grey Butcherbird.
The Urambi Hills Park Care Group is very active in planting, as well as clearing and attempting to control for pig damage. This will help to sustain a long term improvement for our birds. They welcome input from COG, especially bird surveys.
Judi Millington
