Description: Goorooyarroo NR covers 829 hectares and is located in north-east Canberra. It consists mainly of Yellow Box-Red Gum grassy woodland and has a predator-proof fence within part of the reserve. It is a great reserve for finding birds typical of this habitat, such as honeyeaters, pardalotes and thornbills, and we will hopefully see Superb Parrots.
eBird hotspots: Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve
Meeting time and place: 8.30 am at the carpark off Horse Park Drive near the intersection of Horse Park Drive and the Federal Highway, NOT the entrance near the old Rocks Carpark.
Walking distance: 5 km approximately – we will see how far into the reserve we wish to walk on the day.
Degree of difficulty: Fairly easy as we will be walking the main undulating track in the reserve.
End time (approx.): 12.30 pm
What to bring: Water and morning tea.
Participants must register with the leader, providing their name and mobile number, and the name and mobile number of an emergency contact
Numbers limited: no
Name of leader and contact details: Suzi Bond, email chowchilla29@yahoo.com
A group of over 30 participants assembled at the Goorooyarroo NR carpark in overcast, cool conditions. It was great to see families and people new to birdwatching in attendance in addition to regular COG members.
We set off on the main walking path through the reserve. There were low levels of bird activity throughout the morning, and the dull light was not ideal for viewing birds. Despite this, we managed to record 36 species of bird and we did particularly well with parrots and cockatoos, recording not only our target species for the day, Superb Parrots, but also Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos, Galahs, Little Corellas, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Australian King-Parrots, Crimson Rosellas, Eastern Rosellas, and Red-rumped Parrots. It was also pleasing to see small insectivores using areas of revegetated trees and shrubs, such as Weebill, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Brown Thornbill, Buff-rumped Thornbill, Grey Fantail, and Superb Fairy-wren. Other highlights from the morning were a pair of Tawny Frogmouths at their roost, and Common Bronzewings.
Aside from the birds, we also saw Eastern Grey Kangaroos, heard Verreaux’s Tree Frogs and Common Eastern Froglets, saw Meadow Argus, Cabbage Whites, Common Browns, Common Grass-blues and encountered quite a few Pasture Day-moths.
Many thanks to Lia Battisson for keeping the bird list and submitting it to eBird.
Suzi Bond