This morning outing will be to a property which is part of Birdlife’s Birds on Farms project. It is a former vineyard, with revegetated sites as well as remnant vegetation sites. There should be a good variety of woodland birds as well as spring migrants.
Meet at Hall Primary School in Hoskins Street, Hall, at 8.00am for carpooling.
Registration is essential to smlashko@gmail.com, with your name and phone number, and name and number of an emergency contact.
Twelve members met in Hall to carpool for our journey to Murrumbateman. Several species were calling as we stepped out of our cars.
Accompanied by our host, we started by walking down to the dam. In a large tree on the way there were several species, including Striated Pardalotes moving about in noisy pairs. We heard White-throated and Western Gerygones and saw three Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes. The 15-year-old regeneration plot was surprisingly devoid of birds, but as we emerged from there a pair of Yellow Thornbills attracted our attention in a nearby Acacia. We then moved on to the remnant vegetation, where we had nice views of a pair of Shining Bronze-Cuckoos, both male and female Rufous Whistlers and a small party of White-winged Choughs.
We moved on to the former vineyard, where the curious but cautious alpacas came up to us. We saw both male and female Superb Parrots before we said our goodbyes to our host and then we returned to Hall. In all, 38 species were observed, despite overcast and occasional windy conditions.
In addition, three species of orchid were flowering: Golden Moths (Diuris chryseopsis), Leopard Doubletail (Diuris pardina) and Dusky Fingers (Caaladenia fuscatus).
Thank you to the property owners for inviting us to visit your property, and Sue, for leading this very interesting field trip.
Lia Battisson