Wednesday walk – Umbagong Park, Latham

Wed 20 February 2019 08:30am

Sandra Henderson

Umbagong Park, Latham. Meet at 8.30am in the parking area on Florey Drive (between Handcock and Osburn). Note that some maps show Dalley Crescent crossing the creek at this point – it doesn’t.  The only road access is from Florey Drive. It’s been some years since we’ve visited Ginninderra Creek in Latham.

Post event report

About 30 members gathered on the Western bit of Dalley Cr, Latham for a “figure of eight” tour of this reserve. The initial stages of the walk were pretty quiet with a family of Willie Wagtails and a small flock of Red-browed finches being highlights as we crossed Ginninderra Creek for the first time.

After using the stepping stones to get back across the creek we got into bushier country with a much more diverse avifauna. As well as quite a few of the usual bush birds along this stretch those at the back of the group scored a Collared Sparrowhawk while (some of) the front runners saw a female White-winged Triller.

Although there still seemed to be water in the creek waterbirds per se were very few. Two Great Cormorants and 2 Straw-necked Ibis flew over and 2 Australian White Ibis landed briefly. In the stretch to the west of Florey Drive the highlight was the relatively large number of Sacred Kingfishers observed . At one point 4 of this species were visible at one time (and 7 were recorded for the whole walk).

Returning to the cars a low point was a flock of 11 Common Mynahs – many of the group noted this to be a very large group in recent times. This was balanced by the pleasing sighting of 3 Double-barred Finches.

Overall members of the group recorded 44 species. A full list is at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S52946964

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