When 25 members and guests gathered in Buxton St Deakin, it was already warm and I was regretting not moving to an 8:30 start.  The first third of the walk was uphill through bush with not a great deal of understorey.  There was not a great diversity of birds either; while a number of birds were evident they were nearly all Noisy Miners!  A pleasing exception was a Speckled Warbler seen by several members.   Where the walk went parallel to the golf course, the understorey became more evident, the number of Noisy Miners decreased, and the diversity of birds picked up.  Particularly good sightings along this stretch included a Common Bronzewing feeding a fledgling and a pair of Gang-gang Cockatoos changing duties in a nest hollow.  Other parrot species recorded breeding here included Eastern Rosella and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos sitting in a spout.  A pair of Laughing Kookaburras were carrying food – a spider in at least one case – into a hollow from which the dulcet tones of nestlings could be heard.  Smaller species observed in this section included both local species of pardalote, Brown and Buff-rumped Thornbills, and Weebill.  A single Dusky Woodswallow was seen flying over the canopy; this species seems to be in lower numbers this year.  A Dollarbird was seen in the area where the species has nested in recent years.   Two Pacific Koels were heard calling, one somewhat distant in Hughes, while the other was almost certainly in the Reserve and thus countable on the trip-list.  Our final notable bird was a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike carrying nesting material.   In total we recorded 29 species, of which 8 were observed at some section of the breeding continuum.  Of interest were the Missing In Action: no cuckoos, other than the Koel; no honeyeaters other than the big aggressive 3 – Noisy Miner, Noisy Friarbird and Red Wattlebird; and no finches of any species. Possibly this is a logical outcome of the understorey being eradicated.