Month: February 2013

White-throated Needletail sighting in Victoria

On Monday 25 February at approximately 0915 at least 6 (six) White-throated Needle-tails were seen slowly drifting high above the tall Euc. canopy at the start of O’Donohue Track just off Sherbrooke Rd, Ferntree Gully NP, Vic. It was rather humid, blue sky but thin whisps of cloud were present. Initially several birds briefly drifted westerly, then were briefly lost above the foliage before reappearing and slowly several drifted north to northeast and vanished. I had two good views without binoculars and no forked tails were seen by eye but broad sickles were noted. Sue had an excellent binocular view of a square tail and white vent on a large “swift”.

Some 17 or so hours later significant rainfall occured.

Xenia Dennett & Sue Abbotts

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Black Kite at Nambour SEQ

Today I saw a Black Kite over the Bruce Highway between Nambour and Yandina. Also Black-shouldered kite and kestrel in the area. Plenty of water about after all the rain events. rgds Andrew

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Malleefowl Bonanza

Just to add a little to this story, over a few years of intermittently driving the roads between Patchewollock, Ouyen and Walpeup I have seen single Malleefowl by the edge of the road a few times. That may not sound much, but compared with other areas/roadsides it’s a good strike rate ( no pun intended )

Then on 23rd August last year, after telling the birder sitting next to me that this is a good road for a chance of a Malleefowl, we saw one ahead of us. There was much excitement, we slowed down and got some reasonable views before it slunk off into the mallee. A few hundred metres further along there was another one. This bird allowed great views for some time. I told my travel companion how lucky he was. Then another kilometre further up the road a third Malleefowl appeared. This was when the “Twilight Zone” music rang around my head ( apologies if you never caught that show) but needless to say I was wondering what the hell was going on. It was mid to late afternoon on an overcast day.

Later that day we bumped into a ranger in Murray-Sunset NP, who reported seeing the best numbers they had ever seen in the “sunset” country that year. A long early morning drive he said produced around 30 sightings. I was shocked to say the least.

A few questions arise from this. Malleefowl feeding by the edge of roads and tracks is not necessariy associated with grain spill. Late August is definitely not the time for that.

And birds on tracks within the national park again says they are finding something other than grain spill.

Common Bronzewings have always been a feature along the roadsides around Ouyen/Patchewollock, I had always assumed gathering stones for their crop. Is this a possibility for Malleefowl. They eat a lot of Wattle seed, particularly in summer, so stones for their crop might be important ? Others may know more on this than me.

As an aside, after observing Malleefowl regularly and reliably for number of years in north-west Victoria, I am still yet to see a young bird that has not reached adult size. !!

Cheers,

Simon Starr.

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Hunting in NSW National Parks postponed until at least June

An interesting development in the plan to allow hunting in NSW National Parks. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/government-halts-hunting-in-national-parks-20130228-2f882.html

Cheers,

Carl Clifford ===============================

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Needletails

Hi Mike

Three, maybe four, WTNT’s about 5kms West of Venus Bay township in Southern VIC. Wed., 27th Feb around 11 a.m. Generally humid, overcast, rainy, stormy day, but was fairly calm at the time they were seen.

Bob Cook

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Brolga flock in western Victoria

Neil Macumber counted 214 Brolga on one lake in the Dunkeld area of western Victoria yesterday. The birds may be associating to moult so unlike the Malleefowl bonanza this might be an annual event and the number may not be unusual. Andrew or Martin may be able to elucidate. Nevertheless nice to hear about such numbers in Victoria.

Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136 ===============================

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YouTube Canon Powershot SX50

I don’t have a Canon Powershot SX50, but I do own a Panasonic FZ200. The manual for the Panasonic is totally inadequate. However, YouTube has some great tutorials by Graham Houghton for the Panasonic FX200 which have been very helpful.

A quick search also showed some info on the Canon Powershot.

Cheers, Judy Leitch ===============================

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Re. Canon Powershot SX50

Hi Frank,

I recently purchased the same camera, with the aim of getting some bird photos, but without having to carry heavy gear around. I am very pleased with the results, some of which can be seen at my facebook page for firetail birdwatching tours.

A few things I have found in using it so far. Firstly I have not bothered taking photos of distant birds using the digital zoom.. There is a bar that clearly shows you when the optical zoom ends and the digital zoom starts. It’s easy to crop the photo afterwards, and I’ve got great results doing that.

When photographing bush birds at the higher magnifications, I’ve found its hard to always get a crisp focus, better to zoom out a little bit more, get the shot and again then crop it later. Its just trial and error.

There’s a great feature using your left index finger on a button which will take you back out to where you were before you zoomed in. So I’ve found for fast moving bush birds, start with a low mag, find the bird in the screen , zoom in, then if you lose the bird use this button to take you back out. Then when you’ve re-found the bird just let go of the button and it zooms back in for you. Much easier !

Have a great trip, and I’m sure you’ll come back with a swag of great photos,

Cheers,

Simon Starr.

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