A Week at Wonboyn Lake, s-e NSW

Hi all,

Picture a typical country cottage built just before the “Great War”. Its roof is red corrugated iron and the walls are thick unpainted weatherboards, hand-split with a broad-axe from the surrounding forests. From the veranda, short grass flows out to the huge gum trees that first rose above the ground before the house was built. Beyond these trees the lake is calm in the evening light. Six kangaroos feed gently on the grass.

It is late in the day. The sky is blue, softened with a lacy shawl of thin white clouds. The hills in the Nadgee Nature Reserve rise from the far bank of the lake and are muted by a mist that by morning will coat the ground in dew. Apart from some insects calling in the warm evening air and the tiny contact cheeps from the Superb Fairy-wrens in the ferns, all is silent. This was the setting last week for a few days of late summer birding.

Each morning the dawn chorus was loud and varied. Lyrebirds and whipbirds called. Fantails, whistlers, wrens, kookaburras and many more joined them.

The day I arrived it was raining but the next morning was fine and calm. The trees were still wet and puddles littered the gravel roads. Birds bathed in the leaves and puddles, and were very obvious as they darted about calling loudly. The day warmed and the puddles and leaves dried. From the second day, once the dawn chorus was over, the birds were silent and hard to find. This was an interesting change because I knew the birds were all there, I had seen them the day before, but now they were silent and skulking. Where Large-billed Scrub-wrens and Scarlet Honeyeaters had cavorted with Leaden Flycatchers and King Parrots there was now silent bush. I was intrigued by what a little bit of rain could do to make birds appear en-masse and then disappear from view when it dried off.

Patience paid off though, as it usually does. By sitting quietly and waiting Satin Bowerbirds could be seen along with Eastern Whipbirds, Red-browed Treecreepers, Wonga Pigeons, Common Bronzewing, Superb Lyrebird, Eastern Spinebill, a family of four Crested Shrike-tits, a small flock of Varied Sittella and many more little bush birds. An evening drive down the road came up with 2 Spotted Nightjars. Over four days my count reached 55 species, including one Eastern Curlew on a sandbank at the river’s mouth.

But the parrots were mainly missing. I heard a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo in the distance, and there was one immature King Parrot but no Crimson Rosellas or Glossy Black Cockatoos. Rainbow Lorikeets were there but usually the King Parrots are very common, as are the Yellow-tailed Blacks.

But birding with a cup of tree on the veranda was as special as ever. The resident Sea-eagles paraded back and forth with their juvenile offspring, two Wedge-tailed Eagles cruised slowly over, and a speeding pair of Hobby had a very vocal dispute over nothing I could see, right above my head. High pitched screams shattered the morning and then all went quiet as they resumed their flight westward. A family of Kookaburras serenaded from the gum tree that held the Sea-eagle nest and Red-browed Firetails canoodled in the sun. And the Red-brows weren’t actually allopreening, one was just repeatedly, gently touching the other above the eye; definitely canoodling.

Picking a “bird of the trip” is always hard but this time it was either the Red-browed Treecreepers or the Shrike-tits. However, reptile of the trip was easy; it wasn’t the black lizards that sunned outside the kitchen door, nor was it the Brown Snake that shot across the track a few inched in front of my feet – it was the largest Lace Monitor I have ever seen. This gorgeous monster was well over 2 metres in length and its girth was larger than a grown man’s thigh. When it raised itself on its fore-legs to look around its eyes would have been knee-high on me. It was the sort of sighting where you realise that not all of Australia’s giant reptiles have been hunted out. It was the sort of sighting where you can give a big sigh and truly say; “now I can go home happy”.

On the way back I failed to find Masked Owls where they were guaranteed to be (big smile), but I did find some Southern Emu-wrens at the Yeerung River Bridge near Marlo and lots of wonderful birds at Cabbage Tree Palms Reserve.

Cheers, and some photos will go onto the BOCA gallery today and tomorrow.

Jenny ===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au

http://birding-aus.org ===============================