Birdline Victoria Weekly Update

Birdline Victoria Published sightings for the week ending 28 Oct 2014. Sun 26 Oct Freckled Duck Eynesbury Ornamental Lake One Freckled Duck seen at Eynesbury ornamental lake, near Melton. Seen during Bird Week in Melton activities. Twelve Freckled Ducks last seen here in March 2014 Daryl Akers Freckled Duck Ruffey Lake Doncaster Freckled Ducks in second small lake and Buff-banded Rail at first small lake. Many Noisy Miners a few Grey Butcherbirds and 2 Nankeen Night Heron. Andrew Wallis King Quail St Andrews Beach Mornington Peninsula One bird seen in backyard. Can’t rule out an aviary escape – bird was not particularly tame. Nina Hutchison Banded Lapwing Large area of vacant land, Williams Landing At 1840 hours, we observed nine Banded Lapwings on the large area of open vacant land bounded by Palmers Road, Freya Drive, Chessington Drive and Williams Landing Boulevard, Williams Landing. Four of the birds appeared to be juvenile. Peter & Robyn Gibbons Eastern Koel Bay St & Rowan St Golden Square (Bendigo) One bird heard distinctly at 8am. Ken Dredge Sat 25 Oct White-throated Gerygone Private property, Earlston One bird seen and heard in box-ironbark woodland at Earlston. First local record in 20 years’ observation here. Doug Robinson Common Greenfinch Trentham railway station At least 4-5 singing males in the vicinity of Trentham railway station and over towards main street; from atop oaks and cypresses. Only started calling in the last 2-3 days. Inexplicably invisible during much of the rest of the year when not singing! Very rare and patchily distributed in this local area. Lawrie Conole Fri 24 Oct Australian Owlet-nightjar, White-browed Woodswallow, Varied Sitella Rocklands State Forest–Rocklands-Cherrypool Road, Victoria Small family group of Sittellas were actively collecting food and feeding it to nestlings in tree beside road. Also at this site we saw White-browed Woodswallows looking at a possible nest site and an Owlet Nightjar out in the sun for approximately 10-15minutes. BirdLife Hamilton outing. Samantha Greiner & BirdLife Hamilton Sun 19 Oct Crimson Rosella St Andrews Beach Mornington Peninsula Unusual coloured bird, there were two birds with this colour. I was visiting the area so not familiar with the birds in this area. Is this colour form common on Mornington Peninsula? John Hutchison