HI All, Last weekend as I was riding up the Pleasant Valley Quad Chair at Perisher, quietly contemplating the beauty, , I was surprised to see, flashing across inn front of me, what I am sure was a flame robin. Only saw it for a few seconds. The only other possibility would be a red-capped robin, but I don’t think they’re up in that area. Anyone have any info about the presence or absence of either of these in the snowfields in winter? Thanks Paul
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Thanks Alistair, So they are presumably present in the snow. Had never seen them there previously. Paul Sent: Monday, 15 September 2014 10:31 AM Cc: Paul Doyle; Birding Aus We heard (but did not see) Flame Robins at Thredbo in the first week of September. I did a map query in eBird looking for records of Flame Robin in June – September. Basically there is a big gap around the snowfields. Whether that means – skiers don’t bird, or – birders don’t like snow; or – Flame Robins don’t like snow is open to debate. I hope the image in the blogpost is reasonable – I couldn’t persuade the birding-aus website to allow me to post the image there. Martin Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
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A belated contribution to this thread. (I’ve been away, skiing and stuff.) From my experience of spring skiing in Victoria, especially at Mt Buller (but not only), I consider Flame Robin to be a “usual” spring sighting in the snowfields (as they return to the high country for the summer, being altitudinal migrants). I have been seeing them on the slopes from early September for many years – a spectacular sight in their fresh breeding plumage. Several were hopping about on the ground, and snow, at Buller a couple of weeks ago when we were up there – as expected. We also saw what was almost certainly a Beautiful Firetail (one doesn’t carry binoculars with one when skiing J). Richard Nowotny ——– Original Message ——– Back in September 1977, we went to Canberra in the September school holidays. Coming back, we stopped near Thredbo to give our children a chance to ski in the remaining snow. The thaw had started and there was quite a bit of bare ground with grass tussocks showing in sunny places. At least two pairs of Flame Robins were hopping about feeding among the tussocks of snow-grass and I took several slides. A male Flame Robin looks very fine on a snow patch. The birds seemed to have no objection to hopping about on the snow, as long as they could investigate the grass clumps – they were probably getting the insects killed by the first snow. Migrating flocks of Pardalotes and Honeyeaters (Yellow-faced and White-naped) were passing overhead through the tops of the Snowgums – a flock would fly several hundred yards and settle in the tree-tops, to be overtaken by other flocks ‘leap-frogging’ over them, before they in turn rose and flew on, heading towards Dead Horse Gap. When we got down through Dead Horse, the road was in tall forest and the migrants were out of sight up in the canopy. I recall reading an article by the late Norman Wakefield in “The Age” – he had a weekly naturalist’s column. He described seeing the first signs of the thaw in Victorian forests. As the snow lost its grip, buried saplings and low shrubs would suddenly spring upright, and he wrote that the forest was alive with altitudinal migrant birds returning from the lowlands. These birds were eagerly feeding on the chilled insects they were finding under bark and in the vegetation well before the snow was melted from the ground. We often spent skiing holidays at Mt. Hotham when we were much younger. I do not recall ever seeing Flame Robins at times of heavy snow cover, though I recall seeing them after a light early fall with patchy cover. During the winter, the only birds were Pied Currawongs and the occasional Grey Shrike-thrush. Anthea Fleming
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We heard (but did not see) Flame Robins at Thredbo in the first week of September.
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I did a map query in eBird looking for records of Flame Robin in June – September. Basically there is a big gap around the snowfields. Whether that means – skiers don’t bird, or – birders don’t like snow; or – Flame Robins don’t like snow is open to debate. I hope the image in the blogpost is reasonable – I couldn’t persuade the birding-aus website to allow me to post the image there. Martin Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
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I have done a very crude map from eBird showing occurence of Flame Robins from June to September. Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
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