Observations from around Adelaide

Hi All, some brief notes from the last few weeks from around Adelaide: Mt Compass wetland: boardwalk was closed (sign says “vandalism” andthe gate is locked) for my visit two weeks ago. Had not seen any prior notice of this (eg Birds SA newsletter), nor was it mentioned at the BirdsSA meeting end of Sept. A bit frustrating after an hour’s drive from central Adelaide :-(. Dipped on Southern Emu-wren. Cox scrub: the south-east corner is the only part of the park to have escaped April’s fire. There is green on the ground where the fire went through but the scrubby understory has been decimated. Good news is that I found a Chestnut-rumped Heathwren within 50m of the small parking spot at the south-east corner, so some of that population has survived. No sign of Southern Emu-wren. Black Hill, Adelaide: I traversed the summit trail anti-clockwise. The scrub on the southern side of the ascent was much reduced in density from my last visit in May. Perhaps there has been a minor fire there (seems a bit unlikely, but possible I guess). In May I’d had Chestnut-rumped Heathwren below the summit, just before the track doubles back on itself, but the habitat no longer looked good and I didn’t see one here. I did find two at the junction of the Black Hill track and Summit trail just as we turned off the former for the descent. There was another singing some 200-300m further on. Laratinga Wetands, Mt Barker: a 2 hour visit this morning produced only a single crake (Baillon’s), the first time I have been here and not had multiple Spotted Crakes easily. There are at least 3, and possibly 5 Freckled duck present (I saw 2 + 1 + 2, but couldn’t rule out that the pairs were the same birds seen twice). Little Grassbirds singing everywhere. Cheers, Ian — Prof. Ian Reid School of Computer Science University of Adelaide Adelaide, 5005 ph: +61 (08) 83132135 www: http://cs.adelaide.edu.au =============================== 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 ===============================