Poppethead Park

Noisy Miner

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

The neighbours had a party last night - no worries, the dull roar of the music and conversation I could sleep through. But at 3:00 the guests started leaving in a constant stream of shouted holiday greetings and beeping of car horns. By the time they were all gone there was no chance of further sleep. So I packed up the dogs, grabbed tea and muffins at the golden arches and drove the 45 mins to Kitchener for sunrise.

In the park as we pulled up were choughs, eastern rosellas, starlings, maned ducks swallows and noisy miners. We walked the loop around the pond, seeing a rose robin, thornbills, superb fairywrens, mistletoe birds singing loudly, and honeyeaters high in the trees. Whip birds were calling from deep in the bushes. Pacific black ducks, domestic ducks, coots and cormorants were on the water.

The bush is crisscrossed by dirt bike tracks so we followed these at random, no mx-ers were up yet. Black cockatoos, storm birds, satin bowerbirds and koel tried to outdo each other in vocal challenges. A white-throated tree-creeper deliberately circled a tree trunk staying out of camera range. Red wattle-birds fed on a silky oak. Noisy miners staked out a flowering gum. Bar-shouldered doves searched out seeds on the ground.