Cassilis

Headed to Mudgee along the Golden Highway I pulled into the rest area at Cassilis, a good spot for a leg stretch for both myself and Dusty, and a place where I always seem to find interesting birds – including once a pair of Red-winged Parrots. It didn’t disappoint this time with a Fan-tailed Cuckoo calling above and White-winged Choughs chattering on the ground.

A group of Red-rumped Parrots flew up into the trees as we walked joining the Galahs. I could hear Thornbills high above.

Driving on to the point marking the top of the Great Dividing Range at 692 metres elevation, I spotted a baby Channel-billed Cuckoo perched on a branch overhanging the road, and risked life and limb to snap a photo.

HiFert

The sun was out for a moment this morning, though by the end of our walk I could have entered a wet t-shirt competition, had there been one in the area. Lots of little birds including three very cute baby grey fantails, playing baby bird games, and a horsfield's bronze cuckoo singing his heart out. They are apparently mostly silent outside the breeding season. Also in abundance was this guys preferred host, the superb fairywren. White-browed scrub wrens scolded, and red-browed firefails disappeared into the bitou bush with a flash of red.

At the last HBOC meeting a proposal was put forward to have individuals take responsibility for surveying specific small territories, as a way of ensuring an up-to-date bird atlas of the Hunter Region. Sounds like the patchwatching Simon describes. Bob suggested that I take on the land beside the HiFert factory as my patch - I guess there aren't too many people who are birding the off-leash dog exercise areas. I like the idea of setting up a feeding station in my HiFert 'patch'. I put away my home feeder after inadvertently feeding a dove to a sparrowhawk.

Coyote vs. Roadrunner

Bill Schmoker captures a Coyote vs. Roadrunner encounter during a New Mexico road trip, and proves the value of the car-hide.

Wickham Park

Australian Koel

Channel-billed Cuckoo

The inhabitants of Wickham must have been awake early this morning with large groups of both these birds in the fig trees in the local park. They generally start up their loud distinctive calls around 3:00 am.

Though hearing them is easy enough, they stay high in the huge, dense fig trees along Maitland Road and seeing them is not so easy. A photo usually involes standing in the traffic, or shooting straight up over your head.

Both the koel and the channel-billed cuckoo migrate from Indonesia, and probably further north for the summer, arriving in October and leaving again in March. They are both brood parasites, that is, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave them to raise the chicks. The koel tends to parasitize the red wattlebird, the magpie lark and figbirds, while the cuckoo uses the nests of ravens and magpies.

Both species seem to be increasingly common in urban areas, perhaps because of the proliferation of berry plants, which has also increased the numbers of their host species.

Nightcliff Foreshore

A short walk along the foreshore before brunch at Parliament House, we came across a rather harried pair of honeyeaters and their big, surly foster-child.

Bird List:

Little Bronze-Cuckoo Chrysococcyx minutillus (pictured above)

Rufous-banded Honeyeater Conopophila albogularis (pictured above)

White-gaped Honeyeater Lichenostomus unicolor
Brown Honeyeater Lichmera indistincta