Imagine a secluded campsite in a Snowgum and Black Sallee woodland with a view of Sentry Box Hill, far from the noise of roads and people, and with Lyrebirds calling close by, all around you in the morning. Well the lucky ones who signed up for this Atlassing trip had all this and more. The purpose of the trip was to collect records from an area where COG had virtually none. We camped on a private property around 1200 metres up, north of Adaminaby in the hills of the southern Yaouk Valley, courtesy of Ann-Marie and Stephen whom we thank very much.
Saturday afternoon was spent on the property, doing 2 hectare searches in various kinds of habitat, Ribbon Gum Forest, Ti-tree thickets, frost hollows with the beautiful Black Sallee, amongst others. The weather remained warm although overcast, but there were many birds around, including Peregrine Falcon calling over the treetops, Collared Sparrowhawk and Brown Goshawk, some honeyeaters moving through, including Yellow-faced, White-naped and Fuscous, Fan-tailed Cuckoo (immature and adult), as well as flocks of Flame and Scarlet Robins, and mixed flocks of thornbills etc.
Following a convivial evening sipping wine and after dinner port, listening to Alistair’s stories about his 32 day camel trek in the deserts of West Africa, and an unusually calm, warm night with Boobook Owl and Owlet Nightjar calling, we set off on Sunday morning in cars to explore the Yaouk Valley. The group having lunch in the valley is featured in the photo – from left Jonette McDonnell, Charles Buer, Mieke van den berg, Alistair Bestow, Shirley Kral and my Jeep.
In all, 12 COG grids were covered for a total of 66 species, the usual birds one would find in such a higher elevation area, many Brown Falcons and other raptors, Brown Goshawk, Collared Sparrowhawk, Wedge-tailed Eagle, lots of Little Ravens, bush birds in the patches of woodland, a lone Crescent Honeyeater in a ti-tree thicket, a large flock of Dusky Woodswallows on migration and Southern Whiteface at one place only. Some flocks of White-throated Needletails cruised by on a storm front, and after a quick visit to the ‘Big Trout’ at Adaminaby (which is looking decidedly faded), we made it back to camp to pack up, just as the rain set in. Thanks to Alistair for organizing maps which made the Atlassing so easy.
An interesting sighting for me was a close-up view of a female White-throated Treecreeper with a very rufous rump – something I had not observed before. On checking reference books, it turns out that this is a feature of the immature, female White-throated Treecreeper - the immature male and both male and female adults have dark grey rumps. John Gould, in fact, thought (mistakenly) that it was a new species when he first saw this feature!
Jenny Bounds