This joint outing with the Field Naturalists on a sunny Saturday 31 August visited two sites near Gunning. The first site was Lyndfield Park, where John Wetherstone has revegetated considerable areas of largely cleared farmland. John has put in a lot of hard work and some results are noteworthy: Rose Robin, Red-capped Robin (nesting) and Speckled Warbler stand out among the 30 species in the first revegetated plot and around 10 in the second, smaller plot.
The second site for the morning (phew!) was on Kinloch, just north of Gunning. This was a spectacular piece of intact woodland/forest which was used as a control (a site that is used as a base for comparison with other revegetated areas) site. A Yellow Box, Blakely's Red Gum association with a Peppermint/Stringybark forest on the higher slopes, to say nothing of the shrubs and forbs beginning to make their presence felt. Speckled Warbler, White-winged Choughs nesting, Scarlet and Eastern-yellow Robins were noticed in this native remnant.
The birds that remain the centre of COG's concern for their long term survival were there, but for how long? We didn't see a Brown Treecreeper, for instance.
Our thanks to the land owners and to Nicki Taws for making the event possible.
Alan Ford