It was a glorious spring morning when eleven of us, very ably led by David McDonald set out to see what we could see at the Uriarra Homestead dam and in the region of Blue Range Hut. We started at 8-ish at the dam. There was nothing unusual there so after a short while we car-pooled and went on to Blue Range Hut. David told us that our target species for the day were Bassian Thrush, Rose Robin and Grey Butcherbirds so we were all very hopeful. We had difficulty dragging ourselves away from the car park because there were Satin Bowerbirds there when we arrived which held our attention.
One of our party was Joe, a very enthusiastic young man who particularly wanted to see the Bassian Thrush. He had a very keen eye and as a result he wasn’t disappointed. We had a very good siting of three on the way to our destination, and one danced a jig for us on the way back! David encouraged us along the way by promising a surprise when we arrived at our morning tea venue. Again we were not disappointed. When we arrived at the site of the former homestead “Sherwood” we were greeted by a glade full of daffodils and jonquils in full bloom. It was a very pretty sight.
We saw what we first thought was a cloud of smoke, but we quickly decided that it must have been dust stirred up by trail bikes. Then we turned around to walk back into the pine forest and discovered that the clouds had been pollen from the pine trees carried on the wind. It was very interesting to experience that phenomenon. In the last half hour of the walk we saw two pairs of Rose Robins so we decided that David had done well. Other highlights were a Red-browed Treecreeper, about 50 Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos, a pair of Gang-gangs, a family of White-winged Choughs building a nest, and an Echidna.
Lia Battisson