Ten members joined me under cool clear though breezy conditions at my favourite local woodland at Kelly Road for the last official COG outing for 2004. In a walk of just over a kilometer along the road, I was very pleased to be able produce nine of the 10 species I had predicted, plus a few more. These included a family of Hooded Robins with two young males, close to 10 Brown Treecreepers spread over the length of our walk, even more Dusky Woodswallows feeding several very streaked dependent young, at least a dozen Fuscous Honeyeaters including one sitting on a low nest, a pair of Restless Flycatchers building a nest, several Diamond Firetail, a family of 4 Southern Whiteface, a pair of White-winged Trillers, and about half a dozen Rufous Songlarks, including at least one calling loudly from vantage points from where it launched into its characteristic mate attracting display flight.
Two other species that I hadn’t recorded there before were a family of 4 White-necked Heron (including two young birds) on a dam and a Little Eagle overhead (by no means a classical specimen). We saw 45 species in just over 2 hours, including 9 confirmed breeding records, not including the heron and Hooded Robin families where the young were advanced enough to have flown in from elsewhere. While the removal of the extensive briars in TSR 36 seems to have somewhat altered the distribution of birds, there does not seem to be any loss of species so far. All participants (for about half this was their first visit) agreed this was a very fitting end to a very successful program of COG field trips for 2004, particularly in spring and early summer.
Jack Holland