COG's annual outing at this time of year attracted 17 keen bird watchers. I have led this walk now every year since 1990 (except of course in 2003!). One of our main interests this year again was to see how the habitat has recovered since the 2003 bushfires and which of the birds special to area have returned.
As usual, we met at Uriarra Homestead dam, which was as interesting as ever. Highlights were three adult Nankeen Night Herons (my recollection is that we have recorded only immature birds there in previous years), Musk Ducks, a Brown Goshawk and a flock of Stubble Quail in an adjacent field. Our total of 32 species was 2 less than our best ever year, but not bad considering that the day was dull and overcast.
After some tricky car pooling to allow us to walk only down hill, we started at the top of Blundells Ck Rd towards Warks Rd. Birds were very scarce until we were more than half way down the 3.5km walk, and there was little to hear in the gully where we regularly used to hear Pilotbirds. Further on, there were good numbers of Yellow-faced, White-eared and White-naped Honeyeaters, Spotted Pardalotes, Grey and Rufous Fantails, Brown Thornbills, Grey Shrike-thrushes, White-browed Scrubwrens, Grey Currawongs, a Sacred Kingfisher, Golden and Rufous Whistlers and a Superb Lyrebird. Flame Robins were very much in evidence, particularly young birds, a flock of 4 of which flew and walked along the road in front of us for about a km. At lower end of Blundells Ck Rd and along Warks Rd there were more Satin Flycatchers than I have seen anywhere in more than 30 years of birdwatching. Several had dependent young. It was very satisfying to record good numbers of Rufous Fantails, which seem to have increased since last year. Perhaps the most exciting record was of a Pilotbird calling, one species many of us feared might have been lost to the area.
Whilst the bushfire has killed many old eucalypts and most of the understorey plants, there has been very good epicormic growth and an abundance of new wattles, blanket bush and wildflowers among the weeds and exotic grasses. Interesting plants included (flowering) bursaria, trigger plants and native raspberry with masses of ripe fruits. Even so, it was sad to see how few tree ferns have survived along Lees and Blundells Cks.
This area been special to me since I started surveying it for the COG Atlas in 1986. It is great to see it continue to recover and hopefully we will find Cicadabirds, Wonga Pigeons and Crested Shrike-tits amongst others in future years.
Bruce Lindenmayer