January 2010

In January 2010 we welcomed a new decade, and 88 species of birds in the catchment area of the Gazette.  Thanks to several observers in: Hoskinstown; the Molonglo Valley, Widgiewa Road, and Wanna Wanna Road.  The list includes 2 new species for the project: Little Black Cormorant and Stubble Quail. It is pleasing to say no Mynas  nor Spotted Doves were reported.

Migrants are shown in italics below and species for which breeding has been observed this month  are underlined.

1  Waterbirds: Australian Wood Duck; Pacific Black Duck; Australasian Grebe; Little Black Cormorant; Little Pied Cormorant; White‑necked Heron; White-faced Heron; Straw-necked Ibis; Eurasian Coot; Black‑fronted Dotterel; Masked Lapwing

2 Birds of Prey:  Brown Goshawk; Collared Sparrowhawk; Wedge-tailed Eagle; Little Eagle; Nankeen  Kestrel; Brown Falcon; Australian Hobby; Peregrine Falcon.

3 Parrots and Relatives:  Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo; Gang-gang Cockatoo; Galah; Sulphur‑crested Cockatoo; Crimson Rosella; Eastern Rosella; Red-rumped parrot

4 Kingfishers and other non-songbirds: Stubble Quail; Rock Dove; Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon; Tawny Frogmouth; Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo; Black-eared Cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan‑tailed Cuckoo; Southern boobook; Laughing Kookaburra;Sacred Kingfisher;

5 Honeyeaters: Eastern Spinebill; Yellow-faced Honeyeater; White-eared Honeyeater; Noisy Miner; Red Wattlebird; New Holland Honeyeater; Brown‑headed Honeyeater; Noisy Friarbird

6 Flycatchers and similar species: Rufous Whistler; Grey Shrike-thrush; Grey Fantail; Willie Wagtail; Leaden Flycatcher; Magpie-lark; Welcome Swallow; Fairy Martin; Tree Martin

7 Thornbills, Finches and similar species:  Superb Fairy-wren; White-browed Scrubwren; Speckled warbler; Weebill; White-throated Gerygone; Striated Thornbill; Yellow-rumped Thornbill; Buff‑rumped Thornbill; Brown Thornbill; Southern Whiteface; Spotted Pardalote; Striated Pardalote; Silvereye; Red-browed Finch; Diamond Firetail; House Sparrow; European Goldfinch

8 Other, smaller birds:  White-throated Treecreeper; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike; White-winged Triller; Dusky Woodswallow; Australian Reed-warbler; Common Starling; Mistletoebird; Australasian Pipit;

9  Other, larger birds: Satin Bowerbird; Grey Butcherbird; Australian Magpie; Pied Currawong; Grey Currawong; Australian Raven; Little Raven; White-winged Chough

3 Years in Review

This part of my Reports has usually contained a Bird of the Month based upon ‘bringing birds back’ from Greening Australia.  We have now worked through the list of birds common  in revegetation so I will be writing about other topics (where to go birding in the area; seasonal influences etc) in the future.

For this month I thought I would start with a review of what has happened since I started these columns 3 years ago.  It is a summary of my blog report at http://franmart.blogspot.com/2010/01/3-years-of-birding-in-carwoola.html, which also contains a few photos.

Over the 3 years we have recorded 145 species of birds.  Of these species 24 have been seen in every month.  14 of the 24 are listed as common in reveg ( a number of the ‘reveg birds’ are migrants so are unlikely to be seen for a number of months every year.  20 additional species were added in 2009.

Using a broad definition of breeding (from display to dependent young) 43 species have been recorded as breeding in the Gazette area.  32 of these species were recorded as breeding records in 2009.

Notable additions for 2009 are the Superb Parrots of Hoskinstown; the sighting of White‑browed Woodswallows at Whiskers Creek and Black-eared Cuckoo at Hoskinstown.