September 2010

In  September 2010 86 species of birds were recorded in the catchment area of the Gazette with 15species recorded as breeding.  Thanks to several observers in: Hoskinstown; the Molonglo Valley, Primrose Valley, Radcliffe and Widgiewa Road.   The return of birds mentioned last month has continued: most migrants are back and the waterbirds continue to be well reported.

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

1  Waterbirds:  Australian Shelduck; Australian Wood Duck; Grey Teal; Pacific Black Duck; Australasian Grebe; Little Pied Cormorant; White‑necked Heron; White-faced Heron; Eurasian Coot; Masked Lapwing

2 Birds of Prey:  Brown Goshawk; Wedge-tailed Eagle; Nankeen Kestrel; Brown 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: Common Bronzewing; Crested Pigeon; Rock Dove; Tawny Frogmouth; Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo; Shining Bronze-cuckoo; Pallid Cuckoo; Fan-tailed Cuckoo; Southern Boobook; Powerful Owl; Laughing Kookaburra;

 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: Golden Whistler; Rufous Whistler; Grey Shrike-thrush; Grey Fantail; Willie Wagtail; Magpie-lark; Scarlet Robin;, Flame Robin; Eastern Yellow Robin; Welcome Swallow; Fairy Martin.

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

8 Other, smaller birds:  White-throated Treecreeper; Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike; Olive-backed Oriole; Dusky Woodswallow; Skylark; Rufous Songlark; Common Blackbird; Common Starling; Mistletoebird; Australasian  Pipit;

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

Birding Locations

The location this month is the Stony Creek Nature Reserve adjacent to Captains Flat Road, with the entrance opposite Clydesdale Rd.  This has been described by a prominent local naturalist as a “gem” and it certainly has the potential to be a great area for birding with a good range of old trees providing sites for hollow nesters such as Parrots, Cockatoos and Kingfishers.  

However, neither my personal list of birds seen in the area, nor that in the NSW Wildlife Atlas are extensive.  One possible reason for this is my bad luck with weather (either wet and windy or very hot) during my visits! Whatever, a first point is to ask if anyone else who visits the Reserve could send me a list of the birds which they see!  

There is little surface water in the Reserve which makes the dam just inside the entrance an attractive site for birds during the warmer months.  However the dam is not big enough to support any water birds and these are mainly those feeding on insects in the water.  This includes Grey fantail, Willie Wagtail and Honeyeaters (which despite their name also eat a lot of insects).

The shrub layer is also not extensive, with most ground cover being low grasses or herbs.  This restricts the number of thornbills and similar species recorded, as they like the shrubs to provide shelter.  Hopefully the excellent Winter rains this year will encourage the shrubs that are present to ‘kick on’ and provide a mid storey.