The day was spent within the boundary of Great Otway
National Park which is situated along the Great Coast Road SW of Melbourne. The
reserve consists of a diverse range of habitats but my focus would be looking
on the heath and within the forest looking for parrots and Cockatoos.
I went to Anglesea heath at the corner of O’Donohue Road and
began walking the narrow path. I heard Fairywrens causing a commotion in a
small bush and began looking through them. There was a skulker at the back of
the bush which was keeping an eye on the other birds.
After some patience the
Chestnut Rumped Heathwren gave some brief views before disappearing back into
the scrub. I initially thought this was a Striated Fieldwren with the buff wash
but can only conclude think this is a juvenile bird as the Fieldwren does not have
black through the eye with a pencil thin white eyebrow stripe and a longer
wider tail.
The walk up the hill took me through some sparse forest
leading up to a wider path at the bottom of a row of housing. This turned out
to be a good watch point for Cockatoo watch with a party of Gang Gang squawking
their way low across the trees, Yellow Tailed Black give a bit more warning!
The rain came in off the sea and it was time to move on to The
Sheoak Picnic Ground deeper into the rainforest. Getting to the site was up
hill and down dale but the suv handled the ground. There were a few picnickers
on site which had a lot of the smaller birds some 6 – 8 metres up in the
canopy. Time for some neck ache! A shower of rain came to the rescue clearing
out the people in an instant. It had turned a bit chilly by Oz standards but
there were plenty of covered tables! I wasn’t complaining as birds started to
appear on the grass which had a covering of leaves and morsels that the Crimson
Rosella seemed to like.
I added my first bowerbird to my trip total in the form of a
female Satin who was scavenging around the now vacant picnic tables. There were
several short flights to cover which emphasized how powerful its wings were to propel
this stocky bird through the air.
Parrot of the day took a while to turn up but the Australlian King made quite
an entrance from across the stream. Luck would have it that it was a male in its
splendor. Fantastic and after some careful maneuvering around the site I came
face to face all bar 6 metres upwards of it!
Rose Robin are reported to frequent this area but as canopy feeders
it was going to be a tough call to pick one out. I have other sites where you
are closer to the canopy than here! A White Throated Treecreeper made full use of
the towering trees to pick insects off the bark.
Watching on from a tree stump was a couple of Eastern Yellow
Robin. Every passerine has to be mentally checked with many Eastern variants
having been given full species status. The Rosella above were scrutinized but
lacked the yellow on the belly amongst other colour variants.
Time as usual was ticking on and the journey back to
Melbourne was beckoning! Note to self: Keep the truck which would have worked
out about the same price as accommodation, hire car (although I have a free
upgrade to suv) and fuel to and from Melbourne.
I have not mentioned the
Citylink (+/- $20AUS?)toll dodging and the chaos of driving in Melbourne even at
5am! Thank goodness for the birds!
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