As I penned in the OCTOBER OFFERINGS blog for Allen Road [and with sincere apologies for those of you who came here
via that posting]:
Given that it is now mid-December, some might well consider
this monthly report a mite on the tardy side.
Yes. However, going on the
premise of better late than never, it is present here with an brief explanation
as to why it has taken this long to emerge.
It was actually written by the end of the first week in November and
awaited a few textual adjustments and the addition of the photographs. Piece of cake; like falling off a log. Then the enormity of the new Australian
Curriculum dropped on me like the proverbial lead balloon. Testing, marking and of course report
writing. Gone are the days when teachers
could simply comment “worked well” or “could do better.” November and early December [when the
November report would normally be prepared] became lost in a mountain of
schoolwork. I drowned in a deluge of
data that had to be prepared and transferred to various computer files – and
then forwarded to various areas.
‘nough said. I’m over
the October delay. The October report
for the South Burnett is here.
In essence we recorded 111 species from 18 different
locations which, oddly enough, coincides exactly with the 2012 October tally
[111 species over 18 locations].
Together they continue to hold the record tally since the onset of South
Burnett reports in 2001; only approached by the 110 in October 2010 and 109 in
October 2009; all other years came in at below the century score.However, October 2013 for us will always be the month of the Blue Bonnet Northiella haematogaster. We had long considered that parts of the South Burnett would be favourable Blue Bonnet habitat but had never seen any in almost 3800 separate computer entries for the region dating back to January 1990. The last recorded sighting we have of Blue Bonnet is in the St George area back in 2000- a 13-year gap.
It never really occurred to us that our first South Burnett sighting would literally be around in the corner. On 7 October we were surveying the Rocky Creek Circuit which we had recently tweaked to include McGillevray Road. It was as we were turning into this latter part of the circuit [a left out of Reeve Road] that Fay noted two parrot-like birds flit across the road a few metres ahead of us. Time froze. We knew its name but the words wouldn’t come out. A moment later we simultaneously breathed out, “Blue Bonnet.” The birds alighted in shrubbery on the right-hand side of the road. We could almost touch them. I eased the Subaru yards closer; Fay had her binoculars trained on the pair. I stopped and took up my binoculars. It was not a Lifer but after a 13-year drought it was a pleasant sensation to have them in sight again – and in the South Burnet to boot!
There were other notable South Burnett sightings during the
month. At the Broadwater Camping Reserve
we saw only our third Cotton-Pygmy Goose Nettapus coromandelianus of the year; we had glorious views of
a pair cruising along on Barker’s Creek.
The White-bellied Sea-eagle Haliaetus leucogaster over Meandu Creek Dam was the
first since Chinchilla at the end of June 2013. It showed for a second time during October at
the Broadwater Camping Reserve in the third week of the month.
The tale of October cannot be allowed to slip by without
mention of the magic moments when a Black-shouldered Kite Elanus axillaris came to perch in
overhead wires a few metres from where Fay and I stood, albeit half-disguised
as passing wind-blown litter.
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