Maintaining something of a tradition for first excursion of the year, our local BirdLife group (8 participants) today visited Geham National Park.
We conducted another circumnavigation of the park via the roads and completed our fourth 500 metre radius area search.
The park vegetation is tall open forest dominated by common blackbutt Eucalyptus pilularis, with associated Sydney blue gum, tallowwood and bloodwood trees. Understorey is relatively dense because of Acacia, she-oak, lantana and other shrubs. As expected, the cicadas were active, but they were not overwhelmingly noisy.
Most of the 23 recorded bird species were on one side of the park, which has been the usual pattern. Little Lorikeet, Musk Lorikeet and Scarlet Honeyeater were among the species exploiting blackbutt flowers high in the canopies, straining our necks.
A pair of Leaden Flycatchers appeared to be attending to a fledged juvenile.
The cumulative list from our group’s four visits (previously: January in 2021 and 2023; and June in 2022) stands at 54 bird species. Five were added today.
The full list from today is as follows:
Australian King-Parrot | Alisterus scapularis |
Australian Magpie | Gymnorhina tibicen |
Bar-shouldered Dove | Geopelia humeralis |
Common Bronzewing | Phaps chalcoptera |
Eastern Whipbird | Psophodes olivaceus |
Eastern Yellow Robin | Eopsaltria australis |
Golden Whistler | Pachycephala pectoralis |
Grey Fantail | Rhipidura albiscapa |
Grey Shrike-thrush | Colluricincla harmonica |
Leaden Flycatcher | Myiagra rubecula |
Lewin’s Honeyeater | Meliphaga lewinii |
Little Lorikeet | Glossopsitta pusilla |
Musk Lorikeet | Glossopsitta concinna |
Peaceful Dove | Geopelia placida |
Pied Currawong | Strepera graculina |
Rainbow Lorikeet | Trichoglossus moluccanus |
Rufous Fantail | Rhipidura rufifrons |
Sacred Kingfisher | Todiramphus sanctus |
Scarlet Honeyeater | Myzomela sanguinolenta |
Silvereye | Zosterops lateralis |
Superb Fairy-wren | Malurus cyaneus |
Varied Sittella | Daphoenositta chrysoptera |
Yellow-faced Honeyeater | Caligavis chrysops |
An interesting and unusual event in the day was the discovery of this tree which had been struck by lightning recently.
The pleasure of our birding was surpassed by the delicious morning tea provided by Jenny and Scot at their nearby bush property. Afterwards we were treated to Scot’s videos of breeding Apostlebirds (Goombungee) and food-stealing sea-eagles (at the Sunshine Coast).