The first day of the very first Toowoomba Birding Festival offered two walks in an escarpment park and two talks at the Queensland Museum Cobb+Co. It was a great day, attended by sixty people in total.
Duggan Park Bird Walks
As people gathered at the sign-in place, a Grey Goshawk wafted past overhead, upsetting the raucous cockatoos. On the main arterial track, participants were shown an active bower of Satin Bowerbird and eventually a male bird dropped in to attend to it.
A pair of Grey Shrike-thrushes sang melodiously and passed close-by demonstrating that in birds, plain appearance and great voice do not necessarily equate!
Participants eagerly looked about for birds and a young member spied a striking male Variegated Fairy-wren, seen well by all. In the thicket habitat, a pair of Rufous Fantails showed off their fancy tails in clear view above the impressed observers.
And both male and female Golden Whistlers were sighted and stuck around, affording relatively close observation. As well as being a first introduction to birding for many participants, the importance of recognising bird calls and the art of describing where a bird is situated in the forest, were quickly appreciated!
whilst the birdwalk was going ABC Southern Queensland radio did a live cross to find out more about the festival and the walks on offer.
Queensland Museum, Cobb+Co Talks
In the afternoon the museum hosted a short talk from Scot McPhie on the upcoming events in the festival, and then Mick Atzeni, President of the Toowoomba Bird Observers Club, gave a talk on the special birds of the Toowoomba region, and why Toowoomba is a birding hotspot.
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