COG does instant Kama (but no Chameleons were seen)
Apologies to John Lennon and Boy George. I should also point out that Googling 'Kama' is an exercise for adults only!
To get to business. 14 members and guests visited the Kama Reserve, between William Hovell Drive and the Molonglo River this morning. (Interestingly, but barely surprisingly, I couldn't find a map of the Reserve, nor any reference to it, on the ACT Government TAMS site.) The weather was great: sunny and low 20s with no rain and a gentle breeze.
Overall we recorded 36 species with 6 of them breeding records. A full list of species will occur on the Trips page of the COG Website in due course.
The undoubted highlight was a dependent young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo interacting with its parent Superb Fairy-wren. It was doing this from the middle of a small tree so hard to get an image better than this.
The next image does (sort of) show the Cuckoo and the male wren flying towards it in a rather impressionist fashion.
This should count as two breeding records since the cuckoo was DY (Dependent Young) while the fairy-wren was CF (Carrying Food).
Other contenders for bird of the day were 5 Varied Sitellas, at least 4 Brown Treecreepers (two being very young and noisy birds rated as as DY), 3 Superb Parrots which overflew the Reserve heading to the fa side of the Molonglo and a female White-winged Triller.
An occupied Red-browed Finch nest was located and many Tree Martins and Red-rumped Parrots were seen inspecting hollows. Here is the female Parrot ...
.. while the male relaxes nearby.
Despite the heavy blossom on many Eucalyptus rossii
.... these trees did not seem to be attracting many birds or insects. Honeyeaters were scarce with only White-plumed Honeaters in numbers, together with a single Noisy Friarbird and a single Red Wattlebird when back at the cars.
Other interesting flowers were Vanilla lilies (Arthropodium milleflorum)
and, in a dam, Ottelia ovalifolia.
It was disappointing to note the amount of St Johns Wort, Saffron thistle and other invasive weeds in the Reserve. It is to be hoped that Canberra Nature Park gets this under control as soon as possible.
To get to business. 14 members and guests visited the Kama Reserve, between William Hovell Drive and the Molonglo River this morning. (Interestingly, but barely surprisingly, I couldn't find a map of the Reserve, nor any reference to it, on the ACT Government TAMS site.) The weather was great: sunny and low 20s with no rain and a gentle breeze.
Overall we recorded 36 species with 6 of them breeding records. A full list of species will occur on the Trips page of the COG Website in due course.
The undoubted highlight was a dependent young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo interacting with its parent Superb Fairy-wren. It was doing this from the middle of a small tree so hard to get an image better than this.
Other contenders for bird of the day were 5 Varied Sitellas, at least 4 Brown Treecreepers (two being very young and noisy birds rated as as DY), 3 Superb Parrots which overflew the Reserve heading to the fa side of the Molonglo and a female White-winged Triller.
An occupied Red-browed Finch nest was located and many Tree Martins and Red-rumped Parrots were seen inspecting hollows. Here is the female Parrot ...
Other interesting flowers were Vanilla lilies (Arthropodium milleflorum)
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