Plans for COG outing to Tinderries

As advertised on the COG website (click on the Pelican and scroll down to 16 October) and in the latest Gang-gang, the outing proposed for October is on the 16th of this month going to the Round Flat Fire trail in the Tinderries.  It is a longer trip so I suggest people bring lunch and plenty of water.

I have looked at the BoM weather forecast for the day and at 4-240 and 'partly cloudy' it looks as though the weather should be suitable.  If it should all change either to suggest lotsa rain or a repeat of today's firebans, plan B will be hurriedly invented.

The two meeting places suggested are shown in the maps below.  For carpooling at Kambah Village (remember your carbon footprint people, and note that space for parking is not luxurious on Tnderry Rd,) meet there ready to leave by 8:30.
Google Maps shows the drive to Michelago as 43Km and suggests 34 minutes, which seems fair enough.  Anyone going direct to Michelago please aim to be there by 9am.  If further carpooling seems necessary that can be arranged in that area.   I will be coming from home (Carwoola) via Queanbeyan but returning through Captains Flat, so anyone that wants to car pool with me please be at my place by 8am.  The meeting point is marked with a red cross and the way through the metropolis of Michelago is shown by the red arrows.
Depending upon discussions among the group at Michelago we may stop for 10 minutes on top of the Range to take in the view and marvel at the regrowth after the 2009 bush fires.  I don't expect to spend much time birding there (unless of course good birding becomes available).

We proceed on Tinderry Road towards Captains Flat or Jerangle for about 2.5 kms and park beside the road.  My memory is that 6-7 vehicles can park easily off the road, while allowing access to the gate for RFS or Parks vehicles.

The attached extract from the 1:25k topo map shows the out and back route as red dots (we could go further if we have time or we might not get to that creek if things are 'ornithologically hot" earlier on).  There are some undulations, but nothing needing crampons and although the high point will be about 1200m supplementary oxygen shouldn't be required.
Needless to say the weather is getting warmer and we cross a couple of damp areas.  Thus we may be lucky enough to see snakes of various levels of venomosity.  Don't tread on them: it makes them bad tempered

Here is a list of the bird species I have recorded on a couple of plant oriented trips to the site, going as far as the first creek crossing.  It is sorted in Atlas code order rather than Taxonomic order, but should give the idea of what we are likely to see.
44    Wonga Pigeon
267   Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo
268   Gang-gang Cockatoo
269   Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
281   Australian King-Parrot
282   Crimson Rosella
322   Laughing Kookaburra
326   Sacred Kingfisher
337   Pallid Cuckoo
338   Fan-tailed Cuckoo
339   Brush Cuckoo
361   Grey Fantail
362   Rufous Fantail
365   Leaden Flycatcher
366   Satin Flycatcher
380   Scarlet Robin
382   Flame Robin
398   Golden Whistler
401   Rufous Whistler
408   Grey Shrike-thrush
416   Crested Shrike-tit
424   Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
470   Striated Thornbill
475   Brown Thornbill
484   Buff-rumped Thornbill
488   White-browed Scrubwren
509   Rufous Songlark
529   Superb Fairy-wren
547   Dusky Woodswallow
558   White-throated Treecreeper
565   Spotted Pardalote
578   White-naped Honeyeater
614   Yellow-faced Honeyeater
617   White-eared Honeyeater
638   Red Wattlebird
671   Olive-backed Oriole
679   Satin Bowerbird
694   Pied Currawong
702   Grey Butcherbird
930   Australian Raven

976   Striated Pardalote

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A tour of the West (part 1)

Image
A friend from my time in the UN sent me some photos of her family trip along Route 66.  They did this is a large camperwagon rather than a Chevy Corvette (apparently the kids jacked up about being offered a trip in the trunk).  It seems to have been a very good trip for them and most interesting to see their photos.  It was also educational for me, as I found out the German for rocking chair (schaukelstuhl, since you ask). They did 7200 miles in 30 days - a pretty serious bit of distance. This made me think of the trips we did in 1981 when living in Denver.  Frances initiated that idea by getting a book about the National Parks of the West  and marking interesting places.  I then worked out a route on a Rand-McNally Road Atlas (GPS was unknown then  - as were iPhones, personal computers and the internet).  From memory, taking nearly the whole Summer school holidays we covered about 10,000 miles in 70 days.  Here, approximately,  are our routes: That map comes from Google Maps (G
Read more

Insects from pine trees

Image
This afternoon (13/1/2015) we were looking out of our sunroom and noticed a strange bit of mist.  On getting my binoculars on the case I found it to be a cloud of tens of thousand of insects.  They appeared with naked eye to be flying away, but with binoculars I thought they were circling. Here are some images In the second one it may be possible to see there are two streams coming from the top of each tree. There was a loud buzzing noise but that could just be several thousand wings. Earlier in the day Frances had been to some nearby willows and they were infested with many little black soft bodied insects.  Perhaps they shifted to the pines and were swarming? Help!! Any information welcome. A colleague, from Wamboin, had noticed a similat phenomenon, but involvng eucalypts rather than pines!  Here are the photos he took with his phone. I have consulted some expert friends.   Their responses were: I would have gone for chironomids. I recall years ago driving al
Read more

Maslins beach rules

Image
Anyone who was in Adelaide in the 1970s will be having a good nudge nudge at that title.  However the beach is really nice even though it is the haunt (in Summer ) of naked people.  (As an aside one of the 'van park staff was talking to some other guests and commented that the sights on the beach in Summer were not at all exciting.)  In April it is the haunt of seniors, many of them exercising their dogs, and thus a far more attractive place. Getting to the beach was a walk of about 1km along roads, from our van.  The second half of this went past a rather daggy looking paddock with many formed ridges in it, as though it was irrigated, although a water sources wasn't evident.  The paddock got interesting towards the end as some green parrots appeared.  Thanks to Frances eye for detail we have subsequently identified these as Elegant Parrots: my first lifer for 2014.    The locale is indicated by the red lines in this mudmap: Here are the birds: The view from the top of
Read more