COG Does Dinosaurs and Descendants!

21 members and guests gathered at the ANBG Visitors centre on a pleasant morning for a Winter Walk.  We were alerted to the place being likely to be crowded due to a dinosaur event bringing in a horde or two of small people.  Fortunately Lindell and Marion were able to devise a route that missed most of these for which I thank them.

Here is an un-named toothy beast.

The notice says don't climb on the dinosaurs (presumably in case any of the Small People had not thought of climbing on the dinosaurs).

Our first excitement was locating a Male Satin Bowerbird displaying to his lady friend.  

She was later observed transporting leafy material to a nest almost directly above the bower, thus upgrading the breeding event from “display” to “nest building”.  Something to keep an eye on.

More excitement swiftly following with a sighting of a very cooperative Bassian Thrush feeding on the ground about 3m off the path in section 26.  

Somewhat later in the bushland above the boundary of sections 70 and 73 a second Bassian Thrush was noted – unusually flying up to a branch  several metres off the ground.  

When that bird departed it was joined by a another, making it a 3 thrush walk.

Eastern Yellow Robins were frequently seen, from the Sydney Gully upwards with a final count of 10 for the outing.  

As we came down outside the Rainforest Gulley a beautiful male Rose Robin was seen.  It was very active and my photos were ungood, but everyone good a fair look at him.

I have included the second image as it sort-of captures the unusual wing-fluttering behaviour.  I don't have HANZAB on hand but this reminded me of some breeding displays in other species: we didn't see a female anywhere so have not counted this as a breeding record.

Honeyeaters were a tad light on for diversity, despite quite a lot of blossom, but we saw/heard decent numbers of Red Wattlebird, New Holland Honeyeater and Eastern Spinebill.

Overall we recorded 28 species which with some of them being corkers was a fair outcome for a mid-Winter walk.  As well as the Bowerbirds breeding was also firing up for Australian Wood Duck (Inspecting hollow) ...

and Australian Magpie (nest building).A full list is here.