COG Bluett

24 members and guests gathered, at social distances, on Urriara Rd on a fine and mild morning.
Thank you to Jean Casburn for leading this walk through a very interesting patch of bush.  Our route is shown here (although it actually finished back at the start - my phone ran out of electrons at the empty circle!).
Those with long memories will recall it being threatened with conversion to a motocross track but saved by lobbying from COG and other groups concerned with conserving what remained of the Bush Capital.  The list of species seen on this walk justifies the conservation effort.
Not far into the walk we came across a nice little clump of orchids: I will establish the species when I get back to my books tomorrow.
 This is a rather bland image of the habitat for much of the walk.
At the highpoint of the walk - near the loop in the map above, some were interested to see a pair of mating Vine Months Phalaenoides glycinae 
The avian highlights were Speckled Warbler (2) and Red-capped Robin (2).  
In both cases these were heard within the first kilometre of the walk and then sighted very well in the last kilometre.  We also saw at least 9 Scarlet Robins: either the fire has pushed them out of Namadgi or reports of their demise are a little premature.  2 Eastern Yellow Robins completed the expected trio.
The most common bird was Grey Fantail with 19 birds marked off.  This was a very conservative estimate as they were everywhere.  Possibly ‘X’ would have been the more accurate report measure as they were present in highly mobile little groups.  Also surprisingly common were Golden Whistlers with at least 7 birds seen.
A Grey Currawong provided a lifer for some visitors.
We saw a few honeyeater species.  With regard to the usual species of interest at this time of year – Yellow-faced Honeyeater – we saw one flock of 5 birds flying with purpose.  Surprisingly they were heading West, rather than East!
 All up 41 species were recorded.
At some points in the walk we had nice views 
 At other points they weren't so nice.


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