I had a lovely outing to Hanging Rock near Woodend.
There were many crimson rosellas, pied currawongs, brown thornbills, white-naped honeyeaters, laughing kookaburras and white-plumed honeyeaters.
While walking my dog around the racecourse I saw a robin, which I thought initially was a scarlet robin, but when it turned to face me, I saw a red patch on the crown, so it was a red-capped robin.
I was surprised to see this species, but further research revealed that these birds are seen this far south.
On the subject of crimson rosella, Christine from Ocean Grove messaged me to say that she saw four of these birds in a tree outside Geelong Hospital. There must have been some lovely seeds in the tree to attract these birds to that spot.
I received an email from Jillian, who walks regularly at Ocean Grove Nature Reserve. Jillian has noticed a lot more spiny-cheeked honeyeaters there this year compared to other years. Jillian also saw a couple of male and female golden whistlers, lots of silvereyes, superb fairy-wrens, a few yellow-tailed black cockatoos, eastern and crimson Rosellas, plenty of rowdy rainbow lorikeets and several of the resident wallabies.
She also spotted a grey shrike-thrush, nankeen kestrel, two black shouldered kites and a grey butcherbird. There were also lots of male and female common bronzewings performing their courting ritual. The Australasian Grebe on the main lake was still there.
I must say that Jillian saw many more birds than I did when I walked around the OGNR. Jillian also drove down Mollers Lane in Leopold and the waterway at the end on the left near Lake Connewarre was crowded with many birds including chestnut teals, grey teals, a hardhead duck with it part pale blue bill, hoary headed grebes, Eurasian coots and a couple of pink-eared ducks.
I received an email from Geoff, who spotted a bush stone curlew recently on the Gold Coast. These iconic birds are large, ground-dwelling birds endemic to mostly coastal northern Australia. They can be seen mostly at night stalking invertebrates such as insects.
Closer to home Geoff spotted five nankeen night herons at Blue Waters Lake in Ocean Grove.
Barry Lingham informed me that there have been up to 15 of these herons in the same tree at dusk. I think Geoff will be hoping that the mighty Blues win the AFL premiership, so good luck to Geoff and the Blues.
I received a few lovely emails from John, who lives near Leopold. He has a very active bird bath on his property where a pair of brown thornbills visit daily at 8.20am. John has not seen any yellow-rumped thornbills, but superb fairy-wrens visit daily, including a male in breeding plumage with three brown females.
John built two pardalote nests from PVC plumbing fittings and mounted them in his fernery, so hopefully the spotted pardalotes will find these artificial nests.
Last year John accidentally disturbed a pardalote nest in the ground when he was gardening.
John has also seen up to 40 welcome swallows feeding very low over a paddock, but currently there are only a few pairs remaining and they are feeding at various heights depending on the wind strength and insect swarms.
There is a large raptor nest on the property, which currently seems unoccupied, although there are a few black kites and whistling kites around.
