Birdwatch. Reports from our last two club outings, a BOCA forum report plus local news. Look at page 3 for Chris Barnes centrefold.

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1 B U N D Y B O C A Birdwatch Reports from our last two club outings, a BOCA forum report plus local news Look at page 3 for Chris Barnes centrefold. Bird Observation and Conservation around Wide Bay September - October 2010 Bird club outing to Dr Mays Crossing Led by Don Lynch on August 29th. Trevor Quested reports on the BOCA forum at Yanco, Leeton NSW Potta camped at Bulburin NP Read his report on the cracking birds he and others saw. Campout in the Nour Future outings November and December outings coming up. Not to be missed! Page 5 Nour NP Lots of birds seen after a poor start. Black-necked Stork nesting in Bucca after the info provided by cane train driver Jeff Allen Following an article in the News Mail, our local paper, I was contacted by cane train driver Jeff Allen. Jeff said there was a pair of Black-necked Storks nesting in the Bucca Hollow. It was not visible from the road but on private land. We followed his clues and ended beneath the nest where I took a few shots but the bird wouldn t stand up before we left. Nullam arcu leo, facilisis ut 1

2 Bird club outing to Dr Mays Crossing The day dawned fine and sunny with little to no wind and a cheerful group of birdwatchers gathered at Thabeban School awaiting the starterʼs gun. The group included three new chums ; Clare Robertshaw, Keith Dittmar and Ann Day, each Iʼm sure wondering what the day held in store. Our first port of call was Fallons Rocks Road, off Dr Mayʼs Crossing Road. About a kilometre down is a rich bird area ; ponded water,long grass, and large Forest Red Gums containing good nesting hollows. Birds seen here ranged from Quail, Goldenheaded Cisticola,Tawny Grassbirds,Red backed Fairy Wrens, through to Great Egrets, Pacific Black Ducks Wood Ducks and Radjah Shelduck etc. birds included Galah,Little Corella,Torresian Crow, and Rainbow Lorikeet. Moving on we travelled a short distance to an open cane loading area surrounded by scrub and long grass. Here we picked up the odd raptor and grass birds such Double barred Finches,Chestnut breasted Mannikins and more Fairy Wrens etc. In addition,a very large flock of noisy Figbirds flew in a flurry from tree to tree. A good place for morning tea. Our next port of call was just down the road at Dr Mayʼs Crossing on the Elliott River. Here the habitat changed to flowering banksii Grevillias with riparian vegetation and so did the birds; honeyeaters, Olive backed Orioles,Flycatchers,Trillers, Gerygones, and Fantails with more raptors overhead. Another short drive down Coonar Road took us to an irrigation channel wending its way through wetlands covered with a mixed Melaleuca and Eucalypt forest and grasslands. Birds were mostly honeyeaters and pardalote etc with a pair of Willie Wagtails at nest. To finish the day in style we moved back to Dr Mayʼs Crossing for an enjoyable lunch,a short meeting and the bird count. Our reward for the day; a great day in good company with 73 birds in the book. Don Lynch Forest kingfisher by Carl Moller. We saw 5 R E P O R T S Radjah Shelduck 1 Maned Duck 2 Pacific Black Duck 6 Brown Quail 6 Australasian Grebe 2 Pied Cormorant 3 Little Pied Cormorant 1 Darter 2 Great Egret 1 Intermediate Egret 1 White-faced Heron 3 Cattle Egret 4 Australian Ibis 20 Straw-necked Ibis 1 Osprey 1 Australian Kite 1 Whistling Kite 2 Brown Goshawk 2 Collared Sparrowhawk 1 Australian Kestrel 3 Brown Falcon 1 Purple Swamphen 6 Dusky Moorhen 2 Masked Lapwing 2 Spotted Dove Crested Pigeon 20 Peaceful Dove 4 Bar-shouldered Dove 3 Galah Little Corella Rainbow Lorikeet Scaly-breasted Lorikeet Pale-headed Rosella 4 Pallid Cuckoo 1 Pheasant Coucal 2 Azure Kingfisher 1 Laughing Kookaburra 6 Forest Kingfisher 5 Rainbow Bee-eater 6 Welcome Swallow Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike 10 Varied Triller 2 Golden-headed Cisticola 20 Tawny Grassbird 4 Willie-wagtail Grey Fantail 2 Leaden Flycatcher 2 Rufous Whistler 10 Grey Shrike-Thrush 3 Red-backed Fairywren 10 White-throated Gerygone 1 Striated Pardalote Silver-eye Brown Honeyeater heard Scarlet Honeyeater 20 Lewin's Honeyeater 3 White-throated Honeyeater 10 Little Friarbird 8 Noisy Friarbird 2 Blue-faced Honeyeater 2 Noisy Miner Olive-backed Oriole 4 Australian Figbird 153 Spangled Drongo 1 Magpie-lark 4 White-breasted Woodswallow 6 Grey Butcherbird 2 Pied Butcherbird 1 Australasian Magpie Torresian Crow European Starling Double-barred Finch 10 Nutmeg Mannikin 30 2 Newsletter Editor. Trevor Quested

3 Lesser-crested Tern by Chris Barnes

4 B U L B U R I N N A T I O N A L P A R K One of the district s jewels is visited by Jane Hall, Deane Lewis, Potta an Jane Barker. Regent Bowerbird by Deane Lewis On the 10th, 11th & 12th September Jane Hall, Deane Lewis, Jane and I camped out at Bulburin National Park. It is rainforest on the top of the Dawes Range, inland from Agnes Water. Our campsite was exactly 600m above sea level. We had reasonably good weather for most of the time. We managed to rack up 78 bird species, counting some that we saw on the way up the 'mountain'. We also managed to identify 25 butterfly species, including a lifer or two. One of the highlights was the large number of Red-bellied Black Snakes seen during our stay. On the first afternoon we were about to investigate a site just off the track where we suspected a possible Regent Bowerbird's bower. However, we had only walked approx 5metres into rather thick, flattened grass, when we came across a 'family' of 5 Red-bellied Black Snakes all coiled up right in front of us, sunning themselves. Later, we saw another 3 Red-bellied Black Snakes in the same area, so there wasn't much bushbashing after that. Spotlighting on both nights was rather poor. We recorded two Brush-tailed Possums, another Red-bellied Black Snake near a huge millipede on the track, a rather scruffy Tawny Frogmouth that allowed many closeup photographs, and a hawking Whitethroated Nightjar on both nights (a lifer for me!). Some of the interesting birds included Regent Bowerbird(many), Paradise Riflebird, White-eared, Black-faced and Spectacled Monarch, Fan-tailed(many) and Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Speckled Warbler, Large-billed Scrubwren, Striated Pardalote (nesting), Azure Kingfisher, Dusky Honeyeater, Eastern Yellow Robin and Varied Sittella. Thanks to Jane Hall for her organization and vast knowledge of the area. Cheers, Potta Shining Bronze Cuckoo by Deane Lewis Red-crowned Fruit-dove by Deane Lewis 4 Campouts are so rewarding and needn t be on our designated club outing weekend. Let s think outside the square and have a few more next year. Trevor.President.

5 B O C A F O R U M Day 1 The journey from Bundaberg to Melbourne sprang to life when Bob Young, president of PhotoBOCA took Rod Bloss, president/secretary of Brisbane BOCA, and me around Werribee water treatment plant. It is somewhere I always wanted to go and we saw birds we hadn t seen for some time. Rod Bloss from Brisboca spoke about Birds and Biodiversity. Peter Marsh the chair of BASNA told us about Important Bird Areas and monitoring them. Max Burrows from Penboc spoke about BOCA membership growth Forthcoming outings Sunday October 24 Norval Park Meet at 7am at Bundaberg North State Primary School car park Leader Trevor Quested After dinner Tania Ireton tested us with Bird Trivia Superb Parrot by Trevor Quested Day 3 BOCA CEO Richard Hunter drove Rod and Ian Boyd from Townsville BOCA and me to the Murrumbidgee Rural Studies Centre, Yanco near Leeton in the Riverina NSW. Sunday night we enjoyed a BBQ a beer and met many of BOCA s hard working staff and delegates from around Australia. Day 2 BOCA president John Barkla warmly welcomed us and the day filled with lectures about what we are all about- Bird Observation and Conservation in Australia. Prof. Andrew Bennet opened with Understanding Conservation at a Landscape Scale. John Barkla, President, gave us an insight into the possible amalgamation of BOCA and Birds Australia. It was clear that hours of meetings and discussions had transpired and we may be Birdlife Bundy sooner than one thought possible. We welcome it. I was able to give a short talk about the birds of the Wide Bay followed by BOCA Education Coordinator Annette Cook discussing biodiversity education - what s in it for the birds! Keith Stockwell from Echuca and regional branch told us of conservation work in the Echuca region and the forum ended with open discussion and concluding remarks. I came away with some good ideas for the future of our club. It was very nice to meet members of BOCA from different clubs around Australia. Thanks to BOCA for the generous fares, food and accommodation. Trevor Quested. President. Photographer -Lee Mason Sunday 28th November 2010 Garnetts Lagoon, River Heads. Meet at Lions Park, University Drive opposite the airport at 7am. Leader Trevor Quested Sunday 5th December 2010 AGM following bird observing at Gorman Park and Hermans Road, Burnett Heads. Meet at Gorman Park at 7am Time to be confirmed. Leader Eva Okholm Following morning tea Nicki Taws from Canberra Ornithologists Group spoke about volunteer bird monitoring projects. Note: Our secretary Annie Quested will not be standing again. Here is an opportunity for you to contribute to our club. Fan-tailed Cuckoo by Potta.

6 Nour Nour National Park campout 24-26th September 2010 The outing for a number of reasons was poorly attended. And it was raining a little. However we managed to see 94 species of birds including several nesting. Three of us camped and Les and Pam Turner visited from their property up the road. Don Lynch and I arrived but we were beaten by Nerida Silke who had already seen many species of birds. We were shown a Leaden Flycatcher building a nest and several other birds were pointed out. We birded along the higher forest and saw some busy flocks including several Brown-headed Honeyeaters. Les and Pam invited us to bird on their property to the north on Saturday as the rain set in. There is a long creek running beside the road in and there was lots of flowering bottlebrush. After a walk around the land with sightings of Red-winged Parrots and several others we returned to the creek. Nerida heard an owl and soon we were looking at a Barking Owl at eye level. There was a cleared field with dead trees piled in rows at the Nat Park border and we saw some good birds here too. I suppose the Speckled Warblers were the popular favourite. Several Jacky Winters were in the forest and one gave a continual Cicadabird call which had us fooled for a while. We heard Painted Buttonquail calling in several places but only fleeting glimpses were obtained. Emu 6 Plumed Whistling-Duck 16 Maned Duck 6 Grey Teal 2 Pacific Black Duck 4 Australasian Grebe 2 Little Black Cormorant 1 Little Pied Cormorant 2 Darter 1 Pacific Heron 2 White-faced Heron 1 Brown Goshawk 2 Collared Sparrowhawk 1 Wedge-tailed Eagle 2 Australian Kestrel 3 Brown Falcon 1 Painted Buttonquail 6 Dusky Moorhen 1 Common Bronzewing 7 Crested Pigeon 4 Peaceful Dove 12 Bar-shouldered Dove 2 Topknot Pigeon 3 Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo 1 Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo 2 Galah 1 Sulphur-crested Cockatoo 5 Rainbow Lorikeet 20 Scaly-breasted Lorikeet 10 Little Lorikeet 8 Pale-headed Rosella 10 Australian King-Parrot 6 Red-winged Parrot 3 Brush Cuckoo 1 Shining Bronze-Cuckoo 2 one being fed by Buffrumped Thornbills Little Bronze-Cuckoo 1 Channel-billed Cuckoo 1 Pheasant Coucal 4 Barking Owl 1 Australian Owlet-Nightjar 2 Laughing Kookaburra 12 Forest Kingfisher 1 Sacred Kingfisher 4 Rainbow Bee-eater Dollarbird 1 Welcome Swallow 10 Australasian Pipit 6 Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike 10 White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike 4 Golden-headed Cisticola 5 Tawny Grassbird 1 Willie-wagtail Black-faced Monarch 2 Leaden Flycatcher Nes$ng Restless Flycatcher 4 Jacky-winter 20 Yellow Robin 2 Rufous Whistler Grey Shrike-Thrush 12 Grey-crowned Babbler Red-backed Fairywren 12 Speckled Warbler 6 Buff-rumped Thornbill 8 Yellow-rumped Thornbill 2 Weebill 30 White-throated Gerygone 10 Varied Sittella 20 White-throated Treecreeper 20 Mistletoebird 1 Spotted Pardalote Striated Pardalote Silver-eye 2 Brown Honeyeater Scarlet Honeyeater 12 Yellow-faced Honeyeater 10 White-eared Honeyeater 20 Fuscous Honeyeater 5 White-naped Honeyeater 10 White-throated Honeyeater 20 Brown-headed Honeyeater 20 Little Friarbird 20 Noisy Friarbird Blue-faced Honeyeater 20 Noisy Miner Olive-backed Oriole 6 Magpie-lark 8 Apostlebird 12 Dusky Woodswallow 2 Grey Butcherbird 6 Pied Butcherbird 6 Australasian Magpie Pied Currawong Torresian Crow Double-barred Finch 10 On the Sunday we explored the heathland above our campsite. White-eared Honeyeaters were common. The spring wildflower show was spectacular. Speckled Warbler Rufous Whistler nesting in felled timber. Photos and report by Trevor Quested