WELCOME TO WINTER!

It is a beautiful sunny day today. Not at all wintery. It is no secret that I like the first day of the month. I'm like a school kid with a new exercise book: everything must be perfect on the first page. I start my new monthly birdlist full of optimism. This will be my best June ever. In fact, my best June ever was in 2008, when I saw 259 species! Not bad. However, in June 2008, not only did I spend a weekend at sea (out of Ulladulla), but I visited Iron Range. Any visit to Queensland is going to increase your total significantly. This month, my only trip will be a week in WA, visiting Dirk Hartog Island. I'll have a guide (always an easy way to boost your total) but still it is only a week. If I get 150 for the month, I'll be doing well. Never mind, it is the first day of the month and I'm going to do my best. I started the day as usual with my morning walk. This morning I visited Hay's Paddock. I came home with a grand total of 16, the best bird being an Australian King Parrot. After watching 'Insiders' on TV (compulsory viewing for me) I set off for Willsmere Billabong, an easy walk from home. I thought I might add another 5 species to my monthly total. When I arrived, there was a soccer match in progress on the oval. Welcome Swallows were swooping amongst the players. Magpie-larks, Noisy Miners and Rainbow Lorikeets made their presence felt. I walked straight to the river. There is a path beside the river which can be quite productive. Today I saw Brown Thornbills and White-browed Scrubwren and heard Spotted Pardalotes. I am always pleased to hear pardalotes. Like all our small birds, they are becoming less common. These ones were on the other side of the river, high in the canopy, and there was no chance of seeing them. My disappointment was short-lived because I could suddenly hear black cockies! What a joy! I hurried along the track to where they were playing in a wattle. Seeing black cockies makes me feel good for hours. Some birds do that; just a glimpse gives me a warm glow. These birds put a smile on my face and I quite forgot about not being able to see the pardalotes. Black cockies really are beautiful, big birds. Here's proof. (Sorry, this is the best I could do with my phone.)

The reason I'd chosen Willsmere as my first walk for the month, was that I was hoping that my friendly frogmouths would be sitting at home in their gum tree as they should be. They went AWOL for several months, but they were back in May and I had every reason to hope that they'd still be there to celebrate the first day of June with me. A pair of Tawny Frogmouths lives in Stradbroke Park, quite close to home, but they went AWOL last December and have not yet returned home. My Willsmere birds had moved a few trees away, but were still visible until they returned to their rightful tree last month. As soon as I could drag myself away from the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos I hurried to 'the' tree, and instantly saw just one frogmouth. He was pretending to sleep, but I could see that he was in fact well aware of my presence through his seemingly shut eyes. He was quite high in the tree, safely above photographic height for my phone. I was satisfied just to admire him. I sat on the seat by the river and wrote up the birds I'd seen. I was quite pleased with myself, despite knowing that, had I done the same walk thirty years ago, I would have seen at least twice as many birds. There would have been honeyeaters and whistlers and perhaps even an Azure Kingfisher. I put this unwanted thought out of my head and set off for the billabong. There were black ducks, one Australasian Grebe and one Little Black Cormorant. Without adding Red-rumped Parrots, Eastern Rosellas or Common Bronzewings to my list (all birds I'd expected to see) I continued my walk. As elsewhere around Melbourne, things were pretty dry. The creek (really a drain) that empties into the billabong wasn't running, so I didn't bother checking for herons. Nor did I examine the golf course for Maned Duck. I still hoped to get fairywrens onto the list, and turned for home. There were too many Noisy Miners (let's face it, one is too many) and quite a few welcome Brown Thornbills, but alas no fairywrens. I'll have to make do with black White-winged Fairywrens on Dirk Hartog. (White-winged Fairywrens everywhere else in Australia are an attractive deep blue and I've always hankered after a black one. Hence the trip to Dirk Hartog.) Still glowing from my black cockies, I went home happy. I'd added 8 birds to my monthly total. I'd seen my frogmouth AND I'd seen black cockies.