Hi, being a new member this may already have been discussed but despite searching I can't find it and I certainly don't want to overstep any boundaries. Anyway, I was wondering if there is any place on this forum where some good bird spotting places are listed via state or location or country.
Sparrow and Araminta were kind enough to share some special places and I would not expect everyone to share anything that would spoil that place for them or more especially for the birds. However, I was thinking that it would be a useful tool.
I am not a twitcher and would just like to walk or sit quietly and observe what is around and maybe take a photo but I am prepared to travel for the experience.
I've been to Coolart Wetlands, Cape Schanck, Edithvale Wetlands, Cradle Mountain, Crater Lake and the huon pine walk in Tassie and plenty of other places I don't even know their names and some of these places can be visited time and time again and they are always different.
So, would this be of use to anyone or am I butting in too soon as a newbie which is the last thing I want to do?? I just got very enthusiastic again reading Sparrow and Araminta's posts and thought others might benefit as well.
Hi qyn55, that is a very good question. Location is always a important factor. My favourite place to go birding is Western Sydney Regional Park. As the name sugests it is in western Sydney. It's a huge reserve which is home to some of my favourite birds. I usually see many water birds their such as egrets, dusky moorhens, purple swamphens and many species of ducks. They even have brown quails (one of my favourite birds) there and I believe I may have heard them a few times. I see heaps of BOP there such as the black shouldered kite, black falcon, nankeen kestrel and more. The thick blackberry and lantanna weeds bring many small birds there as well, some of the ones I have seen are red browed finch, double barred finch, superb fairy wren, gold headed cristicola, weebills and many various species of thornibills which I have yet to identify correctly. There are several trails leading all over the area. My favourite one goes up to a magnificent lookout where you can see the city on one side and the great dividing range on the other.
This is probably not the best place to go to see birds, but for me getting away from the shades of gray in the suburbs is brilliant, I don't live too far away from it either. I am certainly not a twitcher, but I do enjoy finding new species.
It is a great idea to share some locations of good places to see birds and go for walks. It is not a good idea though to reveal locations, where you can find endangered birds. (If I remember correctly, Arkos once turned up at a place, he had revealed, with his camera, and 4 photographers were there already.) I know where some Helmeted Honeyeaters are, but would NEVER tell anyone! So, there are choices to be made from time to time. But in general sharing good Birding Spost is nice!!
M-L
Lane Cove National Park is my favourite, you get water birds as well as land and foreshore based. Royal National Park from the Waterfall end is also excellent plus any of the bushwalks around the Katoomba area plus Mt Victoria area. Best method is to sit for around 15 to 20 minutes then you will see more rather than looking and walking. A good pair of binoculars (10X50) is an asset too.
you could try BirdLife Australia i had quick look the other night it lists a few good sites,even this one.
If you go back through the posts most members say where they took photos or saw hard to find birds, most of us like to share this information with like minded people.
But i do agree with Armninta about not broadcasting the exact whereabouts of endangered birds especially during breeding season,if we're thinking of the same occasion with Arkos the others turned up with sound equipment really interfering with the birds normal behaviour. Not on!!!
Sometimes these birds turn up in well known birding areas and that'`s when we get the chance to maybe snap a couple of shots and then move on leaving them alone to continue with there daily activities.
Thank you to those who have suggested place. I do agree - the birds should come first anyway.
It often feels that you are only speaking to a few like minded people and forget that the internet (and this forum) is open to anyone and everyone. I have seen many posts where people have mentioned the places they have been and I thought it might be useful information to have in one place but if it does take a bit more effort to find that information then it will be that much more special.
Thanks again. :^)
Alison
~~~~~~
"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
Gyn, one of the great joys of birdwatching is that no matter where you are you can observe birds. (More in some places than others, of course.) Your hobby/interest/passtime, like The Force, is always with you. I even recall seeing a brown goshawk in an Adelaide street replete with European trees & houses with European gardens. Nary an Austalian plant in sight. (What it was doing there goodness only knows.)
If you can get hold of it, I think you'd find "Where to Find Birds in Australia" by John Bransbury. I also have in my hot little hand a 1985 pamphlet "Capital Birding" by Reg Johnson & produced by the Bird Observers Club Vic. It lists good places to observe birds close to capital cities.
And I like your idea of quietly walking or sitting, observing.
Thanks Woko, it is very true what you say. I will also try to find copies of the book and pamphlet you mention. Mum was a member of the BOC - maybe not that far back - but it may be around amongst the things of hers that I have still kept.
Adelaide does have surrounding bushland (or it did the last time I was there) so maybe the Brown Goshawk was simply lost but what a surprise to see one where you did. =^o
Thanks for sharing.
Alison
~~~~~~
"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
Sadly, qyn, little is left of the original vegetation of Adelaide & surrounding areas. What remains is under enormous pressure from developers who wish to see houses & shopping malls from sea to shining sea. They'll be bored out of their minds once they've achieved their aim. And that's my rant for the day.
HOWEVER, there are plenty of people & organisations who are planting indigenous vegetation in an effort to replace what has been lost. One of these is Trees for Life which has heaps of volunteers growing native plants in their backyards for replanting on the properties of people, many of them farmers, who have put in orders. It's a marvellous scheme & much of my own revegetation has been acquired through Trees for Life. But the quality of the restoration will never replicate the original vegetation.
Araminta is right about keeping things on the quiet if you have a special spot. I had a few sad experiences when I shared locations with some (so-called) friends who in turn decided to share it freely. Rest assured I will NEVER share too much. Just recently I discovered a nest of a rare(ish) raptor and a few months later some dipstick posted almost exact location on a birding hotline so others can go and annoy these gorgeous birds. When I contacted him nicely as a stranger via e-mail he had no qualms telling me where he made the sighting. Of course many twitchers would not walk through an unbeaten forest at night with a torch, which means no one perhaps yet found the nest tree, but these damn twitchers can be desperate enough to keep using call playback to annoy the breeding pair just so they get a tick on a stupid list. I was so upset, it is beyond belief. :-(
On a lighter note: I have a few easily accessible and great birding locations near where I live in the Penrith Valley, western Sydney. These are the river (Nepean Weir), Castlereagh Nature Reserve and some other open bushland areas nearby and the Hawkesbury turf farms, as well as Bushells and Pitt Town Lagoons are great locations for many species of birds from rarer crakes to large raptors. :-)
COOEE
Could you post a photo (if you have one) of that black falcon from WSRP? I have heard of the very odd one turning up near the tip at Eastern Creek, but that species is not a normal Sydney bird so I would be very curious to hear your reasoning for why you think you've seen one there. A useful note is that a dark morph Brown Falcon can easily be confused with the Black Falcon. Brown Falcons are quite common in the west of Sydney on the other hand. :-)
Regards
Ákos (there's no R in there) ;-)
Yep I understand your frustration Windhover - its an issue that we are dealing with with the Powerful Owl project. We don't want everyone knowing where these birds are breeding and won't be advertising locations to even all of the volunteers associated with it. They will know where their nest is but thats it.
Oh Woko, it is a pity that Adelaide and surrounds in the process of going through the same destruction that seems to be is happening everywhere. I guess nowhere is immune.
When I lived in Emerald VIC, I was a member of the SDCN http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sdcn/About.html and it is similar to the Trees for Life project you mentioned. As a volunteer I even got a number of tubes free however when I moved to Rosebud and rented out my house, the first tenants removed practically all understorey plants including the native shrubs, grasses, dwarf banksias etc it was heartbreaking. But at least when I return I will have a resource to help return it to close to how it should be but, like you said, it is not the same.
It is a sad indictment that we have to be so careful with this information but not everyone has the same agenda - even those we think may share the same values.
Alison
~~~~~~
"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
It can be dispiriting, qyn, if we allow it to be but, as Jesse Jackson said: "Keep hope alive". We can only do what we can do within the limits of our resources & we need to be content with that. Otherwise we get depressed & have no energy for the task at hand. At least that's my philosophy.
Akos, It is a brown falcon I made a typo!!! This website has the list:
http://www.eremaea.com/SiteSpeciesList.aspx?Site=14247&From=19890424&To=20090424&MonthStart=1&MonthEnd=12
So sorry Akos!!!!
No need to be sorry Cooee, it's easy to make a mistake. everyone does it. :-) I really need to go back to Eremaea and put my recent sightings up. Just been lazy. :-(
Cooee, you are not Ari are ya? ;-)
Sometimes you'll find a few surprises in your own neighbourhood. I'm in inner city Melbourne and had yellow tailed black cockatoos and a peregrine falcon right out my window. In the local park which is mainly natives I've seen 9 species of parrot, a goshawk and a peregrine falcon.
Your state's parks website can also provide you with a few ideas. Parks Victoria provided me with enough information to get a chance to spot Major Mitchell cockatoos in the wild.
Windhover, what is Ari?
Oops, I just realised that I spelled your name wrong, sorry. But what Is Ari?
Hi Cooee, Ari is obviously not you then. He is my friend Aristotle, who is one of the guys that lists for WSRP, along with our other friend Alex Z.
Saturday 06th August, Royal Botannical Gardens, Sydney CBD:
8 Pacific Black ducks
6 Australian Magpies
2 Magpie Larks
30 plus Sulphur Crested Cockatoos
4 Pied Currawongs
20 Sacred Ibis
30 plus Feral Pigeons/Rock Doves
10 Noisy Mynahs
24 Silver Gulls
2 Pied Cormorants
8 Indian Mynahs
4 House Sparrows
1 Purple Swamp Hen
7 Eurasian Coots
2 Mallard X Pacific Black Duck
4 Pink Galah 3 Australian Ravens 9 Wood Ducks
Not bad, over one hour in the heart of the city!
That's some good sightings Raven. :-) I hope you don't mind me mentioning that there is a difference in the spelling of the two "mynah" birds. The import is called an Indian (or Common) Myna (or Mynah), and our native honeyeater is a Noisy Miner. :-) Thanks.
Dumb question... what is a twitcher?
I think a twitcher is any bird observer, who will do anything to see and tick a new bird on his/her list. I personally don't have time for twitching. To me birds are wonderful and I happily observe them for hours on end, even the same old boring ones. Of course, it's nice (for me) to add a new species to the list, but I am certainly not obsessed about it. I have heard some bad stories about twitchers as well. Some may consider a tick more important than the bird itself, or its welfare! But that's my view. :-)
I think sometimes obsession overtakes the interest/ hobby. We are all into birds or we wouldnt be chatting on the forum, but some people take it to the next level. It becomes a competition, who can see the most birds, whose the most knowledgable . I do love to see a bird i havent seen before in the wild, I also tend to bore people sometimes talking about it. haha. But for me its all about being out & about, watching & listening. For others it can be for a different reason...... Whether you twitch, observe or watch, either way its all about learning..........
if your happy when your birding, flap your wings.
Very well said mrtattoo,same goes for me!!!Lately I have been concentrating on the different sounds birds make, when in flight. One making a sound very easy to identify is the New Holland Honeyeater.Have a listen, next time you see birds! Birds are fun, even without a camera!
M-L
I love just walking in the bush and listening to every the birds and observing them. But when you run around everywhere looking for something just so you can give a swift ticking motion with a pen is not enjoyable. I just like watching birds and seeing them go on in there natural habitats. But sometimes I get really exited when I see a new bird I haven't seen before, not for the sake of ticking it of my list (which doesn't exist), but because I wan't to learn more about it and listen to it and watch it doing what it does.
We just love to see birds of any shape or size (though crows sometimes upset us by dropping stuff in the bird bath) and taking photos keeps us remembering some of the great places we have been and enjoyed the beauty of the birds. Also helps to identify the birds, as otherwise we wouldn't remember the details of where the patch of red or yellow was, and how long the beak was - easy to get confused, but with a picture you can work out what they are more easily. It gives us great pleasure to see them, enjoy and maybe work out their habits by our observations. we are both 70 and find that at this time of our lives watching birds suits us well and gives enormous pleasure.
Meave
Sorry, again for the Sydney people, I forgot to mention the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, an excellent place for a varied number of birds. Even the Brush Turkey, New Holland Honeyeaters, Superb Lyrebird and Red Wattlebirds can be easily found here. Plus your usuals like the Pied Currawong, Cockatoos, Magpies, Ravens etc. Also known to be in the garden White throated Treecreeper, Crimson Rosellas, Eastern Whipbirds, Spotted Pardalotes.
The location is on Mona Vale Road just about 2kms past St Ives Shopping Village on the left, open daily, closes at 1600. Numerous bushwalks ranging from 15 minutes through to two hours. Picnic areas available and they give talks on the wildlife.
Well worth a visit, take your bird book and binoculars, you can easily spend the day here, in the bush, but not that far from urban life! www.kmc.nsw.gov.au/walksandtalks
Speaking of bird calls, I'm becoming aware that New Holland honeyeaters have several different alarm calls. There's one for raptors, one for snakes & one for foxes, I think. Maybe one for humans, too. Does anyone know if this is accurate or is my imagination running wild & free as it was born to do?
I only know the usual calls from a New Holland so I haven't heard any different ones.
Cheers, Owen.
Owen, we get the trinity at our place: snakes, raptors & foxes. I'm quite confident there's a different call for each member. Perhaps the New Holland honeyeaters are communicating to other birds what evasive action they need to take.
You could well be right Woko. It would make sense if the birds knew exactly what the danger was from different calls.
Cheers, Owen.
I have found that often when you go to information centres they will have pamphlets of what they call bird trails - usually they give directions on what roads to go down, and how many different species are known to have been sighted in the area. City councils are good, and lots of their lists are on the internet. Unfortunately it doesn't always tell you if you need a 4WD to get to some of the places, and as we only have a Falcon we sometimes get caught where we shouldn't be. If they have a map you can of course see if they are dirt roads or not, and in good weather it isn't such a problem. If you google where to find birds in the ***** area you get some help too.
Meave
Useful information. Thanks, Meave.
One of the many things I like about the forum is the information sharing. I often find myself thinking: "Well I never. I didn't know that."