You Yangs

'Enjoyed some further birding diversity only 30 minutes drive from the Western Treatment Plant by visiting the You Yangs Regional Park on Boxing Day 2012. The You Yangs are a collection of 2-3 granite peaks between Melbourne and Geelong. The surrounding vegetation includes Manna Gum and Yellow Gum. The understorey is sparse. It is more akin to what I associate with "north of the divide" as distinct from the heavily forested gullies and rainforest of the ranges I have tended to frequent. Not surprisingly then the place attracts a nice variation of birds for me to observe!

White-winged choughs

A highlight for me was seeing my first ever chough nest. This was at the nearby Serendip Nature Reserve

The excellent Birds Australia book Where to see birds in Victoria edited by Tim Dolby has a You Yangs chapter written by Russell Woodford. We found the "car park" Tawny frogmouths to which he refers ....

... and also found the "gravel pit on the east side of Great Circle Drive, a little past Kurrajong Ave". Remarkably we picked up the Diamond firetail, Crested shrike-tit and Dusky woodswallow mentioned in his narrative amongst others. The gravel pit had created the effect of a small dam which was particularly popular with the firetails and numerous honeyeater species.

You'll have to take my word that the birds drinking (at left, above) are the aforementioned Diamond firetails. The positioning of the pond didn't allow for proximity to such small birds. Crested shrike-tit is always a good find for me - it can be seen at right. I was once again travelling with Richard whose post of the same trip has some better shots of these birds.

New-Holland honeyeater and Yellow-faced honeyeater enjoying the dam.

White-plumed honeyeaters having their Boxing Day extended-family get together! 

Nearby is the Serendip Sanctuary which is located on the outskirts of the town of Lara. As well as wild birds the sanctuary has enclosures for recovery program birds. These include Brolga, Magpie geese and Australian bustard. I was curious about this captive bustard's posture. Looking up I was not surprised to see a soaring raptor.

Bird on!

Signs of the times

The signs I am referring to are those closing a reserve or walking trail when there appears to be little reason for doing so. I wonder about the following causative factors:

1. Under-resourced parks seemingly unable to repair trails in a timely manner.
2. An increasingly litigious society - one that seems to value the potential for financial gains through compensation greater than accepting a degree of personal responsibility for risk of injury.  This is not helped by "No win, no fee" legal services.
3. Management practices that put 1 & 2 together to conclude that it is just easier to close the park down even when the risk is trivial.

A favourite haunt of mine has been the Stoneyford Nature Trail at Silvan Reservoir Park which is run by Parks Victoria. On a recent return visit I found discarded signage indicating that the trail was closed due to the failure of two pedestrian bridges. The "failed" bridges are pictured below. The Parks Victoria Silvan Reservoir Park page continues to indicate that the track is closed indefinitely.

Having driven some distance for the visit I brashly decided to explore. I was accepting of the apparently significant risk of great personal injury! As you can see below the conditions were pretty treacherous!

On this occasion I'm glad I did continue. I thoroughly enjoyed some good birding.

I understand that management has a duty of care to the public and that the situation may not be safe for a mob of 30 raucous buffoons bouncing on one of the bridges. I just feel that there has been an unjustified increase in the number and duration of closed parks and trails.

Crested shrike-tit (Falcunculus frontatus)
Only my second sighting of this bird and
first photograph. Usually seen 20 metres up!

White-throated tree-creeper (Cormobates leucophaea)
unforgiving midday light

Eastern yellow robin (Eopsaltria australis)
enjoying a dust bath in the January heat

Enjoyed several different views of
Fan-tailed cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis)

Kookaburra feeding young in tree-hollow
and then off to continue the shopping!

 

Bird - yet to be identified! Any suggestions?

 The discarded signage at the start of the Stoneyford Nature trail:

"Failed bridges" #1 and #2.

I cannot fathom how anyone could come to grief on either of these structures. We are not talking a canyon here. You would have to crawl along the creek bed to get under! There's no trolls surprising any billy-goats gruff on these babies!