"What's up?" at Ben Bennett Reserve, Caloundra

This Mistletoebird was checking out potential prey not predators

On Saturday 18th May I made my third visit to the Ben Bennett bushland reserve in Caloundra. Each of these visits has been in May. Once again I had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours and could easily have spent longer. Today's visit was dominated by the smaller birds of the subtropics.

Striated pardalote

Grey fantail

Gray fantail

Varied triller

Spangled drongo

Of the Family Pachycephlaidae the Golden whistler presented a better photo opportunity than Grey shrike-thrush and Rufous whistler (below)

Eastern yellow robin kept popping up demonstrating all those classic robin poses!

Red-browed finch

There were some of the palest Brown thornbill I have seen

The place was alive with honeyeaters. Most that caught my eye turned into Noisy miner, Little wattlebird, Brown honeyeater or Lewins honeyeater but there was the odd special surprise ...

Brown honeyeater

Brown honeyeater

Lewin's honeyeater

The last "tick" added to the day's list was Scarlet honeyeater, photographed as my lift arrived! 

From only 15 lists contributed to date I notice that the Eremaea species list for Ben Bennett is up to a respectable 68 species. The Eremaea page also provides an excellent description of the site and describes how secluded and relaxing the place feels.

Best we don't tell anyone!

Lowland rainforest section, Ben Bennett Bushland Reserve

Wet heath abuts Melaleuca woodland, Ben Bennett

Bird on!

Nitmiluk's small packages

Next a series featuring the smaller birds seen around Nitmiluk during our stay in late July 2012. Firstly a mistletoebird feeding and squashing the juice from small fruits.

Also busy feeding, my initial impression was that this bird must be a lifer! It looks so different from anything back home.  It gradually dawned on me though that this was the northern colouring of Striated pardalote.

Rufous whistler 

Back-off please! Brown honeyeater (and again below). 

Finally, I think my first ever photo of Leaden flycatcher. Maybe the next one will be in focus - nice shot of the bark though don't you think!?!

Bird on!

Terrific Terrick!

If you make a triangle out of the Victorian towns of Bendigo, Echuca & Kerang then the Terrick Terrick National Park sits in the middle. It contains an unfamiliar environment with native pines and grasslands with a few areas of rocky outcrops. Similarly the birding was unfamiliar & I'm sure that many more "ticks" could have eventuated if we had more local experience or a little homework under the belt.

The 45 minute drive down from our digs at Torrumbarry resulted in stops to view brown falcon, white-fronted chat, Australasian pipit, brolga (did I mention?) &  long-billed corella.

In the cool temperate rainforest & other bush surrounding Melbourne you can't leave a track, even if you wanted to, without a machete. It was strangely satisfying to walk in and amongst the actual bird habitat rather than view it from a track. Although I did do less of this after we saw several long reptiles.

Native pine and grasses

The Mitiamo cemetery section

Climbing Mt Terrick

The team!

The day was warm and we were there from about 10am until 3pm - not ideal for birding. Several sightings were lifers (of these a couple were suspected at the time but confirmed by photograph later on) but I feel we really dipped on a variety of honeyeaters that are often seen.

Black-faced cuckoo shrike -
the immature birds still get me thinking I might
have something new!

Rufous songlark (above & below)
AKA Noisius buggeris

Red-capped robin

Hooded robin

Mistletoebird (after a big night I think)

Southern whiteface (needs a wash)

Hannah was great company and started keeping her own list. She pays greater attention to bird counts than I can be bothered with at times!

Written while driving on gravel
Please excuse hand-writing!

To the north of the forested section of the Park are some areas of designated Park described as native grassland. We had a brief look at the grasslands (didn't get out of the car) where people try to see Plains wanderer (at night I think). We found them difficult to distinguish from the farmed paddocks - some of the locals indicate that they are farmed paddocks (or have been).

I am very grateful to Peter Allen & Keith Stockwell's birding guide for Terrick published via Echuca BOCA's website:

http://users.mcmedia.com.au/stocky/TerricksGuide(WP).pdf

And thanks to Tim Bawden for suggesting the place.



We were also hoping to see Diamond firetail but that's another story....