2504 Yarra Bend
Archer C, Jonathan T, Emma B, Claire K and I met this morning at VINC for a walk through Yarra Bend, starting with the nursery ridge then down along the river, past the flying fox colony, under the freeway and back.
As we started we had two galahs feeding on the ovals, and a magpie overheard, as well as constant chatter from the many rainbow lorikeets feeding in the gums around us. A tawny frogmouth sitting in a branch barely above head height was an early highlight.
In the dump site behind the nursery there were crested pigeons and a common myna (still no goldfinch or pipit!), and four maned ducks sitting just beyond the fence on the golf course. Two musk lorikeets flew overhead, and four eastern rosellas landed in a nearby gum.
Heading along the nursery ridge we had lots more magpies, as well as magpie-lark and noisy miners. A single rock dove – our only one for the day – flew over near the freeway. A grey butcherbird gave us some good looks.
Emma and Archer both heard a mistletoebird, which we were then able to spot when it flew out and toward the west.
By the end of the ridge we had added red-rumped parrot, golden whistler, brown thornbill, laughing kookaburra and superb fairywren to the count, all of these toward the end near the freeway.
Heading down the hill toward the river we ran into Joshua G coming back up the other way, and who joined us for the rest of the trip. As though he summoned them we almost immediately had two yellow-faced honeyeaters fly overhead. They’re occasional feeders along the ridge, where we’d hoped to find them but were without luck, so this was a treat.
Along this track we added little corella, dusky moorhen, Australian king-parrot and white-browed scrubwren, as well as more fairywren, thornbills and plenty of noisy miners and rainbow lorikeets. Spotted pardalote were calling away, and a large number of little ravens (8-10?) were being weird about a nest at the top of a tree.
Turning up behind the flying fox colony we had a couple more kooaburra, brown thornbill, white-plumed honeyeater, welcome swallow and pied currawong. The usually reliable sulphur-crested cockatoo that sits on the the eastern freeway and screams at cars wasn’t present so we dipped on what should have been an easy tick!
More swallows under the bridge, and we added three Pacific black duck on the Yarra and a grey shrikethrush loudly calling somewhere nearby.
From here it was mostly a circuit back to the beginning, past the casting pool (people were actually casting!) and over the eastern freeway. More noisy miners, Australian magpies, common myna in this section, and six red wattlebird – surprisingly our first of the morning.
As we were finishing for the day back at VINC we increased our galah and kookaburra counts and heard long-billed corella in the mix with some littles, which Archer was able to confirm for the group.
Biggest dips were probably willie wagtail, grey fantail and spotted dove. Highlight for me was mistletoebird, a Yarra tick, and both yellow-faced honeyeater and Australian king-parrot, which are year LGA ticks for me.
Separately from this, Joshua and I walked back toward Dights Falls, where we added a few things that we’d missed – willie wagtail, grey fantail, white-faced heron, but also got a black-shouldered kite which flew overhead. We met John D here too, who I have seen on eBird before, and remarkably he had just seen six cattle egrets at the Falls – the first record in Yarra since 2006. Incredibly gripped!