Lei L, Stella Z, Ryan C and I met on a bit of a grey and blustery morning at VINC. Apologies to them – I did forget that it was daylight savings last night, and that our 8.00am meeting time was going to feel more like 7.00am.

We took the classic route along the ridge behind the nursery, from there down along the river through the flying fox colony and looping back past the casting pond.

At the meeting spot we were greeted by a rainbow lorikeet in a hollow, Australian magpie and noisy miners. Our only musk lorikeet of the trip flew behind us here – they’re reasonably common in the Deep Rock Rd eucalypts when flowering.

Just through the fence on the golf course we had one, then two, then 20 maned ducks – two adults looking after 18 ducklings. A normal clutch size is 8-11 so there must have been some egg dumping or creching happening here. While we watched the ducks, a crested pigeon watched us.

Things were quiet along the ridge though we did find magpie-lark, an eastern rosella showing well, a pied currawong on nest, a few white-browed scrubwren in the brush, a spotted dove. We heard a sacred kingfisher calling somewhere further along the river.

We came down the hill, finding no Australian owlet-nightjar (one day!) but seeing more rainbow lorikeets, red-rumped parrots and, eventually, superb fairywren. Around the bend we caught up with the kingfishers after a few false starts – two of them being harassed by noisy miners. I didn’t realise that they have a trilling call.

Approaching the flying fox colony there were little raven, red wattlebirds, more fairywren, and Ryan found a black-faced cuckooshrike across the river.

We kept to the river track in the flying fox camp, as the fire track is closed during their breeding season. It’s still not at full but they’re there in good numbers now and happily they weren’t bothered by us, so we were able to linger among them for a while. A small flock of white ibis flew overhead.

Through the camp and under the freeway we had welcome swallows, and better looks at red wattlebird and red-rumped parrot. Continuing along the river toward the Boathouse we had a few calls: the olive-backed oriole is still around, a spotted pardalote, a grey shrikethrush, and a grey fantail. On the river we found both chestnut teal and Pacific black duck.

The final highlight was a tawny frogmouth on nest that Ryan had found earlier in the week. It was a surprisingly decent nest for a tawny so fingers crossed for success. After hearing them all morning we also got a look at a grey butcherbird here.