Boy's Walk

It has been a while since I walked Boy's Walk, so I decided I would do at least some of it this morning. I had to cut it short because I had to take Carmel to Newcastle for her cataract operation.

 There were quite a few little birds around this morning. A flock of Red-browed finches were feeding of the Casurinas. They are hard to approach. There were also a lot of silver-eyes around but they were feeding up high in the trees and showed no inclination to come down. That was surprising because there are a lot of ripe Tobacco Bush and Privet berries around at the moment.

There was a small family of Superb Fairywrens active near the Privet this morning although I think their main interest was in the recently ploughed paddock next to the track. The dominant male was happy to sit still for a while with his tail down. He was quite hard to see against the Privet berries.

Of course the Yellow Robins wanted to be photographed and would sit in front of me posing. This one had an itch that he spent some time on. There were about three of them all in the scrub tunnel near the Pine-tree.

The sewerage pond was a hive of activity this morning with Pacific Blacks, Hardheads, Wood Ducks and a few Teal all floating around. I managed to photograph a single Australian Grebe near the fence  side of the pond. There were a couple more further away in the pond. They look as though they are getting their breeding colours, unlike the ones I photographed in Queensland.

The Chestnut Teal were swimming around behind the factory this morning. It appeared to be a family group, with several apparently smaller individuals looking like females present.

Every now and then, I would hear the distinctive call of a Fantailed Cuckoo.  They are pretty hard to find, even when they are calling frequently. I eventually found this one high up on a  dead branch on the opposite side of the creek. I managed to get a photograph of it stretching and fanning its tail but it was more luck than careful planning.