Fourteen people attended our bird watching walk on a sunny Tuesday morning on 6 June 2017. Vaughan Cowan led us around the northern section of Benalla golf course, an area of red gum bushland with a large dam and not many golfers to interrupt our birding. Vaughan made sure we kept well away from the golfers as we carefully skirted or crossed several fairways.
The golf course is a popular spot with a variety of parrots and cockatoos. We saw a large number of Eastern Rosellas feeding on the fairways. King Parrots were flying through or perched in the trees. Several flocks of noisy Musk Lorikeets were attracted to three flowering ironbark trees beside one fairway. I was surprised to see one Rainbow Lorikeet with them. This is the first one I have seen around Benalla, and seems to be a new record for the area. Rainbow Lorikeets have long been established in Shepparton and Melbourne, and there are good numbers in Seymour, so their spread to Benalla was probably inevitable. The most numerous bird was the Noisy Miner, which thrives in the habitat provided by tree-lined fairways.
In the bushland we found some of our smaller birds; a flock of Striated Pardalotes feeding high in the red gum foliage, several Red-browed Finches in the tall grasses below, and a couple of family groups of Superb Fairy-wrens. Back at the car park, several people saw two Gang-gang Cockatoos landing in a lone tree on the driving range. We then adjourned to the golf club bistro for an enjoyable lunch.
We recorded 23 species for the day. The full bird list can be viewed at
http://ebird.org/ebird/australia/view/checklist/S37677995
U3A Bird watching will resume on Tuesday 5 September 2017.
Kathy Costello
The golf course is a popular spot with a variety of parrots and cockatoos. We saw a large number of Eastern Rosellas feeding on the fairways. King Parrots were flying through or perched in the trees. Several flocks of noisy Musk Lorikeets were attracted to three flowering ironbark trees beside one fairway. I was surprised to see one Rainbow Lorikeet with them. This is the first one I have seen around Benalla, and seems to be a new record for the area. Rainbow Lorikeets have long been established in Shepparton and Melbourne, and there are good numbers in Seymour, so their spread to Benalla was probably inevitable. The most numerous bird was the Noisy Miner, which thrives in the habitat provided by tree-lined fairways.
In the bushland we found some of our smaller birds; a flock of Striated Pardalotes feeding high in the red gum foliage, several Red-browed Finches in the tall grasses below, and a couple of family groups of Superb Fairy-wrens. Back at the car park, several people saw two Gang-gang Cockatoos landing in a lone tree on the driving range. We then adjourned to the golf club bistro for an enjoyable lunch.
We recorded 23 species for the day. The full bird list can be viewed at
http://ebird.org/ebird/australia/view/checklist/S37677995
U3A Bird watching will resume on Tuesday 5 September 2017.
Kathy Costello
Photographs: Sandie Chrimes
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