TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN BIRD GROUP

TRIP TO MT. BARNEY, August 16, 2008-08-17

Julie Lake led a group of nine birdos on a walk around the base of Mt Barney, starting from the Yellow Pinch car park.  Besides Julie the group consisted of Pat, John, Jill, David, Toby and two new birdos, Sandra and Sandy.  The morning was spent following a creekline through a variety of habitat from dry, stony ridges through open forest, cleared farmland, tussock grass flats and wet sclerophyll forest verging on rainforest along the creekline.  We stopped for smoko where the track crossed the creek and were delighted to find a pair of scarlet honeyeaters feeding their young in a tiny, purse-like nest suspended in a tall casuarina. Best moment of the day – and definitely best birds of the day – were a pair of glossy black cockatoos feeding in a Casuarina littoralis right on the edge of the track.  John and Pat were able to get good photos of these and also of spotted pardalotes going back and forth from their nest in the bank nearby. We then moved on to Lake Maroon for lunch where the blustering westerly had driven a large number of coots – at least 200 – into a sheltered bay near the picnic ground.  On the way home, Julie, Pat, Jill and John could not resist taking advantage of the last of the golden afternoon light to stop briefly at Fred Buckholtz Park for a look at the waterbirds.  This yielded four Australasian shovellers and two Latham’s snipe as well as the usual suspects – and the four dedicated but tired birdos were also rewarded with a glorious view of Tamborine Mountain glowing in the last rays of the sun while an almost full moon sat like a great white balloon just above the rim of the mountain.