The importance of the Swift parrot and Regent honeyeater visiting Toowoomba
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- I did this video to explain the importance of the Swift parrot and Regent honeyeater visiting Toowoomba at the moment - feel free to share this with anyone who you think needs to understand it
Fantastic work you’re doing here, getting the message out there on the problems we have.
Thanks for that
Wonderful video
Thanks
Brilliant video. Your take on humans depending upon the rest of our ecosphere is 100% correct.
Sadly, those people making those particular comments are online trolls. You can't educate them.
Thanks. Yes it's a hard question on how to reach people like that. Common sense certainly doesn't. I think they find it too confrontational and that they have too much to lose
@@birdbites I see a lot of uncaring selfish people in society now. Around 18 months ago, I was heading off to work. Spotted a stunned Rainbow Lorikeet on my lane. Slowed, pulled to the side, put emergencies on and got out of the car. I see One of these idiots in their big Yankee style utes speeding along, oblivious, flag it to slow down, nah. Just ignored me and kept going. I am 100% certain that they saw the lori on the road. He thankfully narrowly missed it. The driver behind him slowed and stopped. I was able to get out onto the road and pick the Rainbow Lorikeet up and get it into my car. I drove down to the next street and turned into it and parked in a driveway. The suddenly stunned Lori came to and was trying to get out of my car, so I opened the passenger and door and et voila! It flew off at speed LOL. I tell this story because near 100% of drivers wouldn't have stopped and if I hadn't stopped, it'd certainly been killed. Needlessly. You just can't argue with stupid and the majority of the human species is now stupid imho.
Are the birds still in Toowoomba? I was thinking about coming sometime this week, or should I leave earlier?
Still there, but with the wet weather and the fact it's getting later in the season I don't know how long they'll stay
@@birdbites Thanks mate! Will head up there soon! Are there any other hotspots up there that I could visit in a day where I could get some other rarer species, or just some that we don't get on the Sunshine Coast?
7 swift parrots see by myself last Sunday 6/7. Confirmed by 2 other birders at the time, although eBird is basically saying I'm lying. They were at Picnic point, at the bottom of Tobruk drive. They are difficult to spot when high in the Eucalypts. They don't tend to chatter like lories do when feeding. Regent Honeyeater at Highfield falls - 2 spotted on 30/6, but only a singular bird on 6/7. Easier to spot than the Swift parrots, although they are high up in the trees too.
I'm so happy that I got to see both species.
@@WildCaught73 Devon park boundary road for ground cuckoo shrikes, red backed kingfisher (lifer for me) and white winged fairywrens (haven't spotted any adult males in full plumage on either visit on 30/6 and 6/7). Spotted a pair of Nankeen Kestrels. Spotted Red backed Kingfisher. Thought I'd spotted the ground cuckoo shrikes, but sadly, they are normal black faced species. Did spot several Golden headed Cisticolas on 30/6 visit, but not 6/7 visit. Arthur shooter memorial park had quite a fair few scaley breasted lorikeets that weren't too afraid of humans (got a few nice shots of a pair). I didn't follow the river down as I didn't have time. Cory st park has lots of red rumped parrots feeding on the grasses amongst Galahs. There's lot of dogs in this park, so kind of hard to get close to them as dogs spook them a fair bit. There was also a whistling kite there trying to pick them off on 30/6 (I didn't go back on 6/7).
bird hyphen spot dot com has a good page on these 3 locations. replace hyphen with an actual hyphen (google won't let me post URLs, deletes posts). Google "birding around oakey boundary rd" and it's like the 3rd link.
There is a powerful owl male that roosts at highfield falls near the track, just past the turn off for the waterfalls, but please be careful. Large numbers have been congregating to spot/photography him and he wasn't there on 6/7. Some are reporting that he has a nesting female near his regular roost and that there's a high risk of abandonment of the nest, so probably best to leave them alone imho.
Highfield falls - other than the regent honeyeater, I spotted male & female king parrots, a pair of pale headed rosellas, female regent bowerbird, rainbow bee eaters, several eastern yellow robins and a pair of little lorikeets (lifer for me) on 30/6. Spotted a male mistletoe bird on 6/7 visit. Usual culprits (noisy miners, magpies, torresian crows) easily spotted of course. I didn't extensively explore this location as I'm not in the best fitness shape and carrying around a R3 and 500f4 prime (mark 1, so even heavier) is rather tiring). ymmv.
There are several nesting rainbow lorikeets at picnic point (tobruk drive), more scaley breasted lorikeets too, laughing kookaburras etc.
Definitely well worth visiting.
For Brisbane metro, archerfield wetlands, sandy camp wetlands, oxley creek common are all well worthwhile visiting. scarlet honeyeaters (both male & female) have been feeding up on Tooheys ridge at Tooheys forest (take the Cheval st location and park there and follow the climb up the ridge - it's only ~300m). Halfway up there's a fork, take the left fork and finish going up - you'll end up at a T intersection on Tooheys ridge. There are flowering Black boys ~100m on either side of this T intersection. Best to get up around 10am. I found that the birds have been reliably visiting around 10.30am and come and go in waves through to around 1.30pm. Also visiting are yellow faced honeyeaters. Lots of striated pardalotes too, but they are usually high up in the tree. Noisy friarbirds also feed on the black boy flowers, and you can get some great shots at eye level, but you do need a long focal length (I shoot at 700mm on my full frame R3 and they are still tiny). A R7 with a Sigma 150-600 and 1.4x TC will get some great shots. I've seen the scarlets at 4 locations over the past month:
tooheys forest
oxley creek common
hardings paddock
sgt dan stiller park
hardings paddock out west, ~15 min drive south of Yamanto is well worth a visit too. There is several Rose robins out there, although being lucky enough to come across them is a challenge (6 visits in the past 6 weeks, only spotted once). Look for them in the bush tucker track.
I hope this helps!
@@davepastern I went out there and saw five swift parrots and a regent honeyeater. I'm also so glad!!!