I’ve been crazily busy, not sleeping well, feeling overwhelmed with all the work I need to do around the property and incredibly grateful for the few moments when I could pause and watch the flurry of activities at the birdbaths.
I photographed most of the species that turned up, including a family of Superb Fairywrens, New Holland Honeyeaters, Eastern Spinebills, Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, Red Wattlebirds, Little Wattlebird, Spotted Pardalote, Striated Pardalote, Brown Thornbill, Striated Thornbill, Silvereye, White-browed Scrubwren, Australian Magpie, Crimson Rosellas, Satin Bowerbirds, Eastern Yellow Robins, Grey Fantails and a pair of White-faced Herons that danced behind the birdbaths.
Following the magical time at the birdbath, a friend and I were outside when dusk had just merged into night when he saw a large bird fly into a eucalypt on my driveway. I hadn’t seen it at this stage but it was impossible to miss when it took flight, and with slow, silent wingbeats flew over the house into a tall swamp gum at the edge of the bushland. It was huge. It was magnificent. And we realised the likely reason why we’d found a decapitated rabbit beneath a massive mahogany gum, and the feathers of a Pied Currawong. I often have Powerful Owls visit my property and I photographed a pair of them just a few weeks ago at the reserve on the other side of the creek. Boral’s proposed expansion of Montrose Quarry (a proposal that has been rejected in the 90s and 00s) poses a significant risk to these magnificent birds. To learn more or help out in any way, please put STOP Montrose Quarry Expansion into your search engine.
The Powerful Owl above is one of the pair I photographed at Ken Leversha Reserve just before Christmas. The reserve is in Montrose, in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges and right beside the quarry land. About 34 hectares of bushland was destroyed in last year’s bushfire and now Boral are hoping to remove the 30 acres that survived and is currently a refuge for many species that escaped the flames. An Environmental Effects Statement will be required, for the second time, and we will need all the help we can get. Please message me if you have any ideas that might help us.
Thank you, happy birding, Kim
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