Scheyville NP (29th October '06)

Scheyville paddock

After spending the weekend at work and Dave e-mailing me to ask why I haven't seen a weebill yet, I managed to briefly pop out to Scheyville NP on Sunday evening. Its right on the northwest edge of the city and is an example of dry woodland (dominated by grey box, narrow-leaf ironbark and redgums apparently) which remains pretty much the only refuge in the region for birds restricted to dry shale areas. The weebill loves a bit of that! Despite being a reserve since the early seventies, it was only made a fully fledged national park in the last couple of years. I can't believe I've not been out there before now. Crazy really. Malcolm joined me to help navigate the way avoiding the cheeky toll roads. We left home pretty late and arrived at the park with only an hour or so of daylight left. This didn't matter one bit as it took only about 25 minutes to tick off three new species.

Mal attempts to bag a couple more before the light goes completely

The very first bird I clapped eyes on was one of several white-browed woodswallows #253 which were everywhere. They don't even come to Sydney many years but do come here in the summer in bad drought years to breed. The next bird to cross my path was the fuscous honeyeater #254. A rather drab little chap but the predominant honeyeater in this dry forest. We picked up a few noisy friarbirds, dusky woodswallows and a colony of tinkling bell miners and a couple of red-browed firetails before a small group of crested shrike-tits #255 moved through the canopy. Striking! We saw a sacred kingfisher down by the creek and the common eastern yellow robins and fantails and then it went dark!

I'll be back this weekend for a full day and the weebill shall be mine.
Oh yes, it shall be mine.