Windy but we still saw (mainly heard) 38 bird species as spring breeding activity picked up.

Ornithologist lecturer from Federation University, Grant Palmer, led five of us, with three new participants, two of them, Sue and Glen, being new Lal Lal residents who wanted to learn what was in their patch. Jodie from Mollongghip also joined us for the first time.

Despite the wind, a rufous whistler gave a long and strong display. Gary had, once again, cleared a path through the gorse on the west bank.

Fantails out in force in the north block, which is really starting to open out to become more like a natural forest. Surprisingly, the grey everlasting bushes there seemed to have escaped the hammering of their cousins in ImLal South by roos. 

A fan tailed cuckoo topped a bare stag branch in the north. No noisy miners were sighted. The surviving sequoias are at last undergoing a growth spurt.
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​Grant has provided a fuller report, which you can read in the Monitoring menu – visit Bird surveys at ImLal

A little windy but we still averaged over 30 species – 31 to be exact. Highlights were a sacred kingfisher and a breeding pair of pallid cuckoos. No noisy miners, which must constitute another highlight.

Made an early start of 8am. Very wet underfoot after weeks of incessant rain. Only three of us – Grant Palmer from Federation University, Louise Humble from BirdLife Ballarat and myself from BRT. 

Amazing plant growth – particularly noticeable on the banksias as well as the callitris and hakea on top of the hill. Three of the sequoia survive in ImLal North and two of them look like they may outstrip the roo attacks and grow to maturity. The weeds are of course not being left behind. Gorse and blackberries threaten to overwhelm in places.

Hopes were always high for a very productive spring bird survey at the ImLal Biorich site following the wet winter and pleasant survey conditions on the day, and the small group of birdos were not disappointed – a huge tally of 46 species was recorded along our usual 90-minute circuit! This is an impressive number of species for a single survey – for context, our previous visits in spring and winter 2019, yielded 28 and 22 species respectively.

Firsts for the spring bird survey included a Sacred Kingfisher and a Musk Duck on the dam. We watched a pair of swamp harriers  hunting without harm among the Lal Lal Wind Farm turbines. For a full report of the spring bird survey by leader Grant Palmer, visit the menu for the Bird Survey.