“Yarrambimbi” outing 17 July 2016

The day was beautiful and sunny and 11 members turned up for the outing to Andrew's place. We drove to the southern end of the property to the cadet shelter of old as Andrew was on his way back from Wagga and didn't meet us until later in the morning.

We began the walk past the old quarry which was full to the brim after the winter rains of the past month. Not only that all of the dams were full to overflowing and water was seeping down the hillside so everything had been thoroughly saturated.

We walked up the hill track towards Andrew's lookout and on the way found several outcrops of Dwarf Greenhoods beside the track. We didn't encounter too many birds until almost at the top where we found Red-capped and Eastern Yellow Robins, Jacky Winter and Grey Shrike-Thrush as well as several species of thornbills.

At the top we surveyed Andrew's recent 'summer house' construction and appreciated the view across the area marvelling at the lushness of the area after the long dry summer. The view towards Leeton showed the extent of the water in Fivebough Wetlands after the rains.

The group then headed down the track towards Andrew's house and met up with him part of the way. We stayed around the house for a while admiring the garden and birds before half of us went back to the vehicles via the lower road and the others went with Andrew in search of a Tawny Frogmouth that he had located a few days before – unfortunately, it wasn't where he had seen it so the group hiked back over the hill to meet the others.

After a belated brunch we made a half-hearted attempt at looking further up the hill for birds but in the end most of us returned to the cars and by 3pm we called it a day.

Thanks to Andrew for hosting us on his property and, in all, we recorded over 40 bird species (see list below).

Max O'Sullivan