Favourite Birding Spot # 6 Cleland Wildlife Park
14 Comments »16th September, 2006; Category: Aviaries, Birds, Bush birds, Favourite Birding Spots, Garden birds, Good Birding Sites
Entrance to Cleland Wildlife Park, South Australia
I love travelling so I can go birding in a new area. Last week I visited Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. This park is run by the National Parks and Wildlife of South Australia. It is a small part of the Cleland Conservation Park.
It has been quite a while since my last visit. In another life I had taken many groups of primary school children to this wonderful park. On quite a few of these occasions the visit was a part of a school camp at the nearby Woodhouse Scout Camp.
Southern Brown Bandicoot, Cleland Wildlife Park
The beauty of this wildlife park is that one gets a very close up look at many of the birds and animals native to Australia. These include a range of different species, including kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, echidna, bandicoots, potoroos and bettongs. In one spot you can have your photo taken with a koala. A feature of my recent visit was the absolutely gorgeous four dingo pups. They were about four weeks old.
Dingo pup, Cleland Wildlife Park
The main attraction of Cleland for me is the birdlife. The area is well wooded and so there are many native birds resident in and around the park. There are two walk through aviaries which enable one to get up close to many bird species. This is just great for photography. There is also a large wetlands area for all the water birds.
Over coming weeks I will feature some of the photos I took of the birds there. If you are impatient you might want to visit my photo gallery (sorry this gallery has been removed). I took over 200 photos that day, so you will have plenty to look at!
Happy Birding.
Trevor
This article was updated in August 2015.
Ravens v Choughs
White Winged Chough
In my last post I wrote about the Little Ravens feeding their recently fledged young in our garden. A few hours later I heard a great commotion coming from the mallee scrub near our house. A family of White Winged Choughs was on their regular patrol through our property. The ravens objected to the noisy neighbours coming to visit. Perhaps the ravens didn’t like anyone getting too close to their young.
Protection of young cuts both ways it seems. On investigating the noise I discovered that the Choughs were protecting a number of newly fledged young as well. These were quite small and only just able to fly.
White Winged Choughs
No wonder there was conflict. No wonder they were upset with each other. And it all goes to show that spring is really here in South Australia with the frenzy of breeding all around.
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Grey Butcherbird
2 Comments »14th September, 2006; Category: Garden birds
Grey Butcherbird
The Grey Butcherbird is a widespread species found throughout many parts of Australia. It has the general shape similar to a magpie but the colouring is quite different. I love hearing the rich, deep melodic call of this species.
We often hear the calls of the butcherbird in the distance when we are out in the garden. It doesn’t actually come into our garden all that often. Yesterday was an exception. I had the camera handy and was able to get the photo above before it flew off. It certainly looks as if it is a juvenile Grey Butcherbird, as it hasn’t yet developed the darker black feathers of the adult.
The photo below is of an adult. This was taken while camping at Gluepot Bird Reserve about twelve months ago.
Grey Butcherbird
Red Wattlebirds breeding
Spring must be here.
Birds are nesting or have young everywhere.
Yesterday I wrote about the resident New Holland Honeyeaters nesting in our garden quite close to our house. Today it is the turn of another species of honeyeater, the Red Wattlebird. Over the last week or so I have been watching their nest near the driveway. This one was some 4 metres up in a mallee tree; the New Holland Honeyeater’s nest was less than a metre above the ground.
Newly fledged Red Wattlebird
The baby wattlebirds have been chirping from the nest for some days. Today they ventured out of the nest for the first time. They are not yet confident flyers but they make up for this with their incessant chirping. This is to attract the parents to the spot to which they have awkwardly fluttered.
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Red Wattlebird
New Holland Honeyeater nest
Nest of a New Holland Honeyeater
Birds can be very sneaky at times.
We were having breakfast in our sunroom this morning. As we ate, my wife observed a New Holland Honeyeater flying to what appeared to be a nest in a nearby bush in our garden (a Meleleuca lanceolata). A closer inspection of the bush revealed a dainty nest with two eggs.
Right under our noses they had built this nest and laid the eggs without us noticing.
Amazing.
This gives us a good opportunity to observe the progress of the nest and the young as they hatch. The trick will be to keep away and not inspect the nest too often. I do not to disturb them, seeing it is so close to the house.
New Holland Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater