An afternoon walk in Monarto Conservation Park
Monarto Conservation Park, South Australia
A few Saturdays ago I took my elderly mother-in-law on a short drive to Monarto Conservation Park. This park is about 20 minutes by car from our home in Murray Bridge, South Australia. The open range Monarto Zoo is just north of the park. This area is one of our favourite places to see native Australian plants.
The park preserves a large parcel of remnant mallee scrub between the lower reaches of the Murray River to the east, and the Mt Lofty Ranges to the west. The park has several mallee forms of eucalypt (eg Eucalyptus dumosa), native pines (Callitris preissii) and a variety of understory plants like correas, native orchids and a many others.
There is one established walking trail through the north eastern corner of the park starting and ending at the car park. This easy 45 minute walk takes the visitor through a range of plant habitats giving a good overview of the vegetation native to this area. When in flower in winter and spring this is a delightful walk with much to interest keen botanists.
In my experience of many visits to this park over the last three decades the birding can be fickle, largely dependent on what is flowering. Many of our honeyeater species, for example, are highly nomadic, moving quickly to areas of abundant food sources. On this recent visit the birding was rather poor.
The following list is a poor representation of the bird life present in this area:
- Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike: 5 seen, an unusually high number together
- Grey Currawong: several heard and one seen
- New Holland Honeyeater: often present in large numbers, perhaps only 4 or 5 seen this time.
- Red Wattlebird: one seen and several more heard calling
- Little Raven: heard calling from adjacent farmland
- Welcome Swallow: several seen swooping low over the treetops
- Adelaide Rosella: two disturbed from a tree as we walked along the path
- Australian Magpie: many seen in nearby farmland
- Weebill: a small flock heard nearby
As we were driving home via a different route we had fabulous views of two Wedge-tailed Eagles gliding low over the scrub in front of us. Nice end to a slow birding day.
This article was updated in July 2015.
Monarto Conservation Park, South Australia
Monarto Conservation Park, South Australia
Don’t mess with this currawong
No Comments »19th June, 2011; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Magpies and Currawongs, Murray Bridge
Grey Currawong in our garden
Five years ago we would occasionally hear Grey Currawongs in the distance. They rarely ventured down the hill and into our garden. Over the intervening period, however, their visits to our garden and mallee scrub have become more and more frequent to the point where we both see and hear them almost daily.
Along with this change has come a growing boldness. On several occasions they have visited the bird bath and have visited our back veranda. The bird featured in today’s photo had been wandering around on the veranda and flew off to a nearby fence when I came out to take a photo.
When I downloaded the photo I suddenly became aware of the evil looking yellow eye. Is it sending a message: “Don’t mess with me!”
Lower Murray Bird Club
Last night I was the guest speaker at the Lower Murray Bird Club here in Murray Bridge, South Australia. I had previously showed bird photos and spoke about Australian birds to this group about 3 years ago. Thinking that the membership is probably fairly static over a relatively short period of time, I made up a completely new talk with more recent photos to show. Just as well, because quite a few remembered my talk from back then.
I’m not into keeping birds in cages or aviaries, preferring to see my birds in the natural state. All the same, it was good to speak to a group of people who are all bird lovers, no matter where one sees them. Out of the many thousands of bird photos I could draw on for my talk, I tended to focus on those I had taken in walk-through aviaries, especially those at Adelaide Zoo.
I was made to feel most welcome and the audience was very attentive to what I had to say. I think they also enjoyed the photos I had chosen. I only wish I had a small portion of their bird knowledge, especially in the care of birds. I could be so much more helpful to my many readers if I had a broader knowledge in this field. I am trying; recently I’ve added a few more books to my growing library which will help.
People living in South Australia have many bird clubs that they could join. While many of them do not have their own websites, there is a combined site listing names, localities and contact details. The site is the United Bird Societies of South Australia (Click to access).
If you are a member of a group which might like to have me as a guest speaker, don’t hesitate to contact me through my contact form at the top of this page, or click here.
Red Browed Finch
More Wedge-tailed Eagles
Wedge-tailed Eagle
For over 26 years I’ve kept a month by month list of the birds seen in our garden, on our five acre block or flying overhead. In that time I’ve only recorded Wedge-tailed Eagles on a handful of occasions, despite the fact that they are relatively common and widespread in the region in which I live.
That seems to be changing recently. I saw one flying high over head a few weeks ago – read about it here. Then last Saturday we were entertaining some friends around our swimming pool when another one flew low over our neighbour’s garden. We had good views as it soared back and forth looking for a meal.
My latest sighting was yesterday morning. My wife was walking in our driveway and saw two Wedge-tailed Eagles soaring overhead. This is the first time I can recall seeing two at once over our place. They glided on the thermals for about five minutes before moving out of sight over the nearby hills. I had excellent views through my binoculars, but they were a little too far off for good photos. Instead, I’ve included a photo of a WT Eagle taken during the Free Flight Bird Show at Taronga Zoo in Sydney early last year.
Reflecting on these recent sightings I concluded that there may be a link between the appearance of these birds and rabbits. Until a year or so ago, we never saw any rabbits around here because of a virus. They have now become partially resistant to this virus and are breeding up in large numbers. We have several baby rabbits residing in our garden. This increased breeding has been aided by a much wetter than usual winter and spring last year, and there is still plenty of food available for them.
Now how do I encourage the eagles to visit regularly and partake of these meals on four legs?
Good birding.
Now we have two Eastern Rosellas
Eastern Rosella
Over the last six months or so we’ve had an Eastern Rosella in our garden. It comes and goes but we see it most weeks. It appears to be trying to form a loose alliance with our resident Mallee Ringneck parrots, but they have consistently rejected his friendship.
The Eastern Rosella is a common bird in the eastern parts of Australia, and in the south-east of South Australia. It has been introduced to the Adelaide region. The nearest one I have seen was about 60km to the west. At first I thought that the bird visiting our garden was an aviary escape. A few days ago, however, I saw two of them flying away from our pear tree.
This caused divided feelings on my part.
- If this species is establishing itself in our town and its environs then this is a significant extension of its range, and this both interests and excites me.
- On the other hand, I felt annoyed because they had obviously been feeding on the near ripe pears in our orchard.
Oh dear, it seems that we can’t have both beautiful birds in our garden AND fruit on our trees.
Eastern Rosella