The Rainbowbird Volume 2 Number 94 May 2018 Editor: Allan Taylor –
[email protected] Header Photo: Lindsay Cupper Contents of this Issue: 1. Fork-tailed Swifts 2. Club Outing – Merbein Common 3. Notes on Blandowski 4. Notes on our Pre-history 5. Nesting Habits – Nankeen Night-herons 6. Our Topography 7. Western Gerygones 8. Species Sub-species 9. Grey Fantails 10 Excerpts from “The Emu” 11. Outing to Ron Gol/Garston 12. Duck Shooting at Merbein Common 13. Article in “Mildura Living” Fork-tailed Swifts e have had a series of storm-fronts or upper-level troughs passing through our district in late-January, early-February. On 22nd of January several of Mildura BirdLife’s members W saw Fork-tailed Swifts flying over parts of Sunraysia during the day. This day was quite humid with cloud covering, coinciding with a weather front passing through. This combination seems to attract the birds to visit our area occasionally – seemingly, perhaps, around once per year. One such visit was around 1961 when John Hobbs, the late ornithologist from our area, recorded seeing some 90,000 around the Dareton/Gol Gol area. This sighting was mentioned to me by Professor Michael Tharburton who is conducting an extensive study into the species but I couldn’t find any other reference to the sighting in the old editions of the “Emu” or elsewhere. This swift species is highly nomadic and appears to use air currents to assist it in its perpetual search for its food-source - flying insects. Bird enthusiasts record its appearance at, seemingly, random locations and times all around Australia.