In my case I’m heading north in search of Amytornis merrotsyi … fingers crossed.

I was in a stand of Yellow Gum and White Box just south of Bell’s Lane Track and enjoying the usual suspects – Brown Treecreeper, Common Bronzewing, Yellow-tufted Honeyeater etc, when I heard the familiar calls of not one, but three Fan-tailed Cuckoos. They were all high up just below the canopy and unttering a variety of calls. This species was very scarce last spring and I suspect these birds may be ones that travelled further south on migration and have lobbed back into the box-ironbark forest for winter. This may be an emerging climate change related pattern*.

All the resident lorikeets (Little, Purple-crowned, Musk) were about in small numbers – but then the real highlight – a small flock of a dozen or so Swift Parrots. They were feeding in Yellow Gum (White Box isn’t flowering yet), their presence revealed by the soft bubbling calls characteristic of the sepcies. I’ve seen a few ‘swifties’ so far this season but until now just two and threes. 

* Near Demo Track I recently (May 20th) picked up, with an acoustic recorder, a Fan-tailed Cuckoo. The bird was calling in the early hours of the morning.

Not surprising that few birds were about, apart from one mixed species flock – Grey Fantail, Striated Thornbill, Brown Thornbill, Buff-rumped Thornbill, White-throated Treecreeper, Spotted Pardalote and a female Golden Whistler.

The June rain is welcome.

So, some reflections on the autumn just gone.

1. The weather has been warm, calm with an abundance of clear days. Rainfall in Newstead (~ 166 mm) has been well above the autumn average (121 mm) … but this followed a very dry and brutally hot summer.
2. The abundance and diversity of small woodland birds remains a concern. Some species, such as those pictured below, can be found in good numbers while others (e.g. the Petroica robins, Hooded Robin, Painted Button-quail) continue to be scarce or absent in places where I expect to see them at this time of year. The spot where I photographed this selection is usually guaranteed Speckled Warbler country but I dipped out on this occasion.
3. There continue to be some surprises – I picked up a calling Fan-tailed Cuckoo at this site and with the help of an acoustic recorder have detected Powerful Owls at a couple of new (to me) local spots.

I’d be interested in any reader reflections on the their experiences this autumn.

Take the case of these lorikeets that I spent time watching a few days ago. Pictured below are both Musk Lorikeets and Purple-crowned Lorikeets from a gathering of perhaps 50 birds feeding on Yellow Gum along Green Gully Creek (north of Sandon). First a pair of Musk Lorikeets arrived at a hollow – spending the next ten minutes carefully inspecting both inside and out – a potential spring nest site. After the ‘muskies’ departed a pair of the smaller Purple-crowned Lorikeets descended to undertake their own inspection. In the trees nearby Little Lorikeets were also seen checking out hollows. So while it is unlikely that any of these birds will nest until September these images show behaviours that are certainly related to breeding. 

This site is notable – a riparian strip with veteran Yellow Gums and River Red Gums – an abundance of food from the flowering Yellow Gums and a terrifc assortment of hollows of varying shapes and sizes. Places like this are rare across the box-ironbark country and should be treasured.

I spotted the adults first, perhaps a kilometre away across the lake, as they flew and joined each other in a large Yellow Gum on the eastern shoreline.

It was only then that I noticed the silhouette of a large raptor directly in front of me, perhaps 100 metres away, perched atop a dead River Red Gum standing in the old river channel. A juvenile White-bellied Sea-Eagle and almost certainly last season’s offspring of the pair I had just noted.

After a minute or so it flew to a low perch further out. Then it lifted, circled above the water before decending to snatch a large fish from the near the surface. 

Well played!

This native deciduous species is now widely planted in gardens and as a street tree, one of the reasons why Australian King Parrots are expanding their range through central Victoria. I’ve been receiving an increasing number of local reports of the species in the past few years.

Due to continued interest in the book FOBIF decided on a new edition this year when the first one sold out after 18 years. With a new cover and layout, the 2026 version fleshes out some of the stranger themes in the story and suggests that Sanger’s case was not an isolated one.

The Sanger story

The book is the story of a Fryerstown man, Charles Sanger (1880-1953).

‘He was a dashing but elusive character. Journalists called him the Fryers Bushranger, but he never held up anyone with a gun, and the gun he did have never worked anyway. 

He served time in jail, but was well liked by ordinary people. He was one of the last of the bush hermits, and his story is also the story of the changing bush, of a time lost in history, and of a quiet country community that looked after its own.’

Everyone is welcome at the launch and refreshments will be provided. Vagabond will be available for sale for $18. You will also be able to buy if at Stonemans Bookroom and the Castlemaine Vistors Information Centre. 

You can find out more about the book and how to purchase it online here

Bizarrely Phalaris aquatica was apparently named after the ancient Sicilian tyrant – known for his cruel and brutal reign around 550 BC! The grass was brought to this country in the late 1880s and is revered by many in the grazing industry for its drought hardiness and ability to thrive on poor soils. Cocksfoot on the other hand was apparently introduced by accident in the early days of colonial settlement and had become naturalised across NSW and Victoria by the 1850s.

I’m no fan of either grass, and yet like many ecological tales the story is complex.

Both of these grass species are ‘weedy’ and will invade native ecosystems, especially where they have been disturbed by cultivation and/or intensive grazing. Sadly some of our precious remaining native grassland remnants are now dominated by both – the narrow roadside strip pictured below, near Ullina, is a case in point.

One native bird species has however benefitted, to some extent, from this situation. The Golden-headed Cisticola is a widespread inhabitant of grassland ecosystems in eastern and northern Australia. It prefers tall, rank grasslands, often in moist locations. While not a rare bird in central Victoria its habitat has been much diminished in recent times with the expansion of cropping. One of its few remaining strongholds just happens to be in patches of these weedy roadside reserves.

So, on the whole the pros of these introduced grasses are far outweighed by the cons – at least in my view … but as you can see the story is not a simple one.

Golden-headed Cisticola habitat, Ullina roadside, 18th May 2026

Golden-headed Cisticola, 18th May 2026

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