Day 8 Chiltern Sun 24th October

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There was no Hume Freeway noise last night!! Rhonda said the 'truckies' were properly between loads and stopped. Then we head there was a nasty derailment too that stopped the freight trains running, it is the truck and car noise that keeps/kept me awake, trains is normal like at home during the summer with grain trains to Portland.
Second day of HAMBOCA Chiltern camp dawned a beautiful day with a non-dedicated birders start to the day. The Chilterns market day was on so Sue had arranged a 10am start for members who needed to visit the local produce stalls (and some junk ones too). I went for the lazy start to the day!
I jumped in with Maryann again and stayed in the middle of the convoy so there was no getting miss placed. Even when we were the first car to leave for the second location of the day we still made it! (I had been there with Sue & Neville two days before).
Our first stop was Dam No’ 1 where we were greeted by, amongst other things, a lovely pair of Diamond Firetails which everyone got to see and some to photograph. We took a long slow walk around to the new (noisy) bird hide, seeing many of the same birds from previous sites. However there was one exciting moment when a mystery sound was heard by a few people, it was like a cork rubbed on glass and a little like a Bee Eater too. So eyes where sharpened and scanning the tree tops and sky line but only one set saw the owners of the call!!!! A pair of Dollar Birds!!!! Everyone said my voice raised a couple of octaves’ when I sighted and recognised what they were. Big white circles on their under wing sure made it easy and obvious way they were named. One Dater was the stand out species when we arrived at the water’s edge.
Sitting in the shade at the car park to Dam No1 for lunch brought a couple of more good sightings of Diamond Firetails and a Black-chinned Honeyeater flew into the tree we were all under. We also held a relaxed meeting and planning for some of next year’s activities.
Sue then gathered us up for the next and finial group location Dam No’ 2; here we saw a Hobby, White-breasted Wood Swallows, Whistling Kite and Great Egret. Mostly we sat around chatting because it was getting close to siesta time. We said goodbye to some travellers here and then back at the park which left the ones going on to see family and some going to the PhotoBOCA weekend behind.
Between siesta and tea we had a bit of time to ourselves, I went into town to pick up NSW map from the info centre. The night before I had gone into reception to say I would not need to stay Monday night because I had decided to travel onto Echuca and stay there and check out the new water level in the Murray before going to Gunbower. However when I rang the park in Barmah they said they were booked out for the Melbourne Cup weekend, so I went back up to reception and rebook and paid for Monday night I also asked Anne for any suggests about where to stay between here and Gunbower. She suggested Deniliquin, as many birder come from there to Chiltern. I got back to my cabin did some ‘surfing’ and found a nice park in Deny’. Later in the day I asked around the members about the birding potential at Deniliquin, Sue said Superb Parrot and I was happy. All this was all organise before the days outing and making lunch while eating breakfast.
We all had tea together up at the BBQ area and talked and showed pics of our birds and travels. Charlotte’s Lake Ayre photos where fantastic and made me wish I had been able to do a fight over the desert and lake!

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Photos

Feeding the ducks
It took them 10min to arrive!

Zoom!
going to the market

Gentelman all
Knee's up

Comments

[anonymous]

Dollar Bird! What a beauty!!!!!!!!!!!!