Egress for some, egrets to come
AS summer draws to a close, many of the season migrants will be preparing for their journey to their winter place.
Last week at the You Yangs, rainbow bee-eaters were busy chasing dragonflies and airborne beetles, determined to make sure they were wellenough fed to undertake their flight to Queensland and perhaps beyond.
Woodswallows, too, are busy in their pursuit of the flying insects that make up the main part of their diet.
The reed-warblers that live along the Barwon River have fallen silent.
There is no need now for their courtship songs, for the nesting season ended a month or more ago.
We can never be sure when the reed-warblers leave us, for, once silent, they are unobtrusive and unless we actively search their reed-bed habitat for them, they are rarely seen.
Orioles, kingfishers, cuckoos, flycatchers ... the list of what we call infra-migrants is long.
These birds move north as winter sets in, but they usually don’t leave Australia.
These are different from the international migrants, the many species of shorebirds that nest in the far north of the Northern Hemisphere in the middle months of the year.
By contrast with the inframigrants, they are spectacular navigators that fly enormous distances non-stop to get to their nesting grounds.
Our infra-migrant group cover quite long distances, of course, but they are not equipped for marathon flights.
One of the few birds that does something of a reverse migration is the cattle egret.
Its nesting areas are in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, and as summer turns to autumn the cattle egrets come south for winter.
We should be seeing the first arrive soon, if they have not yet reached our area, and over the next few months their numbers will increase until there are some thousands spread across our farmlands.
They are usually found where there are farm animals, particularly cattle, and you will see them walking beside the animals, snapping up any frogs or insects that are disturbed by the grazing beasts.
There is nothing static about our birdlife, and there is a continual movement as the seasons come and go.
There is never a time in the year when things stop happening.
This is, of course, one of the reasons I never get tired of watching birds. Wildlife information and questions can be sent to ppescott@optusnet.com.au