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Message: <blockquote data-quote="birdonawire" data-source="post: 1743248" data-attributes="member: 82457">well, its just as you described azza, too the letter! lol,Altona reserve is pretty decent spot no question, see lifers from carpark before you start kind of place, i guess it makes sense with all those water/irrigation sources along with the big industrial strength vineyard/winery industry, and network of bush corridors around awesome,  we were there from around 5:30 pm till 8:00 pm, got 6 firm lifers! straight away had the Peaceful Dove first up, within seconds, (of which we heard of lot of later on), not long after that a family group of White-browed Babbler's, which was an eye/ear opener to say the least, interesting bird.. it was still too early and hot for the stars of the show to make their appearance at this stage, and were absent from the field area and close in till about closer to 7 pm i think, and resumed the amazing show similar to what you described, i thought them to be a speccy little bird not just in looks, but their acrobatic stunt flying catching the bugs, (of which are strangely numerous, besides the bees on the flowering gums, even when it was hot there was a lot of large bugs about, cant say i have seen that before anywhere else?) mrs described flying action like they are 'swimming' i agree ..flying fish swallows? they must of been 12+ of them maybe maybe even up to 16+ i guess hard to saywhile moving up to of hill field overlooking the dead trees in the middle, that they based out of a lot, we starting noticing other birds on the scene, first up another lifer in Hooded Robin, who was chcking out some RBE's on the same branch in binocs view. and flew past us, more lifers in small flock of Yellow-rumped Thornbill's on ground feeding, just like firetails, and incredibly then a few Diamond Firetail's, of which got some great looks at , on way out noticed cuckoo in small tree halfway down, i thought it was too small for Fantail Cuckoo, but that's what it was, of which is only the second occasion i have observed them, as i was calling it, and was attracted by random calling i was doing in first place,, two whistlers turned up, they were dull like female GW, but had a strange song i didnt recognise, anyway didnt get great looks at them, but they were definitely whistlers of some sort to come so quickly to check out a call, but they chased the cuckoo away for a few minutes  .. whew! thought we would never get out of there, keep seeing lifers lmaowow got any other spots like that you want to tell us about mate? <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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