Rice Rerserve and Dans Reserve bird walk – 11 May 2025

It was a beautiful autumn day for bird watching – sunny and almost no wind. There was a good turn-up, including Troy Zanker and Karyn Brown from the Geelong Field Naturalists Club (GFNC). Troy and Karyn are very experienced bird watchers and regularly visit Rice Reserve. We followed their normal route around the reserve.

An early highlight were three Flame Robins in the paddock across from the reserve, including the male bird shown in the photo below (photographer: Karyn Brown).

Flame Robin

Rice Reserve is a good place to see Striated Pardalotes since they like to nest in holes in the power poles along the side of the reserve. Sure enough the pardalotes were present atop the poles – see photo below (photographer: Karyn Brown).

Striated Pardalote

Other highlights as follows:

• Brown Falcon – harried by a couple magpies and making its distinctive chicken-like noise
• Little Eagle – excellent sighting not too far overhead, accompanied by the usual discussion about the features identifying the bird as a Little Eagle, rather than a Whistling Kite
• Spotless Crake – heard its unusual call which sounds like a motorboat engine, but couldn’t see the bird
• Plenty of parrot and honeyeater species
• Rice Reserve is a good spot to see Crested Shrike-tits but we couldn’t find one on this visit

The water level in the Thompson Creek is very low at the moment, and a couple of spots that would normally have water birds had no water and hence no birds.

We had morning tea at Rice Reserve. Some people left after morning tea, and the remainder went to Dans Reserve which is also on the Thompson Creek, and about 2 km east of Rice Reserve. This is a small reserve but again has both water birds and bush birds. Highlights included male Golden Whistler, Golden-headed Cisticola, Brown Falcon, Whistling Kite and White-fronted Chat.

Full bird lists for Rice Reserve and Dans Reserve are included below, showing what a productive morning it was! Special thanks to Troy and Karyn for their involvement, and helping the group with their bird call skills.

James Orton

Rice Reserve – Bird List

The table below shows the names and count of birds seen on the walk at Rice Reserve. Note this list has been recorded in eBird, and shared with the Angair eBird account.

Dans Reserve – Bird List

The table below shows the names and count of birds seen on the walk at Dans Reserve. Note this list has also been recorded in eBird.