Ben Cruachan – natural history

The Green Gully.

When my son and I were hiking in the bush eighteen months ago, we dropped into a beautiful gully that runs into the Freestone Creek. It has somewhat of a rainforest feel to it, and as we followed it down I was struck by the number of birds we saw, and promised myself I’d have another look in the spring. That didn’t happen, but Peter and I made it in there yesterday, six days before Christmas, while it was still green and moist from the regular showers we’ve been getting.
We kept our feet dry by fording the Freestone in the 4WD, and when we started walking up the track we soon realised we’d struck a birding bonanza. Down in the bed, White-browed Scrubwrens were in numbers, while in the trees, White-naped and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters were flitting everywhere. An Olive-backed Oriole was calling, we could hear Rufous and Golden Whistlers, and then an unusual call made us prick our ears and point the bins towards the treetops. Peter had a quick glimpse, and from his brief impression it looked as if we were on to flycatchers. It was ideal territory for them, but search as we might we didn’t get another look, so continued on up the track.
It’s a wide open gully that hasn’t been burnt for a long time, and the large trees and understory are beautiful and healthy, a delight to experience. The Blue Olive-berry was in full flower, with its dainty, fringed white to pale pink flowers lighting up the cool shadows, and the River Lomatia was filling the air with a spicy fragrance from its racemes of creamy white blossom.

Our bird list was increasing steadily as we wandered slowly along, until we arrived at the point where the track crossed over and headed up to the dry ridge country. We went a little further up the rocky bed, but the birds had become quieter so we started the return journey, and it wasn’t long before we looked across the gully to see the quivering tail of a flycatcher. The Leaden, and Satin, which migrate south to our area, both have this habit, and it makes them stand out immediately from other similar sized birds. We were expecting Leaden, but this female had a blackish head, a very dark back, and a rich rufous throat, which had us scratching our heads. We propped for fifteen minutes hoping for a look at the male, which would have given us a positive identification, it didn’t appear, so we left the female catching insects and continued on down the track to the vehicle. As we walked we saw numerous nests of Red-browed Finches in prickly shrubs, and had a great view of a family of White-naped Honeyeaters, with the young putting on a classical begging display. The beauty of this walking track is that it follows a contour well above the creek bed, which meant that we were able to look comfortably into the upper branches and foliage of many of the trees. Back at the vehicle we opened the back doors to get refreshments, and then by chance, glanced up the slope to see two more flycatchers! There was no problem with these, the duller colour and paler rufous throat of one was typical female Leaden, and although we missed a clear look at the male, the call we had heard earlier confirmed the identification of Leaden Flycatcher. I had been hoping to see Rose Robin and Rufous Fantail in this gully, they didn’t appear, but the flycatchers were a more than adequate consolation prize. Back at the Freestone we added two more species to our list, which finished up at twenty eight, a good total for one gully, but it was the sheer number of birds in there that made it such a memorable outing. We had one more good sighting for the day, beside the track on the way out we found some Pink Hyacinth Orchids in flower, a leafless saprophyte, they are a delightful feature of the bush in summer.

Back home that night we both did a bit of checking, and became convinced that the first female we saw was a Satin, we’ll go in again in a fortnight hoping to see the male, anyway, that’s our excuse for another visit!