THE AVONDALE HEIGHTS AREA

Though I have blogged about several of the places in the area where I live where I birdwatch, I have not given a whole list of birds and birding places. This post is trying to make up for that.

New Holland honeyeaters, a species of bird very common in the suburb

Around my house, a few birds can be seen. Most of these are described in earlier posts. Near my suburb are the parklands of the Maribrynong area, where there are several good birding spots. Afton Street Conservation Preserve is one of these, and again, there are many previous posts about this place. In the river itself, waterbirds include dusky moorhens, Pacific black ducks, grey teals, chestnut teals, little pied cormorants, hoary-headed grebes, mallards, Australasian grebes, white-faced herons and great cormorants, though a few of these are not usually sighted. Queens Park is a good place to see a lot of these waterbirds, and the other waterbirds not usually seen there can be spotted at Afton Street or in the river.  Common in most of the riverside parklands are birds like willie wagtails, red wattlebirds, Pacific black ducks, red-rumped parrots, rainbow lorikeets, Australian magpies, magpie-larks, little wattlebirds, little pied cormorants, dusky moorhens, white-plumed honeyeaters, superb fairy-wrens, New Holland honeyeaters and little ravens. In Afton Street Conservation Preserve, some other birds can also be spotted as well. Another good spot for forest birds, and a few waterbirds, is Brimbank Park. Some of the birds from these places include yellow-rumped thornbills, brown thornbills, grey fantails, buff-rumped thornbills, long-billed corellas, spotted paradalotes, grey currawongs (vagrant), red-browed finches, flame robins,crimson rosellas, eastern rosellas, Clamorous reed-warblers (I'm not completely sure whether or not they are in the area, but I think there could be some at Afton), silvereyes and Horsefield's bronze-cuckoos.

A dark phase Brown Falcon, one of the commoner raptors of the area

Raptors are not that common in the area, but I have spotted a few. Black-shouldered kites are fairly common in Afton Street, and brown falcons are also found here. Wedge-tailed eagles, little eagles, black kites, whistling kites and Australian hobbies also occur at Afton Street, but are far more uncommon. In the parklands, I have also seen swamp harriers and brown goshawks, but those two species are not common and are rather rare in the area.
One 'bald' myna also lives in my suburb, a myna with a mutation that has caused the feathers to fall off or not grow on its head. This, again, is described in previous posts.

Two introduced House Sparrows with a native Rainbow Lorikeet

A female Flame Robin, a possible vagrant to Afton Street (though they could be residents in the area)

Several introduced birds can also be found in the area. Song thrushes, blackbirds, common starlings, common mynas, rock pigeons, spotted doves, house sparrows and Eurasian tree sparrows are all recorded from the area. Most of the above birds can be found in my garden. The tree sparrows used to be found along a walking track that heads toward the river, but are now sparsely distributed throughout the suburb after some construction work was done on the area near that path. Sometimes they come to my bird feeder and eat with the house sparrows.
Along the river there are several good spots for birding, mostly providing the birds listed for most of the parklands, along with a few of the Brimbank or Afton birds.
Those are the birds of my suburb.