BIRDING THE BOX-IRONBARK

For this Sunday's birding trip my father and I decided to go on a walk in the Rise and Shine Bushland Reserve, organised by a friend of his, Clauda. The walk was in Castlemaine, and would travel through the fairly dry box-ironbark forests common to that region. I thought I might be able to get a few new birds on the trip and I was not disappointed.
First off we stopped at Clauda's father's house to have some drinks. Massive flocks of sulphur-crested cockatoos and feral pigeons were flying around, as well as house sparrows in the garden. After a quick tea we all went off to the walk, lead by Geoff Park.
We started off with a quick talk about the forest. Almost immediately around the carpark I spotted yellow-tufted honeyeaters, lifer fuscous honeyeaters and lifer rufous whistlers.  2 lifers in the first five minutes! Not a bad start. As we walked on the calls of crimson rosellas could be heard. Darting through the bush were more honeyeaters, as well as white-browed babblers, a black-faced cuckoo shrike and a lifer striated pardalote. An unidentified raptor flew over, a possible goshawk or sparrow hawk. As we came to a more open stretch of forest, along the edge of the forest next to a grassland, Geoff explained about the different species of tree in this area and how storm damage shaped the forest. Several magpie-larks and musk lorikeets were also flying around the grassland.

The fuscous honeyeater, one of the commoner honeyeaters of the Box-Ironbark

A young male rufous whistler, with the characteristic orange-brown underparts visible

A pretty bad photo of a striated pardalote

We stopped for morning tea in a rather productive clearing. As soon as we arrived a lifer female hooded robin was seen, sadly it didn't hang around and flew off too quickly for me to get photos. Fuscous honeyeaters and white-plumed honeyeaters were flying around, feeding on nectar from one tree. A large dead tree was holding 4 dusky woodswallows, including some younger birds. We continued on along the circuit, spotting a scarlet robin and hearing some weebills. Some people spotted some diamond firetails but by the time I got there they had flown away. We stopped for lunch and Clauda offered to take us to her cottage in the bush. The cottage was beautiful, and several lifer yellow-faced honeyeaters were flying around the front. Finally, we returned back to her father's house for lunch, before heading back to Melbourne.
BIRD LIST: (birds in bold are lifers)
1. Feral Pigeon
2. Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
3. Musk Lorikeet
4. Crimson Rosella
5. White-Plumed Honeyeater
6. Yellow-Faced Honeyeater
7. Fuscous Honeyeater
8. Yellow-Tufted Honeyeater
9. Dusky Woodswallow
10. Hooded Robin
11. Scarlet Robin
12. Weebill
13. Magpie-Lark
14. Australian Magpie
15. Black-Faced Cuckoo-Shrike
16. Striated Pardalote
17. Rufous Whistler
18. House Sparrow
19. Little Raven

EDIT: Later going over my photos I spotted this one bird I can't identify. Does anyone know what this is? Sorry for the out of focus picture, but by the time I tried to get another pic the bird had flown off. At first I thought male hooded robin, but the belly is jet black. There is probably some obvious mistake I am making. Any ideas? (the image is cropped to show the bird).