Staff at Scottsdale Reserve hosted the annual K2C (Kosciuszko to Coast) spring bird surveys on 9 October, with a few sites surveyed later due to issues with access. This year surveys were not conducted on Scottsdale, but instead on other properties along the Murumbidgee River valley.
A total of 82 species were recorded, slightly lower than the usual spring count, mostly due to fewer waterbird species. In this particularly cool and wet season it seems the waterbirds have dispersed far and wide from their usual haunts.
Highlights included a new species for the survey list; a pair of Pied Butcherbirds at Stonehouse, south of Williamsdale.
According to the landholders they'd been seen there fairly regularly in the last year. Other highlights were a Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, and six Hooded Robins (two family groups) at one site.
The return migration of Yellow-faced and White-naped Honeyeaters has been a feature of the past month in the region, and despite the windy and overcast conditions on the day small groups of both species were recorded moving westwards through several sites.
Some of the threatened species such as Diamond Firetail and Scarlet Robin are seemingly more scarce in the spring than the autumn and we had only a couple of sightings of these species.
Other threatened species’ sightings included Brown Treecreeper (5 properties, one breeding record), Speckled Warbler (4 properties), Flame Robin (3), Varied Sittella (1), Gang-Gang Cockatoo (1) and the recently listed Dusky Woodswallow (5).
We thank the landholders for their ongoing interest and cooperation, and Bush Heritage Australia for supporting the surveys with lunch for the Canberra Ornithologists Group of volunteers.
The next surveys will be held 9 April 2017.
Pied Butcherbird. 
Yellow-tufted Honeyeater.