Took sometime this morning from the routine things and Dorothy and I headed to the park, inspite of the weather.  There was a cold north wind blowing the trees around home and it didn’t look all that good for the park.  However, as these things do, the sun managed to find openings in the clouds and a sundrenched Tawny Frogmouth was preening in the tree near the carpark. A good start.

Down along the track toward the still locked conservation area, we managed to find a few Flame Robins. Mostly females. This is a bit of a change as they have been few and far between this season. Mostly I think because they have been hunting down the range inside the proposed Bandicoot area. ‘Nuff said about that.

Not that the ladies were in any way inclined to be helpful, hunting among the smaller trees and among the dead blackwood wattles.  Little light in there, and hard to see a bird, let alone apply the autofocus to them. Hunting may be what they were doing, but so was the autofocus.
Then the male Scarlet Robin put in an appearance.  And managed to place himself in the sunshine and not among all the loose sticks and leaves and for the first time in quite awhile I managed couple of reasonable shots, and also the chance to get a really good look at him. And how he has changed since those early days in December when he first arrived, looking all brown and dishevelled.  My money was on it being a female, for a couple of weeks, and then slowly the feathers began to moult in. Now to see him, full grown, remarkable deep black head, stunning red chest, and a lovely white cap over his beak.  He really is the part.

Now he has his own lady, and I’m hoping that they may stay over, it would be such a treat for the forest.
The little female red-cap hasn’t been seen since the gates were closed for Bandicooting, so I really don’t know what has become of her.  I did come across a small, single female down along the old hospital fence-line last week. After about 40 minutes there was no sign of any male companion, so she does appear on her own. I want to get another day in to check on that.  Perhaps this might be the lone female?  I can only guess and speculate.  There are probably a number of displaced young from the last season.

The Flames sisters came past at rate of knots, keeping on the move all the time, so it was really a matter of catch them as I could.  But so quickly come, so quickly gone.

Here are a couple that gave me a few seconds to get organised.