Day: January 22, 2013

On the blog here, sometime back I added a link to “Natural Newstead” a blog run by a great birdo, and naturalist, Geoff Park.

He reports the doings of the creatures he finds in the local area, and because it is such a diverse habitat his posts are always interesting and informative. Check it out.
Given that its about an hour and half from home, we’ve been trying to find a day to go up for a look.  He located a nesting Kestrel sometime back, so really what more excuse did I need?
However some family events, the heat and other non birding things have narrowed down the window of opportunity so to speak.
With another family gig on the way at the end of this week it was now. Or much to late for the Kestrels.

Braving the heat is one thing, getting up really early is quite another, so we arrived up there about nine-ish.

Met the guys, at the Loddon River and spent some time with a Sacred Kingfisher at nest. (see their blog)

We made the run out to the Kestrels using a map and a photo of a tree.  Now in the end we didn’t really need much help at all, we found two of the young sitting in the shade on the road as we drove down. Having good road sense, (thanks Mum), they quickly took to the wing.  We stopped and walked back to sit in the grass and see what was happening.  To begin with they very active in the early morning but as time went on it grew hotter and they grew tired, and so in the end Mum hunted, they sat in the trees in the shade. Clever Kestrels.

Lovely to see them and to hear their raucous  calls for food.

For lunch we’d (I’d) planned for a pie at the local Newstead Bakery, but Geoff suggested instead a drive to Guildford for  great pies.

And. He was right. Now at Guildford there are not to many shops or stores, or houses so it didn’t take us long to figure out the General Store was the action attraction.
Lentil and Vegetable and Red-beef Curry.  We took one of each and shared halves,  No telling how we’d have handled the division of food had Mr An Onymous been with us. Now its true that I’ve been known to drive a fair distance for a pie on occasions. See some of the other rambles on this site.  But I have to say these were well worth the drive.
If you are in the area and pies are a must have staple food (and I cannot imagine why they wouldn’t be!!!!)  Then Guildford does them elegantly. I’d even pick up a couple to take home and pop in the fridge for another day.

Now all that I’ve read on the Newstead Blog is just how it is. Plenty of birds, plenty of places to look and great people to help.

That may be part of what birding does for us.