Page 7 - Park News – October, 2020 | The Blackburn Creeklands

distinctive feature – its square-tipped tail – so well. That sets it apart from the similar but
larger Brown Goshawk (A. fasciatus) – belonging to the same genus – whose tail is
rounded at the tip. Pat Bingham says “it’s great for us to be able to see them around the
Creeklands (as we have done from time to time) – though their prey (birds up to the size
of Rosellas) might not agree with us!“.

The above is both a good sighting and a sad sighting at the same time. Greg lives next
door to the park and found this recently deceased bird on his roof when clearing out his
roof gutters. This beautifully coloured bird is a Sacred Kingfisher (Todiramphus
sanctus).
The species is on our Creeklands list but not seen for quite some time. Megan
remembers they were annual visitors for a few years running about 20 years ago. She
says: “I can remember sitting on the seat at the intersection of the main path on the
south of the creek with the path from Malcolm St … and watching the colourful little
bird flying in and out of the nest hollow in the big Euc to the west. They were like tiny
Kookaburras“. They are migrants and just arriving in the south east of Australia from
Queensland. Perhaps the long flight was too exhausting or perhaps there was
insufficient food on the way due to the fires? Did anyone see it flying in the park ?

With reference to our earlier article on scientific names, this species belongs to a
different genus to the Laughing Kookaburra (Todiramphus vs Dacelo) but both belong
to the Halcyoninae (Tree kingfishers) sub-family of the Alcedinidae (Kingfishers)
family.

Magpie Lark guarding his mud nest (thanks Greg)

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