Emi Arnold

So it's just kind of a broad reconnaissance of the area before I start actually looking for the birds.

When I'm doing a sweep, I'll obviously look in the canopy first because that's where the birds live in the trees.

So you go and look at the trees first.

So I'll go and look predominantly for the small birds up there, particularly on the ends or if anything's flowering because that's where you get your thornbills, your weebles and all those tiny birds, lots of honey eaters as well.

But then I'll move down the tree.

So in those mid branches, all the whistlers and the shrike thrushes, butcher birds, chuffs, babblers are often in those mid branches as well.

If you haven't already heard them and haven't made themselves known.

Any kind of hollows as well, because I'm always on the lookout for hollows because that's just important habitat to note.

And then I'll move down to the trunk and any kind of ground layer.

So on the trunk, you'll get tree creepers and that kind of thing.

But on the ground, you'll get tree creepers.

I've even seen diamond firetails foraging on the ground.

Fairy wrens, all that kind of thing, and other ground-rearing species like yellow runt thornbills and stuff.

If I'm looking in the canopy, I'll use my binos to look for any kind of movement because a tip that I was given super early on in some cypress woodland by a very, very experienced birder was if you find one or two small perching birds, the little passerines, in the crown of a tree,

If you sit there for 10, 20 minutes, generally more and more will come in or they'll make themselves really obvious because all those tiny birds out during the day, they're obviously quite susceptible to birds of prey.

And so if there's a couple around, others will say, okay, these guys are safe, they're foraging or there's resources or there's cover and then they'll all come out.

So I kind of

look for those signs of movement and then just sit there and watch for a bit and I'm going to say probably 80% of the time more birds do come in or make themselves apparent which it's always really interesting you just sit there and just watch and then more things become obvious as soon as you see that first motion.

I guess the classic example is your cockatoos.

So I always describe to people that galahs and gangangs fly like they're drunk because they're just kind of flapping around all over the shop.