^°'j^^^-J Whitlock, On the East Murchison. IQI 



Whistling Eagle {Haliastur sphcnurus). — A pair were nesting in a 

 tall eucalypt near Milly Pool. The nest was a very massive one. On the 

 ground below were sticks enough to have constructed a second nest. 

 Without a rope ladder this nest was quite inaccessible. It was at a height 

 of 70 feet, or thereabouts, in a flooded gum, and for 30 feet the bole of the 

 tree was without a branch. In passing, I may state that these flooded gums 

 are very treacherous to climb, big limbs breaking off without any warning. 

 Nearly all old trees are hollow, and the wood is much subject to the attacks 

 of termites. I had already sustained one fall, a limb as thick as my thigh 

 breaking off close to the trunk. Luckily, 1 fell into a dam of water. 



Little Falcon {Falco hciiiilatus). — I only met with this species in the 

 forest of eucalypts near Milly Pool. Though there was more than one pair 

 about, I could find no nests. I regret to say an individual was wantonly 

 shot and thrown away by a local " sportsman." 



Striped Brown Hawk. {Hieracidea berigord). — Not so common as the 

 following, but where I found one there I found the other. This species does 

 not seem to choose the large eucalypts to breed in, but prefers a tree in a more 

 open situation. I took typical eggs at Bore Well, and again near Milly 

 Pool. The latter nest was in a solitary and stunted flooded gum growing in 

 the centre of an extensive and open plain. 



Brown Hawk [Hieraddea orientalis). — More common than the pre- 

 ceding species. The large, dark females, standing sentinel-like on some 

 dead tree or bush, were a familiar sight. I found several nests, but only 

 obtained eggs in one instance. This was a very rough nest, probably the 

 adapted wreck of an old Pomatorhirnts rubeculus nest. It was placed on a 

 horizontal branch of a beef-wood tree. The eggs were only obtained with 

 difficulty and with the aid of a scoop. Young in down are fawn coloured. 



Kestrf:l {CcrcJmcis ceuchroidcs). — This species was generally distributed 

 throughout the district, though nowhere common. It was, perhaps, most 

 frequent near Milly Pool, where the numerous hollow eucalypts afforded 

 convenient nesting-places. The first nest I found was in the hollow spout 

 of a large flooded gum at the north-east end of the pool. It was only a few 

 chains away from my tent, and my attention was called to it by hearing the 

 querulous cries of the parent birds. The nesting site was only about 25 

 feet from the ground, and I could look right into the hollow limb and see 

 the four handsome eggs lying on a bed of decayed wood. These eggs were 

 of the type in which the whole of the shell is quite obscured by the rich 

 ferruginous markings. The eggs from a second nest in a similar situation 

 lower down the pool were totally different. The markings in this case were 

 distributed in large blotches, leaving spaces of the shell quite bare. They 

 reminded me irresistibly of well-marked eggs of the European Sparrow- 

 Hawk {Accipiter nisiis). A third nest, on the opposite side of the pool, was 

 in a hollow left by the snapping off of the main trunk of the tree. I was 

 having a bath — or, rather, a wallow in the mud — when I saw the female 

 enter the hollow. I walked round to the tree and climbed it. Someone 

 had previously chopped out a Parrot or Cockatoo's nest, leaving a convenient 

 orifice. Thinking the female had left the nest, as I could see the four eggs, 

 I put in my hand and safely withdrew three of them. When making for the 

 fourth, she made a vicious drive at my hand with her claws, and I can still 

 see the scars she left. These eggs were intermediate in type between the 

 two former sets. A fourth nest, which I reached after a lot of labour in 

 chopping steps up the slippery trunk of a flooded gum, contained only two 

 newly-hatched young. The majority of the males of this species have a bar 

 at the end of the tail, which is very pale grey, but what I take to be old 

 males have the tail nearly white and with no bar. All females I have seen 

 possess the bar, and usually show fine black streaks on the breast. I 

 observed no pairs breeding in old Crows' or other open nests. I quite 

 expected local birds would prove to Ije the Western Kestrel {C. iinicolor). 



