On a chilly last day of winter, 19 birders gathered at the eastern edge of the predator-exclusion-fenced Goorooyarroo Nature Reserve. Leader Bill Graham began the walk by showing us an old beer bottle he’d recently prised from the earth at Lamb’s TSR, in the spirit of litter removal. Inside the bottle, past the improbably narrow opening, Bill had discovered a perfect, now disused Spotted Pardalote nest, woven inside from strands the enterprising bird must have squeezed itself into the bottle with, one by one. We could only speculate on how the plump fledglings managed to eventually escape their natal bottle. Once through the gate we walked north into an open landscape of box/gum grassy woodland, with many large Yellow Box and Blakely’s Red Gum trees, liberally festooned with Box Mistletoe. A Grey Currawong was heard to the north-east but not sighted. Although technically still winter, the birds had clearly decided it was spring. A Superb Fairywren male and, shortly after, an Australian Golden Whistler male, both spent considerable time at the very tops of tall eucalypts, calling to all directions, in what looked like the avian equivalent of the behaviour lepidopterists describe as ‘tree-topping’ or ‘hill-topping’, where male butterflies fly to the highest point in their landscape to advertise to females. The whistler in particular did not appear to feed over the many minutes we watched it, preferring to travel through the tree-tops purely for the benefit of trying new calling locations. A pair of Shining Bronze Cuckoos soon overtook our attention, first heard then sighted. The pair travelled tightly together and called incessantly, in what must have been courtship. Great naturalists that they are, the cuckoos were methodically investigating every mistletoe clump in each tree they visited, no doubt knowing the propensity for many birds to nest in mistletoe. Amongst these highlights we enjoyed good views of Brown-headed Honeyeater, both Striated and Spotted Pardalotes, Weebill, and a Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike. During a clear sighting of Grey Shrike-thrush fossicking high in a gum, we soon spotted four Varied Sittella gleaning along and down the branches. Prolonged observation was rewarded with several sights of wing fluttering, interpreted by us as courtship. Seven White-winged Chough lured us to a large fallen tree for morning tea, before we headed back in the opposite direction but slightly downhill of our outward route. Yellow-rumped Thornbill fed on the ground, whilst Welcome Swallows and Tree Martins hawked overhead. Of the parrots and cockatoos, we saw Crimson and Eastern Rosellas, a Red-rumped Parrot, Galahs, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and Little Corellas, the latter two species each entering and exiting tree hollows that were possibly nest sites. In total 164 birds were encountered, representing 33 species, only one of which was feral (European Starling). It was a delight to wander this feral-ground-predator excluded landscape and see so much interesting bird behaviour. Thanks to Bill Graham for leading us over such rich terrain, and to Kim Farley for keeping the list. Mitchell Kelly