Twenty-two members and guests joined me on this annual outing. We walked for about 2.0 km, first along the northern boundary, but only around 400 m down the western side of the reserve, before heading up hill for a few hundred metres to check some bird activity there, then returning by the same route. The aims were to observe any honeyeater migration, as well as to find mixed feeding flocks (MFFs), autumn altitudinal migrants and any late departing summer migrants. While the sun which was out as we were gathering beforehand, unfortunately it soon clouded over and stayed that way for most of the walk. This may be the reason why only a single Yellow-faced Honeyeater was heard/seen and then by only very few of the group. However, in previous walks under similar or even worse conditions we have always managed a few small flocks. There may have been a few others in some of the mixed flocks, but no more were definitely identified, nor were any White-naped Honeyeaters seen or heard. The first bird to sit out well was an adult Grey Butcherbird and, even though the light was not ideal, most had good views. Shortly after another was seen in a standoff with a female Magpie-lark, and later another was heard. A couple of silent Australian King-Parrots also flew through. We didn’t encounter our first MFF until about halfway along the northern boundary with up to half a dozen seen after that. A feature was that, with the exception of the Grey Fantail, which seemed to be hawking everywhere with many very clearly marked so likely having come up from Tasmania, the smaller birds in general did not show well, often staying within the green leaves before darting out into some more foliage. A male Rufous Whistler did present well, with most of the group getting good views, better than the nearby 2 female/immature Golden Whistlers. Also, in these feeding flocks were Weebills, Superb Fairy-wrens, some Silvereyes, including the buff-flanked Tasmanian form, and Spotted Pardalotes. New MFF species were found when checking the activity slightly uphill from the western boundary including a pair of Scarlet Robins which were quite co-operative compared with the pair seen slightly earlier, allowing good views for the whole group. The surprise here was at least 15 Yellow-rumped Thornbills, initially in the quite thick understory of blackberries, etc, before moving to a typically more open floor habitat. As we were walking back to the cars the slowest walkers did finally identify some Striated Thornbills, which had been suspected earlier. They also saw 2 Wedge-tailed Eagles, the only raptor for the morning. A surprise was no White-eared Honeyeater, the autumn altitudinal migrant which has been slow to come to the area this year. A few other summer migrants were present, including several Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes briefly seen or heard. At 29 species, this was the lowest total in the now 12 trips I have led at this timing (the previous lowest was 31 species in 2021; before that there had usually been between 42 and 50). The reason for this very low count wasn’t clear, possibly because the conditions (cool and cloudy, though with light winds) weren’t ideal. Nevertheless, participants enjoyed the morning, and I was reminded again of how important COG outings can be as social occasions. Many thanks again to Sandra Henderson for helping me lead the walk when numbers increased in the last few days. Many thanks also to Judi for doing the eBird list, which is always a very difficult task when a large number of people are seeing and calling out names of the different birds they are seeing. Jack Holland