Trip report: Glenbrook, Blue Mountains National Park
26/4/97
Finally, an end to my drought of birding caused by the priority
of uni work! I took the train from Sydney to Glenbrook in the expectaion
of a good day's walk in the mountains. Hopefully I would see some birds
along the way too. The weather was beautiful, sunny, not too hot,
resembling what I would call an Indian Summer weekend. I was not to be
disappointed, as the first bird that I saw was a Black-shouldered Kite
from the train. It was perched on the wire right next to the tracks
facing us, and as we pulled slowly by I got the best look at this bird
that I have ever had. I could see its bright yellow feet, its black
shoulders, and I was trying to figure out the color of its eyes as the
train finally pulled me out of sight. The birding on the walk from the
Glenbrook train station into the national park was also good, with a
Grey Butcherbird perched obligingly near the road, and someones front
yard trees were filled with thornbills, a few Eastern Spinebills, some
Grey Fantails noisily hawking insects, and at least one Rose Robin, the
sighting of which already made my day into a good one.
Flying above the national park office was a flock of Dusky
Woodswallows, and a White-eared Honeyeater called noisily from the
trees. It has such an obvious call, that I should remember it in the
future. I got a good look at some White-naped Honeyeaters as well, both
male and female so I could make a comparison between the two.
I took the track that leads down to Jellybean Pool, which is a rather
shocking blue color because of the clay particles suspended in it. The
track down to the pool has recently been burnt, so there wasn't too much
activity there except for a Golden Whistler which was spectacular in the
sun, and male Spinebill feeding on Mountain Devil flowers. The pool,
though I had it to myself, must be well used for swimming by people since
there was unfortunately a lot of litter lying around. I don't really
understand inconsiderate people who can simply leave trash lying about in
an area like this. A single little Pied Cormerant eyed me from a rock
on the opposite side of the pool.
Rock hopping up the stream and accross the causeway, I
turned right onto the Red Hands trail. The trail follows a creek bed, and
considering it was about noon by this time, there was still lots of bird
activity. Flights of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters kept flying over all day
long. I assume this is their migration time, as I must have seen
hundreds throughout the day. At the beginning of the trail, the
vegetation is open forest, with Casurinas in the along the creek bed and
Banksias higher up, and those eucalypt trees with the smooth orange bark
and red sap. There were quite a lot of the usual bushbirds along this
half of the track: Grey Fantails, Brown Thornbills, Eastern Yellow
Robins, White-browed Scrubwrens and Red-browed finches. I'm getting a
bit better at songs, but there was one I came to that was simply
bizarre. All these strange squeaking and nasal noises coming from inside
a bush. People walking from the other direction flushed a flock of large
birds which of course flew into the bushes on the other side where
naturally I couldn't see anything. Finally, after a good bit of
searching, I tracked down the source of the strange noises which was a
large brownish bird with 'scaly' marks on its breast, a Satin Bowerbird.
There were at least 6 birds in the flock, but no nice purple males in
sight though.
The track moves out of the dry forest into a gully with closed
forest and lilly pilly trees. Harder to see the ubiquitous yellow-faced
honeyeaters flying and landing, so I was just walking until I heard a
tiny bit of noise down by the creek below me, like a leaf falling but a
bit different. A Lyrebird! It was right out in plain view, and as the
vegetation wasn't too thick, I got a good chance to examine it before it
disappeared into the ferns. It was a female, with a plain chicken type
tail. I followed her small rustling noises for some distance before some
more people came down the track and when they had passed there was no
more evidence that the bird was still around. Interestingly, the she
was originally being followed by a scrubwren which was no doubt
scavenging the insects stirred up by the scratching. This was the first
time I've ever seen this behaviour (of course, this is only the second
time I'd actually seen a lyrebird anyway).
Happy with this find, I continued up the hill to the Red Hands
cave, which is an interesting Aboriginal site. Just past the cave, as
the forest becomes more dry and open again, I spotted a little
wren-shaped bird (vertical tail) next to a bench. At first I thought it
was a fairy wren, but on closer examination, it wasn't shaped quite
right, and it had a definite rust colored rump. A brief view of its head
proved that it definitely wasnt shaped like a fairy-wren at all; it had
more of the 'evil' look that a white-browed scrubwren has because of the
eyebrow, kind of like a little masked bandit. The bird was confusing
since there was a flock of fairy wrens in the same area, and when they
appeared I was half convinced that somehow my mind had been fooling me
and that the mystery bird was just a fairy-wren. Now I regret not
bringing my book along with me! But when I got back to the park center I
looked the bird up and discovered that it was a Chestnut-rumped
Heathwren. A life bird for me. And apparently, according to the book,
not a particularly common bird either. The fairy-wrens were variegated,
by the way, a fact I was only really able to decide on because I spotted
one non-breeding male out of a flock of females with a little black in
front of his eye.
I started the long walk back to the park office, genuinely glad I'd
decided to do this track. I didn't see anything particularly different
than before, I even saw the same flock of bowerbirds. However, as I was
nearing the junction of the Red Hands track and the causeway I came
around a corner and ran into a Rock Warbler. Standing on one of those
sandstone outcrops they like, I only got a brief glimpse before it ran
off into the brush. Another really good bird that I've only seen once
before. Finally, as I hiked back up the hill to the train station, not a
bird but a copper-tailed skink finished off my day.
Species list
Little Pied Cormerant (1)
Black-shouldered Kite (1)
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (heard)
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (heard)
Rainbow Lorikeet
Crimson Rosella
Kookaburra
Supurb Lyrebird (1, female)
White-throated Treecreeper (1)
Variegated Fairy-wren
Spotted Pardalote
Rock Warbler (1)
White-browed Scrubwren
*Chestnut-rumped Heathwren (1)
Brown Thornbill
Yellow Thornbill
Striated Thornbill
Noisy Miner
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
White-eared Honeyeater
White-naped Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
Eastern Spinebill
Rose Robin
Eastern Yellow Robin
Grey Shrike-thrush
Golden Whistler
Grey Fantail
Magpie-lark
Satin Bowerbird
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Dusky Woodswallow
Grey Butcherbird
Australian Magpie
Pied Currawong
Welcome Swallow
Red-browed Firetail
usual Feral species
Copper-tailed Skink
|
