birding-aus

Western Queensland 23 - 26 May 2000

To: "Birding-Aus" <>
Subject: Western Queensland 23 - 26 May 2000
From: "Irene" <>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:45:51 +1000
General Itinerary
23 May:  Mount Isa, Mitakoodi Gorge, Top Camp Road, Malbon camp on Cloncurry 
river
24 May:  Malbon, Duchess, Dajarra, Ardmore property area, Kallala property for 
2 nights camping
25 May:  Kallala property, to Urandangie and back
26 May:  Kallala property, Ardmore property area, Dajarra, Boulia

Birds

23 May
Top Camp Road again a nice visit, with Brown Honeyeater, Horsfield's 
Bronze-Cuckoo and Jacky Winter.  4 Peaceful Doves sat on
the ground and spread their wings in the sun.  A courting Spinifex Pigeon 
showed the great pink flash in his spread out
wings.

Black-fronted Dotterel were at the river, being 1 adult and 2 immatures.  1 of 
the immatures (with orange legs, no maroon on
its side) was first standing on the dry riverbed rocks and then sat down and 
stayed very still, very effectively becoming a
rock itself.  A great display of effective camouflage.

Spotlighting at night near Malbon revealed two Tawny Frogmouths, with 1 flying 
across the road.  Not often I get to see them
awake and mobile.

24 May
Morning at camp and we're sitting around.  The Yellow-throated Miners start 
giving their alarm call, and sure enough, an
Australian Hobby comes cruising down the river.

The local Striated Pardalote is race uropyiagallis.

Duchess has a Spotted Bowerbird in the black bean tree behind the pub.  And 
nearby (21 28 27 S, 139 46 51 E) a Black-breasted
Buzzard is circling fairly low, no flapping of its wings.  Its tail has a black 
U shape in it.

In the spirit of atlassing areas not visited much before, we head out towards 
Ardmore property and eventually camp on Kallala
property (21 46 56 S, 138 55 24 E) with George the owner being extremely 
hospitable and to some extent bird conscious.  His
wife leads us to a lovely billabong area where we set up for camp for 2 nights. 
 The dry riverbed nearby has huge old growth
trees.  This river had 3 metres of water in it in March.

In general this area is cattle grazing, close to the NT border and hence 
getting pretty inland, it's dry looking country
without much vegetation.  To me it doesn't look promising and yet George says 
it's looking relatively good.  There's plenty
of grassland (more hooked seeds onto your clothes).  And the area indeed proves 
to be pretty good for birds;  you just have
to look.

Kallala property camp itself gave some great sights like:
* Straw-necked Ibis - 140 flying
* Grey-crowned Babbler
* Australian Hobby giving a great display of its ability to manoeuvre mid-air 
as it chased an insect (and perched and ate it)
* Wandering Whistling-Duck - 23 which were at a local pond and just generally 
floating and resting
* Budgerigar - groups of up to 300 zapping around and particularly loving the 
big river trees

25 May
Adventure as we go to Urandangie, some 30 kilometres from the NT border.  
Stopped at various places to atlas, with the
grassland specialists such as Richard's Pipit, Singing Bushlark, Little 
Button-quail and Stubble Quail all found.

Plenty of raptors, with Black Falcon a few times (including 21 44 07 S, 138 34 
34 E), Spotted Harrier (by now noted that
virtually always seen only a few metres above ground level as they hunt for 
their prey), Nankeen Kestrel, and the
ever-present Black Kite.

Other goodies were Pallid Cuckoo, Brown Songlark, Singing Honeyeater, Brolga, 
Banded Lapwing and a surprise Masked Lapwing at
21 42 38 S, 138 28 45 E.  At one point there was the great sight of, all 
together, 100 Budgerigar, 100 Cockatiel, 50 Masked
Woodswallow and 50 White-browed Woodswallow.  We wondered why the activity - a 
UDR was seriously on the hunt here.  The
budgies were clocked flying at 62 kilometres per hour.

A great late afternoon sighting was Flock Bronzewing - 20 flying around and 
around at 21 44 07 S, 138 34 34 E, sometimes
coming very close to allow us good views of their short tail, black head with 
white C shape on the cheeks.  At this stage the
background sky was stormy grey and the bronzewings had a sunburst on them - 
fantastic.  (PS, that's lifer 512).

Great area but warning, the roads are not particularly clear or obvious at all.

26 May
Leave Kallala with atlassing through Ardmore etc. while we head to Dajarra 
revealing Banded Lapwing, Variegated Fairy-wren,
Red-browed Pardalote and Collared Sparrowhawk.  An Australian Owlet-Nightjar 
sat on a branch revealing the bold stripes on
its undertail, a tail as long as its body.

Then the stretch to Boulia which went through some mulga type country in 
pockets between cleared lands.  Atlassing gave
Crested Bellbird, a Mistletoebird and I saw its throat shaking as it gave a 
"brrt" call, Whistling Kite and Cockatiel.  And
something I wanted at Lake Moondarah in Mount Isa, didn't see and had thought I 
had missed out on it.

Painted Finch, lifer no. 513.  At 22 08 52 S, 139 38 06 E, birds were feeding 
on the ground and a full black and red male
perched on a dead twig and showed off.  Wow.

Irene Denton
Concord West, 12 km from Sydney city, NSW, Australia
33 50' 17" S  151 05' 25" E



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