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Louise and I have just returned from a ten day trip
to the Strzelecki Desert and Flinders Ranges from Sydney with the object of
finding Grey Grasswren, Eyrean Grasswren, Gibberbird, Chestnut-breasted
Whiteface and Short-tailed Grasswren. We succeeded on all but the Gibberbird
(two 'probable' sightings but too brief and too long-range to reasonably 'tick')
and covered 4200kms from Sydney to Dubbo, Nyngan, Brewarrina, Bourke,
Tibooburra, Cameron Corner, Bollard's Lagoon, Merti Merti, Lyndhurst, Stoke's
Hill/Wilpena, Broken Hill, Nyngan and back to Sydney. We had intended to make it
a more leisurely trip but the incredibly dry country and scarcity of almost any
avian life-forms did not encourage us to linger. We will go back one day when
the country has recovered and the bird-life has hopefully returned to
normal.
Our predominant impression is of driving for long
periods seeing absolutely nothing except perhaps for a lone Richards Pipit.
Having said that, we did find our target species, albeit with some hard tramping
for several hours in some cases. Our grateful thanks to all those who
have posted detailed site descriptions on birding-aus which allowed us to get
into the right areas. However, the great tracts of dead and dieing vegetation
made our search for Grey and Eyrean Grasswrens more wide ranging than may
have been the case a year or two ago. In addition to the target species, other
highlights were:
- several sightings of Major Mitchell Cockatoos
from south of Brewarrina to the Strzelecki Track
- large numbers of Crimson Chats
- smaller numbers of Orange Chats
- three Brolgas 100km east of Wanaaring near the
Warrego River
- Banded Whiteface at Pyampa Station
- two Ground Cuckoo-shrikes 63km northwest of
Tibooburra
- Cinnamon Quail-thrushes at Bollards Lagoon and at
Mt Lyndhurst
- a group of 20 Flock Bronzewings at Bollards
Lagoon
- Thick-billed Grasswrens and Rufous Fieldwren at
Mt Lyndhurst
- Freckled Ducks at Stephen's Creek Reservoir,
Broken Hill
We saw very few raptors (and no rare ones)
presumably because there is very little to eat out there. Because of the lack of
rain for over a year, the tracks are not being graded and are quite rough and
corrugated in some areas.
The owners of Pyampa Sation, Ross and Marg Betts
(who live at Onepah Station tel: 08 8091 3557) are now requesting a donation of
$10 per vehicle to access Pyampa, the proceeds going to the Tibooburra Hospital
Auxilliary who are very short of funds for community events. That seems like a
reasonable request to me considering how much we spend to get there in the first
place.
The new owners of Mt Lyndhurst Station (tel: 08
8675 7796 but I did not note their names) are very welcoming and friendly, but
told us that they no longer will allow camping at the 'rusty car body' site
because of the heavy birding traffic. They said there had been about 'four or
five large groups' through there in the week or so before our arrival. They also
mentioned that several of the groups used tape recorders in their search, which
is a bit of a concern in the only really accessible and
oft-visited stake-out for Chestnut-breasted Whiteface. We stayed at the
Lyndhurst Pub 27km down the road - very clean, good tucker and not
expensive (they have a camping area too).
If anyone would like a detailed report on our trip
(on Microsoft Word), please let me know and I will forward when
completed.
Cheers
Roger McGovern
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