The following morning, I awoke early to make sure I didn’t miss any of the
birds coming to drink at the bore. I needn’t have worried! Not a single bird
appeared at the lower bore, although I did see a Spotted bowerbird leaving the
upper bore, so I assume there was some activity. I’m not really surprised at the
lack of activity at the bore. All along the road at various places west of St
George I saw lots of water as a result of recent rains. With all this water I
can’t see why birds would make a special trip to the bore to drink! I waited
until well after sunrise before heading off west. Just as I was leaving, I
noticed some babblers while watching a flock of Blue bonnets. Unfortunately,
these turned out to be more Grey-crowned babblers. Near Eulo I saw a dirt road
heading south into what appeared to be good vegetation, so I headed down here
for a few hundred metres in the hope of picking up the babblers. Here the
vegetation was a little different, with more tall eucalypts. I managed to see
some different birds here, including Varied sittella, Little corella,
Apostlebird and a small flock of Budgerigar perched in a tree. Just
to the west of Eulo, there was a small flooded area where I stopped briefly to
investigate. Lucky I did, because as I was standing there a large dark raptor
cruised overhead, circling lazily over the wetland. I soon realised it was a
Black-breasted buzzard, again the only one I saw during the entire
trip.
From here, I continued west to Lake Bindegolly National Park. Immediately I
left the car I started to see interesting birds, many of which I continued to
see throughout the corner country. There were lots of Black-faced
woodswallow and, unusually, Pied honeyeaters. When I first saw the
latter I thought I would be lucky to encounter them again. In fact, these were
among the most common birds I saw until I once again headed east. Almost
everywhere I stopped in this region, I heard the mournful piping calls of these
birds. After a quick bite to eat, I decided to head off on the 9.2km return walk
to the lake. After a few kilometres, a sign indicated that the lake was actually
dry. Despite this, I decided to push on in the hope that the recent rains may
have at least partially refilled the lake. During the walk to the lake, I saw
Little Crow and White-winged fairy wren. When I finally reached
the lake it wasn’t actually dry. However, the 800m diversion to the lake’s bird
viewing area seemed to be heading off towards the dry end of the lake, so I
didn’t bother. Instead I continued along the track in the opposite direction
hoping it would finally approach the lake close enough for me to identify at
least some of the numerous waterbirds here. The track never got any closer to
the lake, so I finally decided to leave the track and head towards the lake
shore. Unfortunately the lake had reduced in size, and it was impossible to get
close enough to the water to identify most of the birds, although I did manage
to ID Black swan, Black-winged stilt, Glossy Ibis and Grey teal.
There were many more birds, but with my mere 7x binoculars I had no hope of
finding the Freckled duck or Blue-billed duck I had hoped for. On the return
walk I added Southern whiteface to the list.
Instead of camping at Lake Bindegolly as I had originally planned, I chose to
push on to Thargomindah for the night. As I pulled into town, I noticed lots of
birds flying around the flowering eucalypts by the road. I stopped to have a
look, and found dozens of White-browed woodswallows. Later on I took a
walk along the river in town, and saw many more of these birds, as well as a few
Masked woodswallows among them. There were lots of Black kites around
town, and I also saw Blue-faced honeyeater here.
The next day, I continued driving west. At one of the small wetlands along
the way, I saw Red-kneed dotterel. I stopped to take in the scenery where
the road crossed the Grey Range. Here I saw, in the distance, a pale falcon. My
heart racing, I ran alongside the road towards the bird, hoping to get close
enough to see if it was a Grey falcon. Unfortunately the bird stayed low, flying
from perch to perch, until it eventually disappeared over a ridge. In all that
time, it never once turned it’s back to me so I was unable to see if it was a
Grey falcon or a pale Brown falcon. I pushed on west until I reached Noccundra.
Here I had to make a critical decision about where to go next. I could either
head south along the Silver City Highway to Tibooburra, or turn north towards
Eromanga. It never occurred to me that heading west towards Innamincka might
also be an option in a 2wd car! On the advice of the Noccundra locals I decided
to try the road south.
This was the first time in my trip I left the bitumen, and the first 100km
was nearly enough to make me change my mind and turn around! The road here heads
off into the stony desert, and so rocks form the base of the road. In a vehicle
with suitable clearance and some underside protection such as a 4wd, this road
would cause no problems. However, with the limited clearance of the station
wagon, I soon found that following the wheel tracks of other vehicles was a big
mistake! The grinding sound from below as the rocks threatened to disembowel my
car was quite alarming! I eventually resorted to driving instead with my wheels
on the raised mounds of rocks. This required all my attention, even at 40km or
less, so checking the gibber plains for Gibber birds and Inland dotterels was
out of the question. In fact, I didn’t see either of these birds during my trip,
no doubt due to my concern about driving the roads through this habitat. Things
got much better once the road entered the clay-capped dunes, and the road here
was actually better than many of the bitumen roads in this area. The rest of the
day I spent taking in the scenery on the way to Tibooburra, amazed at the vast
open rocky plains and the "jump-up" country. Along the way, I saw Tree
Martin and Fairy Martin, as well as more Black-faced woodswallows and
Pied honeyeaters. At sunset I headed out to Sunset Hill, where I saw my first
Orange chats. In fact, these were quite numerous in the region,
particularly on the open stony plains.
