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G'day All
Bob Forsyth from Mount Isa and I headed up
North-east from Julia Creek up north of a little 10 person town of
Nelia yesterday (Sunday 12/12/2004) with the aim of tracking down some
Queensland Gouldian Finches on a property we had seen over 300 Black-throated
Finches about a month and a half earlier. We've had a little bit of rain
up here (try 8 inches about three days before) which made the dirt roads a
bit boggy out across the black soil of the mitchell grass
plains.
The trip up was going great -
Emus, 40 Australian Bustards, a pair of very
much obliging Brown Quail plus heaps of the usual suspects -
Zebra Finches, Singing Bushlarks galore,
Richard's Pipit, Little Corellas and
Ground Cuckoo-shrike. We made it to a T intersection of a
dirt road that runs from Richmond and it was very boggy - we made it through
that ok and about 3/4 of a kilometre up the road we came across the flooded
Saxby River (about 80k's as the crow flies North-east of Julia
Creek).
The Saxby was a 80cms over the road/causeway
and we werent going to risk going any further - so we did some birding up and
down the river. Saw plenty of good birds including Black
Falcons, Little and Wedge-tailed
Eagles and a White-bellied Sea-eagle, Banded,
Rufous-throated and Spiney-cheeked Honeyeaters,
about 30 Fork-tailed Swifts (in clear blue sky!),
Little, White-breasted and Black-faced
Woodswallow, Brush Cuckoos incessantly calling, a
Boobook Owl, a lone Plumed Whistling Duck,
Blue-winged Kookaburras, Koels (southern end
of range up here), Pale-headed Rosellas (western extremity of range) plus heaps
more.
The funniest part of the day was Bob's dog who swam
across the swollen river going beserk over a Kangaroo on the other side - but
the dog couldnt get back and poor Bob had to swim across to get it....No salties
this far up the river thank God.
On the trip home we got bogged and for the best
part of two hours, Bob taught me how to get out of the situation - manually with
a heap of cable and a manual winch - mind you, Bob did most of the work
- then we found out later that we could have avoided that muddy patch and
there was a by-pass a couple of kilometres down the road!
Anyway, we both had a good day - all up about 78
species - even though we didnt catch up with the Gouldian Finches.
The day before all this (Saturday 11/12/04), Bob
came across to Julia Creek and I took him to a place just outside of Julia Creek
that is really reliable for Flock Bronzewing Pigeons. We were a little
disappointed because we can sometimes see over 250 come in to drink most
afternoons - but we only saw a lone male (plus lots of Australian Pratincoles
and Singing Bushlarks).
Cheers
Marc Gardner
Julia Creek
QLD
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