G'day all
To my shame I had never been birding in the Mt. Arapiles Tooan State
Park (SW Wimmera, Victoria) until today. A great day with lots of
birds. This park is to the south of the Little Desert and represents
the southern (and northern) limits of a few species in western
Victoria. Southern Scrub-robins, Gilbert's Whistlers and Malleefowl
are apparently in the park - but not showing today.
The undoubted highlight today was the regular sightings of
Heathwrens. I surveyed five areas with Shy Heathwrens at four and
Chestnut-rumped at one. No obvious habitat/location differences that
I could determine - I saw Shy Heathwrens in broombush and desert
banksia/tea-tree and Chestnut-rumped in desert banksia/tea-tree.
Another highlight was the regular sighings of Variegated Fairy-
wrens. These were usually in denser ground cover areas than the
Superb Fairy-wrens but I did have males of each species in the same
bush at one point.
About 50 species in all seen in the park today. I'd urge others to
visit this area as I suspect it is not well covered. A cautionary
note - maps I used showed roads where there were none and some roads
were not passable by 2WD.
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