Well you've all heard from 1st and 2nd place winners
of the NSW Twitchathon and now its 3rd places
turn....the mighty DODGY DRONGOS!!!!!!
This year our team doubled in size with Nick (I'm
resting my eyes) Livanos and Michael (I swear I'm
still here) Kearns joining Rob Mc and myself.
The lead up was extremely exciting. We had decided
last year to change our route and head further west
and we're so glad we did. So after a few trial runs,
many species spotting expeditions and a fabulous
pre-twitch decision making bbq we made our way
north-west to Borah TSR where we started our race.
As 3 o'clock approached we search for any form of bird
life, which was proving quite difficult (of course
Head Drongo wasn't concerned at all.....much). As the
alarm on the mobile phone went off we started ticking,
Speckled Warbler being our first bird closely followed
by Rufous Whistler and Jacky Winter. Nearby Little
Friarbird and Nankeen Night Heron were seen.
We had great lucky with the woodland species with
Diamond Firetail, Brown Treecreeper, Fuscous,
White-naped and Black-chinned Honeyeaters,
White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike, Turquoise Parrot,
Restless Flycatcher, Dusky Woodswallow and Little
Lorikeet all being seen.
Rainbow Bee-eater, Hooded Robin and Red-winged Parrot
were ticked further up the road, and a pre-twitch stop
was revisited for the very obliging Singing Bushlark
and Brown Songlark.
We then headed further west, towards Leard SF.
Stopping at the Brewers' Painted Honeyeater spot (I
swear fellas we didn't know) we immediately heard the
mentioned species plus Mistletoebird, Spiny-cheeked
Honeyeater and a real highlight, Singing Honeyeater!
As we kept driving we picked up White-winged
Fairy-wren , Zebra and Double-barred Finches, 3 Little
Raven, Cockatiel, Apostlebird, Yellow-billed
Spoonbill, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Black-shouldered Kite
and Brown Falcon. But where were the Yellow-throated
Miners!
We finally made it to Leard where we mopped up the
rest of the woodland species we were after like
Brown-headed Honeyeater, Varied Sittella, Inland and
Buff-rumped Thornbill, Peaceful Dove, Common
Bronzewing, Grey-crowned Babbler and
Masked/White-browed Woodswallows.
Night fell and we started the long drive to Barrington
picking up Tawny Frogmouth, Barn Owl, Southern Boobook
and Channel-billed Cuckoo on the way.
So as we shut our eyes at 4:15am we sat on a
respectable 90 species!
Part 2 coming tomorrow................
Grant Brosie
Head Drongo
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