I had to be in Mt Isa this week, so I flew over on Saturday to allow a
bit of time to check out the local grasswrens [over the long weekend].
I printed out Bob Forsyth's Carpentarian GW notes and some
Kalkadoon/Dusky GW notes from the Birds Queensland gazetteer.
My flight to the Isa got in around midday, and I had the hire car
sorted by the time the baggage was off the plane. After a quick lunch,
I drove down to Mica Ck to look for the Kalkadoons.
Looking for the little fellas meant walking through "spinifex"
[Triodia], so I donned the old leather bushwalking boots and a solid
pair of gaiters. Not the most comfortable attire when the temperature
was 35C. [Wearing clodhoppers also made it difficult to move smoothly
and quietly across the rubbly slopes].
I discovered that the anthropogenic features of the site had changed a
bit since the BQ notes had been assembled - all the car wrecks had been
piled up, so the wreck mentioned was no longer in the reference
location.
I went for a wander around a ridge line, keeping my ears open for GW
calls. Nothing - just grasshoppers springing out of the spinifex. I
dug into my memories of the habitat I'd seen Dusky GW hopping about at
Palm Valley a decade earlier. I noticed a likely rocky section near
the crest of the ridge, so popped up. A family of fairy wrens provided
a bit of a distraction, but there were no GW there.
The location notes suggested that the GW were often seen up the slopes
above the gully, so I slowly made my way - finding a Spinifexbird, but
no GW. I pulled out Pizzey and Knight - they suggested rocky outcrops.
There was a nice steep rocky section not to far away, so I made my way
over, disturbing a rock wallaby from its shady rest on the way.
I heard some tenor calls as I traversed across to the steep rocks -
sure enough there were a pair of Kalkadoons and I managed to get a
couple of photographs [in difficult light] before they moved into the
spinifex. I spent an hour with the birds as they scuttled about,
playing hide and seek amongst the hummocks. They were difficult to
photograph as it was not in their nature to pose out in the open [I got
one serviceable shot in good light]. While it wasn't possible to keep
them in sight continuously, I could often locate them by their calls.
Very nice.
I was up at dawn the next morning and off to McNamarra's Rd to look for
the Carpentarian GW. There's a lot of mining activity happening in the
vicinity, so the road was well graded and widened. [As luck would have
it, two new mining dump trucks on the back of low loaders were carted
past the site while I was there]. The road works made it difficult to
locate the cairn and log book [and obscured the tracks referred to in
the notes]. I went for a bit of a stroll around a knoll before I
picked up the track that led me back to the log book.
There were no entries in the log since October last year. A review of
the log revealed that most sightings had been on the other [western]
side of the road, and Bob's notes suggested that CGW preferred flat
situations with knee-high spinifex, particularly shallow gullies. I
set out to search the site on a grid pattern, and after crossing a
deepish gully, got onto a flat plain and found an old track marked with
stakes. I followed it back to the road so I get things clear in my
head.
I then walked roughly parallel to the track in the direction of a low
hill line. I heard some tenor calls after a quarter of an hour, and
stopped for a drink. Sure enough, there was a pair of Carpentarians
hopping about in a shallow gully, about 100 metres from the base of the
hill. Again, I spent an hour with the birds, and as these lovely
little chaps were kind enough to pose briefly for the camera, so I
managed to get some half decent shots.
As always, it was a pleasure to watch the little fellows move about,
assuming a range of different postures [sometimes standing very
upright, sometimes with tail fully cocked and other times with tail
lowered.] For some reason, one of the birds jumped half a metre
vertically. Their frequent calling meant that I could stop to examine
my photographs.
When I had finished with the CGW, I wandered up to the top of the hill
to check out the views, and discovered that I was only 100 metres from
the road. Rather then follow the road back to the car, I went
cross-country and was rewarded with some nice views [and photographs]
of Panpanpalala [a classic outback bird].
It was nice to be able to photograph two taxa of grasswrens in 24
hours, and since there aren't a lot of pix of Kalkadoon and
Carpentarian GW on ABID, I've forwarded a few shots to the website -
http://www.aviceda.org/abid/index.php .
The bottom line is that these two taxa can be found with a reasonable
amount of effort if you look in the right place, move slowly and
quietly, and keep your ears open.
Regards, Laurie.
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