birding-aus

Sturt NP & Broken Hill Trip

To: "'Chris Ross'" <>, <>
Subject: Sturt NP & Broken Hill Trip
From: "Gregory Little" <>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:10:24 +1000
Gooday all

Re the goats around Cobar. I was told that the local property owners
make more money from the goats than from sheep so they encourage the
goats and do not take kindly to people shooting them. 

Greg Little

Greg Little - Principal Consultant
General Flora and Fauna
PO Box 526
Wallsend, NSW, 2287, Australia
Ph    02 49 556609
Fx    02 49 556671
www.gff.com.au

-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Chris Ross
Sent: Saturday, 26 July 2008 10:06 PM
To: 
Subject: Sturt NP & Broken Hill Trip

I was originally planning to travel through SW Qld and down to Broken 
Hill, but needed to change my itinerary at the last minute.  I ended up 
travelling to Sturt NP and Broken Hill, setting out 3 weeks ago.  On the

Barrier Hwy on the way over and back many goats were evident between 
Cobar and Wilcannia.  A lot of roadkill, with wedge tailed eagles 
regularly spotted, with occasional whistling kite or black kite.  Coming

late into Tibooburra a couple of suspected inland dotterels flushed by 
the side of the road.

We stayed at Olive Downs for a few nights and this seems the pick of the

campsites, it's tucked into a little gully and quite sheltered.  Nice 
dawn chorus going every morning as well.  The country up there is 
starting to green after rain about 3 weeks previously and there's still 
water in some of the creeks, quite likely there'll  a good display of 
wildflowers in a month or so.  The loop drives are all very scenic and 
the whole time up there we found very relaxing, birds were not super 
abundant but I managed to pick up about  8 new species.

At dusk each night we could hear spotted nightjars calling from the 
nearby ridges.  Some highlights for me were Orange Chats at south Meyer 
tank as well as cinnamon quail thrush which gave great views and 
photos.  Around the camping area chestnut rumped thornbills and southern

whitefaces were seen carrying nesting material, the thornbills were 
ferrying sticks and bits of spider web continually to small hollow in a 
dead tree about 1.5m above ground.  Saw our only Bourke's parrots of the

trip when 2 landed close by near camp.  Black Honeyeaters were also 
common feeding on eromophilas up on the ridges around the campsite.

Travelled out to the yellow bus site about 50 km west of Cameron Corner 
one day to try for the Eyrean grasswren, but dipped there basically 
wrong time of day, did find crimson chats,  and cinnamon quail thrush, 
though.  Nothing out of the ordinary seen at Broken Hill.  On the way 
back flushed a group of about 6 banded lapwing about 1/2 hour west of 
Wilcannia and in town, found a flock about 30-40 Red tailed black 
cockatoos feeding in a tree in a backyard.

regards,

Chris Ross
www.aus-natural.com <http://www.aus-natural.com/>



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