birding-aus

Report on trip to Charleville

To: birdingaus mailing list <>
Subject: Report on trip to Charleville
From: Tony Eales <>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 16:35:58 +0000


Hi All,Just arrived back from five days "working" (managed a good deal of 
birding every day) in at two sites, one on the Warrego River about 20km south 
of Charleville near a siding called Westgate and another about 20km south of 
Mitchell on the old dirt track highway heading south out of Mitchell on the 
eastern bank of the Maranoa River (the new highway is on the western side). 
Only two days working on a five day trip so I had plenty of time and even 
managed to borrow a car for a morning and an afternoon. My main birding areas 
were the road reserves/stock routes on the southern edge of Charleville, the 
lagoon behind the duck ponds on the way into Charleville from the south, the 
Charleville sewerage farm, and two sites on the Ward River where it crosses the 
Quilpie road and where it crosses the Adavale road. A great trip with 100 
species ten of them lifers for me.

Highlights were the first time (and every subsequent time) I saw a Splendid 
Fairy-wren, just wow! A group of 6 Hall's Babblers on the southern outskirts of 
Charleville, four Ground Cuckoo-shrikes south of Mitchell, 6 Glossy Ibis, a 
Yellow-billed Spoonbill, two Marsh Sandpipers and the biggest congregation of 
Black-fronted Dotterels I ever seen at the sewerage farm, Leaden Flycatchers 
and Chestnut-rumped Thornbills so close I could have reached out and patted 
them and sitting on the Ward River where it was so silent I could hear my brian 
ringing watching an immature Collared Sparrow-hawk hunt.
A couple of interesting observations, feel free to email meabout them. I saw an 
immature Pacific Baza on the Warrego River south of Charleville. Surely this is 
extremely far west for this species? The Leaden Flycatchers seem to be a bit 
far inland too.

Also on the Ward River on the way to Adavale I saw a Varigated FW that had 
unusually large red shoulder patches. In all the others I've seen, including 
two in Charleville itself these red patches are little more than a line. In 
this bird they were strikingly prominent and seemed to meet in the middle more 
like the red saddle on a Red-backed FW. The blue at the back of the crown was a 
striking indigo colour as well. It displayed behaviour I've not seen before 
where it sat on a prominent perch and spread and vibrated its wings rapidly, 
showing this red area to great effect. Has anyone seen this before. Is this 
colour pattern within the normal variation of Varigated FWs?

I saw a juv cuckoo being fed by a Willie Wagtail. I'm not sure the species, I 
think Pallid but I also think Brush. Anyone like to have a crack at IDing this 
for me go to 
http://www.birdingoz.com.au/forums/identification-needed/2380-not-another-juvenile-cuckoo.html

Anyway the trip list is as follows:-
Emu

Brown Quail

Australian Wood Duck

Pacific Black Duck

Grey Teal

Hardhead

Red-chested Button-quail

Dollarbird

Laughing Kookaburra

Sacred Kingfisher

Rainbow Bee-eater

Juv Cuckoo sp.?


Rainbow Lorikeet

Australian Ringneck (lifer)


Pale-headed Rosella

Red-rumped Parrot

Red-winged Parrot

Galah

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Tawny Frogmouth

Common Bronzewing

Crested Pigeon

Peaceful Dove

Australian Bustard

Eurasian Coot

Marsh Sandpiper

Black-fronted Dotterel

Masked LapwingPacific Baza


Black-shouldered Kite

Black Kite

Whistling Kite

Brown Goshawk

Collared Sparrowhawk

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Nankeen Kestrel

Brown Falcon

Little Black Cormorant

White-faced Heron

White-necked Heron

Glossy Ibis

Australian White Ibis

Straw-necked Ibis

Royal Spoonbill

Yellow-billed Spoonbill

Australian Pelican

White-browed Treecreeper (lifer)


Spotted Bowerbird

Splendid Fairy-wren (lifer)


Variegated Fairy-wren

Brown Honeyeater

Singing Honeyeater

White-plumed Honeyeater

Brown-headed Honeyeater

Little Friarbird



Noisy Friarbird

Striped Honeyeater

Blue-faced Honeyeater

Yellow-throated Miner

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater

Striated Pardalote



Inland ThornbillYellow-rumped Thornbill

Chestnut-rumped Thornbill (lifer)


Yellow Thornbill

Western Gerygone (lifer)


Jacky-Winter

Red-capped Robin

Hooded Robin (lifer)


Grey-crowned Babbler

Hall's Babbler (lifer)


White-winged Chough

Apostlebird

Rufous Whistler

Grey Shrike-thrush

Little Crow (lifer)


Australian Raven

Grey Butcherbird

Pied Butcherbird

Australian Magpie

Pied Currawong

White-breasted Woodswallow

Masked Woodswallow

Little Woodswallow (lifer)


Ground Cuckoo-shrike

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike

Willie Wagtail

Leaden Flycatcher

Restless Flycatcher

Magpie-lark

White-backed Swallow (lifer)


Welcome Swallow

Tree Martin

Australian Reed-Warbler (the largest most rufous one I've seen. Looked more 
like a Tawny Grassbird size-wise. I'm willing to conceed its not an Oriental RW 
but I took a million photos just to make sure)


Horsfield's Bushlark

Mistletoebird

House Sparrow

Australian Pipit

Zebra Finch

Double-barred Finch
Cheers Tony




==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
=============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Report on trip to Charleville, Tony Eales <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU