Gary Wright's observations of these birds in the Kimberley generally agree
with mine.
I have found that Grey (Silver-backed) Butcherbird tends to be around the
sandstone areas, while the Pied Butcherbird is more in the open and
woodland. But I have seen both together at the airport at the Argyle
Diamond Mine in the East Kimberley. Leaden Flycatcher in the Kimberley
seems to be in similar habitat as the Grey Butcherbird in the Kimberley,
although there are a couple of records of LF for Broome. The dulcis race
of Variegated Fairy-wren seems to prefer the sandstone type areas also.
The White-bellied (Little) Cuckoo-shrike in the Kimberley tends to be more
in riparian or remnant rainforest habitat. BFCS can also be there
though. Gary was walking mostly in riparian / riverine vegetation from the
impression that I got from his posting. My feeling is that anywhere you
see WBCS in the Kimberley you would be less likely than other places to see
BFCS but that it would be possible, while there certainly are places (such
as Broome, and areas away from watercourses) where you definitely would not
expect to see WBCS. Having said that, I once saw a flock of 50 WBCS in a
sunflower crop on Packsaddle Plains at Kununurra, while there were some
BFCSs around also.
Not so certain about Red-browed Pardalote though. I wouldn't expect it to
be common along riverine type habitat where Gary spent most of his
time. It is more of a drier country bird. They were both quite common
around the Argyle Diamond Mine in the East Kimberley. They can both be
found east of Broome (near Taylor's Lagoon) and just south of Derby (near
Munkyarra Claypan). Similar to the cuckoo-shrikes, I would expect that
anywhere you saw RBP in the Kimberley you would still have a chance of
seeing SP, but there are definitely areas where you would not expect to see
RBP but that SP would occur.
Northern Rosella is patchy but I think it is probably more common than Gary
saw. It seems to prefer areas of open eucalypt woodland. Possibly not as
common along the major rivers, but it can be found near small
waterholes. I can find it reasonably easily around the Argyle Diamond
Mine, Kununurra and a few other places. It doesn't seem to call a lot, so
it could be overlooked, as compared to Red-winged Parrot which you often
hear well before you see them.
The Budgerigar would definitely be wild. They irrupt into the
Kimberley. There are times where they are all over the place, and other
times you can go for months or even more than a year without seeing
one. One year in the 1990s there was a massive breeding event at Lake
Gregory (100,000 pairs was mentioned I think) and for the next year or two
there were Budgies all over the Kimberley.
_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email :
===============================
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:
===============================
|
