My wife and I are just home from an amazing experience travelling from Adelaide
to Brisbane via Strezlecki track, Nocundra,Cunnamulla, Bourke and Dubbo.
In all my travels I dont think I have ever seen so much water........ in every
road side table drain , tanks, creeks and rivers. It really is great to see the
outback country being refreshed and brimming with life of all sorts.
I had a quick view of Short tailed G/wren at Stokes hill (about 200m down the
hill from the lookout near three poles with blue triangle markers on them)
We stayed at Mt Lyndhurst station for 2 nights ( thanks to the owners for this
privelidge) missed seeing Ch Br Whiteface but had great views and photos of
Thick billed G/wren. One ran across the road as we were driving out from the
mine site and we then followed it for some time amongst the scrub.
We camped at Montecollina bore and had Spotted Crake in the overflow area and
several Rufous night herons close to the bore.
We then followed the excellent directions from Steve Potter to the Letter
winged kite location and were rewarded first with a Juv LWK within about 8
metres away and then an adult LWK circling,hovering ,dropping down with legs
extended and finally roosting close by. Cameras were in overdrive at this
spectacular display of this beautiful bird.
We moved on to the Strezlecki Creek crossing and saw hundreds of Black kites
and Terns fishing in the waterholes for small catfish. About 50 Black tailed
Native hens were dashing along the creek bank and there were Budgerigars
nesting in almost every tree hollow. At dusk squadrons of Cormorants flew over
numbering at least five thousand. Lots of Egrets White necked Herons and Night
Herons fishing at night and early morning. Next morning the Cormorants flew
back again!!! It was a great camping spot.
Great sandhill country near Merty Merty and then the massive claypans covered
in water just east of Moomba had lots of Aust Pratincoles.
We planned to stay in Innamincka but local advice was "stay tonight and you
will be here for a week" as the rain was threatening and so we moved on to
Nocundra where the Wilson River was alive with Pelicans, darters and Cormorants
and we saw a Black H/eater.
We got into Thargomindah just in front of the rain and found Lake Bindegolly so
full that most of the walking tracks were impassable. Saw a number of Great
crested Grebes on the lake.
The acces road into Bowra was very muddy and slippery and our time was limited
so we had to move on.
A quick detour to Bourke to see the Darling river flowing strongly and the
country which I had seen so very dry in past years now looking stunning. Then
to see family in Dubbo and back to Brisbane.
This really is a great year to see some parts of Austalia at its very best and
to enjoy the huge variety of bird life out there.
Col and Chris Fitzell
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