g'Day all
Having just returned from 10 weeks of outback birding, this report
covers one of the many trip highlights, Princess Parrots in the Gibson
Desert.
At about 11.00 on 6th July 2012, after nearly a week of searching many
kilometres of remote Gibson Desert tracks for Princess Parrot, our first
success was a flock of 20+ birds exploding in a tight flock from the
canopy of a large Marble Gum beside the Sandy Blight track north west of
Lake Hopkins, WA. Pat was the first to see them as she calmly said,
"There they are", followed by me irrationally leaping from the moving
vehicle that continued on to nearly run over me in all the excitement.
Undeterred we grabbed the camera and pursued them into baron sand dune
country that had been ravaged by last year's severe bushfires.
After searching east several kilometres, we entered a long sandy swale,
a natural corridor between two mostly bare sand dunes with some unburnt
patches of Triodia and grasses and a few Myrtle-Heath and Upside Down
plants commencing to flower. Suddenly we could hear the shrill contact
calls of Princess Parrot coming from fire burned marble gums that were
scattered across the northern aspect of an adjacent dune Approaching
slowly, Princess Parrots began calling, first from the closest tree,
then from various directions all around us; we had obviously disturbed
their roosts and a growing intensity and excitement of calls told us
there were a good number of birds here.
But for a bird of their size and colouration, they have a fascinating
knack of blending into cover. I scanned for them with binoculars but
without success, they really can be hard to locate but their calls
became more excited as we approached. Suddenly, a flock of about 30
exploded from the canopy, circling before landing in a half burned
desert oak about 150 meters west. Just then, another flock of about 20
birds irrupted from a tree nearby followed by another 30 or so emerging
from another tree to the south. These birds flew east for some distance
alighting into an unburned marble gum just as another flock of 20+
flushed from the next tree to them. There were small groups flying and
landing nearby in other trees, I estimated probably 200+ Princess
Parrots around here. We were surrounded by them calling and flying in
nearly every direction, I couldn't help wonder, was this about to be a
repeat of 2010?
The day was clear and the wind had moderated from near gale force of
previous days, so we decided to stay and observe. But as the day
progressed, the numbers of birds diminished. On an adjacent dune, we
located their distinctive foot tracks clustering around the base of
newly flowering upside down plants indicating they are
feeding/drinking/sucking nectar from them.
By late afternoon however, the Parrots had departed the scene
completely. Exhausted, we returned to our vehicle very pleased with
the day's events. Next day we looked around most of the morning and at
about 10.30 from a distant dune about 500 meters east of the road we
flushed 5 birds that flew north out of sight, after that we could find
no more.
Our vehicle had developed a starter problem and required urgent
repair. So next morning after warming the engine in the sun, charging
and jumper lead joining the spare battery, our vehicle started and we
drove on to Uluru feeling lucky and satisfied with the observations of
the last few days. By late afternoon we had arrived at our destination
to find there a public holiday long weekend.
<>We would have to wait a day or three for mechanical service however,
as luck would have it, we met up with an old acquaintance, a bloke we
knew from SW Queensland, a bush pilot with his aeroplane visiting "the
rock". An hour later we had arranged a charter and early morning the
next day, we headed into the Gibson Desert searching for Princess
Parrots from the air. As they are relatively large bird, often flocking
and conspicuous in flight, we had previously contemplated if this might
be a successful technique for locating them.
It will suffice to say that, "once we had our eye in" (for suitable
habitat), we found hundreds of Princess Parrots at 5 sites, some flocks
estimated in excess of 80 birds. We also had probable sightings of
birds at another 5 sites but because of fuel endurance issues, we could
not use flight time to confirm them. We followed a route to Lake
Amardeus, Lake Hopkins, Lake Neale, returning across the Mereenie Marble
Gum forests before heading back to Uluru. There were many birds in a
wide arc of the eastern Gibson Desert although interestingly we could
not locate any near Lake Hopkins. (Although we never quite returned to
the area where we photographed them days earlier)
Princess Parrots are in hundreds again, spread across vast areas of the
eastern Gibson Desert. There were a convergence of sightings towards the
Marble Gum forests west of Mereenie, one of the 5 areas where in 2010,
we discovered them and where eventually they bred in August/September of
that year. In the next few days, I will post separate reports of the
aerial observations of the Mereenie area and also post some flickr photos
Regards
Ian and Patricia May
PO Box 110
St Helens, Tasmania 7216
Mob: 0428337956
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