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As COG has a Plainswanderer weekend with leading bird guide
Philip Maher on its field trips calendar later in the year, I thought members
might be interested in the trip Sandra Henderson and I have just
done to the Denilquin area, for an excellent day of birding in the
flooded swamplands there. We hired Phil for the day to take us
around, and this included spotlighting in the evening for the special grassland
birds on the riverina plain, including Red-chested Button-quail which are
irruptive and very common at the moment. We had around 13 hours of
birding with a break in the middle of the day, for 117 species
total. We think it's good value to do this with a group of 2/3 people
(they do take larger groups around of course), and we would certainly
encourage others to take a trip out there now, while the conditions are so
good. Im happy to provide further information off the line, if anyone is
interested in doing what we did.
The Wanganella swamps are to the north of Deni around creeks
fed thru the Murray River system, and this is the first flooding since the
1970s. Reed beds, flooded lignum/goosefoot, and flooded grasslands provide
a variety of wetland habitats over a huge area of the plains. We also
visited the Mathoura wetlands bird hide/Gulpa river red-gum forest (now a
national park) south of Deni; the forest is flooded, but accessible on the
main tracks; very good bush birding there and lots of water birds feeding in
the backwaters. There are also a lot of raptors around. We did
not get one of our target birds, Painted Snipe, which have bred over the
summer, however, Phil did spotlight one on a recent Plainswanderer weekend
in wet ground by the roadside.
Some of our highlights:
. Red-chested Button-quail (one of the most beautiful small
birds Ive seen), Little Button-quail, Plainswanderer and Stubble Quail on the
spotlighting night - great spotlighting night with males and females
seen
. hundreds of Whiskered Terns and Hoary-headed Grebes
breeding
. the bird hide at Mathoura where we spent a couple of hours
watching the passing parade of various waterbirds and herons, including
Great-crested Grebes, numerous Intermediate Egrets and many Nankeen (rufous)
Night-Herons from the nearby rookery, and flocks of Tree Martins
hawking
. finally seeing the Little Bittern male fly over the swamp,
after hearing young birds calling from the reed beds.
cheers
Jenny
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