A few days ago I returned from a really enjoyable and diverse couple of
weeks in South Australia, spending a full week at Gluepot with fellow Blue
Mountains birders Jill and Mick Dark; then I travelled up through Port
Augusta and Marree to Muloorina station and the shores of Lake Eyre. I
returned home via Broken Hill and Cobar. At this point I'll mention that
Lake Eyre as I saw it is still far from full and it wasn't possible to get
anywhere near the water, but it was just great to experience the place and
see some inland areas after the rains. The road from Marree to Muloorina &
Level Post Bay was fine for all vehicles with good detours around the few
boggy sections, the worst section being the last 15km to Level Post Bay
which was very corrugated. If I'd had more time I would have spent longer
in far-western NSW, which looks fantastic at the moment and very promising
bird-wise with some areas still inundated.
There is a locust plague in parts of SA and western NSW which makes for
interesting driving, peering through the small gaps between the locusts
splattered all over the windscreen - the worst area was between Hawker and
Peterborough. They are saying that this spring will be really bad, so
anyone planning a trip then should take a radiator guard - as should anyone
going there now.
I have written a report of our week at Gluepot in a separate posting.
Here are just a few of the highlights of the rest of my trip:
TOWARDS THE "INLAND SEA"
4th - 11th May 2000
Mick and Jill headed home, and after a couple of days I found myself in
Port Augusta, where a sunset walk along the shore of Spencer Gulf (near the
Shoreline Caravan Park) revealed a Caspian Tern, 5 Sooty Oystercatchers, 15
Black Swans, and at least 3000 Tree Martins - a fantastic sight as they
wheeled around over the water between a golden sunset in the west and a
rainbow against dark storm clouds in the east. As it got darker they all
perched on the mud flats, allowing me to make a quick estimate of their
numbers, then they all took off together to fly to their roosting places.
Is it common for Tree Martins to flock in such large numbers? (A few days
later I watched around 450 over the waterhole at Muloorina.)
Driving northwards, and on the gibber north of Marree I started to see the
first of many Australian Pratincoles, all rocking the back half of their
bodies up and down in the strange way that pratincoles do. Also in this
area by the roadside I saw many Orange Chats and Pipits, some Banded
Lapwings, Cinnamon Quail-thrush and a pair of Gibberbirds.
I had what I reckon must be the best bed in Australia when I slept under
the stars at Level Post Bay on a dune overlooking Lake Eyre North, lying
awake watching a meteor shower for some of the night. Out here the night
sky is fantastic, with more stars than it's possible to imagine. As dawn
came I awoke to see the dune bathed in a beautiful golden light, and the
vast flatness of Lake Eyre stretching out into the distance.
Of course this is far from where any waterbirds are breeding, in fact it's
far from any water at all, with the level still rising and a long way from
the shore yet. It's difficult to tell just how far away the water was, but
it would have made a long and difficult trek in the sticky salty mud of the
lake bed. Birds were scarce here with only a dozen species found within
500m during my visit, but they included some very nice ones like Orange
Chats, White-winged Fairy-wrens and White-backed Swallows. The only
waterbird was a Silver Gull heard flying over at night on its way
north-west.
Five kilometres back along the road near the channel which connects Lake
Eyre North and South was an immature Swamp Harrier, just hanging motionless
in the air low over the bluebush. At 26km from Level Post Bay in a large
area of canegrass in a depression, I found a Rufous Fieldwren singing his
spirited, syncopated song from the tops of bushes.
Forty kilometres south of Level Post Bay at Muloorina (pronounced with
accent on 2nd syllable) station is a camping area beside the Frome River.
There were plenty of birds here, including the ubiquitious Black and
Whistling Kites, Budgerigars zipping around everywhere, almost tame
Variegated Fairy-wrens with a fully coloured male, Black-faced and the
wonderfully charismatic White-breasted Woodswallows, Clamorous
Reed-Warblers and Rufous Songlarks making lots of noise, White-backed and
Welcome Swallows and c.450 Tree Martins, Red-browed Pardalotes, Red-capped
Robins, Red-backed Kingfishers, Pallid and Black-eared Cuckoos and three
magnificent Brolgas which elicited much admiration from all the campers.
In the morning when I climbed out of my tent, the very first thing to greet
me was the sight of two Brolgas mating (quite a balancing act) while the
young one looked on. It's a very short walk from the camping area to a hot
spring which feeds into the river. Nearby I saw an adult Fan-tailed Cuckoo,
which seems outside the range of this species although the first Atlas
shows an outlying record in that one degree block (29/137).
One of the highlights of the journey home was stopping at Little Topar
Roadhouse between Broken Hill and Wilcannia, where floodwaters were still
lying beside the road. Here it seemed every shrub had a Little Grassbird in
it, and some were feeding young, and there were probably more waterbirds
than I'd seen anywhere else on the trip - mainly coots, teal and
Australasian Grebes. Plenty of Budgies, Zebra Finches, Reed-Warblers and
Singing Honeyeaters, too.
To sum up, anyone travelling overland right now in the hope of seeing water
and waterbirds at Lake Eyre will be disappointed (although I don't know how
it is from William Creek) - a scenic flight would be a better option in
that case. But if you want to see the inland in a good season, then it's a
great time to go.
Carol Probets
>From a very cold Katoomba
Blue Mountains, NSW
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