Hi,
My sister Joan and I have just come back from a great trip. Thanks to everyone
for their help and advice. We only went for 8 days but did a lot in that time.
There is definitely is no need to wait until spring. There are birds
everywhere and many are breeding. We were seeing crimson and orange chats,
white winged fairy wrens, cinnamon quail thrush, inland dotterals, pied honey
eaters etc from the car.
We travelled up through Renmark and Burra to Marree, which was our base and
from there visited Muloorina Station, Level Post Bay and Coward Springs. The
weather was cold for the first couple of days but then sunny and calm. The
roads were dry and not dusty, the only complaint was corrugations, particularly
on the stretch to Level Post Bay. Although we had a four wheel drive, two would
be fine.
It is not necessary to go to William Creek to see water in Lake Eyre, we had
excellent views from the Marree to William Creek road where it touches Lake
Eyre South (before Coward Springs). Sparkling in the sunshine it really looked
like an inland sea. We were able to walk to the water, which was a thrill. It
was about 600 or 700 metres out over a salt /mud crust that was a bit squelchy
but bore our weight reasonably well. Many people were doing the same and there
were literally hundreds of footprints heading out to the water line. The water
in South Lake Eyre is not joined to that in the North but is quite extensive
and very accessable. The only time we saw waterbirds on the lake was from the
plane from Marree. ($155 per person after the GST for 1 hour 20 minutes).
The best camping place was Muloorina Station (40 km south of Level Post Bay).
No facilities but it is very green and there are many sites with a water
frontage onto a reed filled lagoon which is magic at Sunrise and Sunset. The
waterbirds included great egrets, black commorant, grey teals and reed
warblers. We also saw brolgas, a pair of black eared cuckoos, sacred and red
backed kingfishers, white browed babblers, black kites, tree martins, rufous
and brown song larks, zebra finches, variaiegated fairy wrens and unfortunately
many sparrows. I have never been to Coopers Creek but this spot on the Frome
river, which is fed by an uncapped bore, is what I have always imagined it to
be like. The bore water flows out into the lagoon in a shallow stream that has
steam rising off it.
The other really great camping spot is at Farina (South of Marree) Here you
will be spoiled with flush toilets, hot showers (home made chip heater),
barbecues. and carpets of green grass. The budgerigars are very busy checking
out nesting hollows and getting ready to start homemaking and there were lots
of white breasted woodswallows and song larks. We also saw an emu with 5
chicks.
The highlights of the birding were the chestnut breasted whitefaces at the
Thomas and Thomas spot. When we followed the exact directions we found the
birds easily and as a bonus a pair of Cinnamon Quail thrush. The abandoned car,
on the left, about 200 metre along from where the faint track leads off from
the road was a good pointer. Drive in about a kilometre to the mine site along
the left hand arm of the track. We didn't have any luck with the thickbilled
grasswren.
We had excellent birding one morning on the way up in a patch of mallee by
the side of the road, just out of Morgan. In one spot we saw 7 or 8 black faced
cuckoos, a number of horsfield bronze and a pallid cuckoo. The cuckoos seem to
moving in to be ready for the start of the nesting season. One thing we noticed
was fair numbers of grasshoppers around which may have been attracting the
birds. Grasshoppers were common right through the trip but not yet in plague
proportions.
Another good spot was early in the morning on the third day in a dry river bed
wiith tall redgums. Here there were many mistletoe birds and elegant parrots
also red capped robins, chestnut breasted white faces, inland and yellow
thornbills, white winged fairy wrens, rufous whistlers, jacky winters,
chirruping wedgebills, rufous field wrens, weebills, pardalotes, a restless
flycatcher, banded plovers with half grown chicks and much more.
Getting up to Marree we started to see orange and crimson chats in full
breeding plumage. Gorgeous. We almost had it down to a formula. The trick was
to stop at a really lush patch of vegetation with emu bush out and song larks
calling. We would also find pied honey eaters at these spots.
We saw a lot of birds of prey including, brown falcons, little eagle, kestrals,
black shouldered kites, whistling kites, brown goshawk, and a black falcon at
Burra over the mine. We only saw wedge tailed eagles once on a roadside kill.
It was good identification practice to see such a quantity and variety of
raptors.We didn't see any Aus Pratincoles or treecreepers and only saw
Gibberbirds twice. Blue Bonnets and mulga parrots were common on the side of
the backroad bypass south of Mildura .
Over all it was an excellent trip, nearly everytime we stopped the car we saw
good birds. If you have the chance go.
Barbara Burns
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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