General Itinerary
20 May: Mount Isa sewage works 11.30am, rain nearly gone, then up to the road
near the Lady Loreto Project sign
21 May: Lake Moondara and Warrina Park to 11am, farewell to the "first group".
Hire car and off to Gunpowder and Lake
Waggaboonyah
22 May: Road to Kajabbi through West Leichhardt Station
Birds
20 May
Mount Isa sewage works reveal three immature Chestnut-breasted Mannikin,
Caspian Tern, Purple Swamphen, Hardhead and 14
Pink-eared Duck. The driving rain of the morning has disappeared.
Then we're off up the road west of Mount Isa (out the main highway, turn right
at the Lady Loreto sign) and to the point at
20 16 48 S, 139 08 45 E. This is Carpentarian Grasswren country - more
spinifex, very fresh and spiky. In three and a half
hours of searching, three of us including yours truly had good views of it
(lifer No. 507), and many of the remaining people
had "okay" views or flash views of it. This bird proved to be more reluctant
to show itself than the other
spinifex-specialists reported in my emails on this trip and massive amounts of
patience (and some luck) were required.
Also saw something unexpected here: Spotted Nightjar (lifer 508). I saw a
bird flying and thought it was a raptor because
of its large size and pointed wings. But it alighted on rocky ground only 4
metres in front of me and sat for 2 minutes in
clear view - wonderful. Then it flew away and I saw it flying again including
the beautiful cream round spots in the wings.
In the 3.5 hours here, only saw 6 species of birds in total including the above.
21 May
Morning at Lake Moondarah which proffered water birds such as Comb-crested
Jacana including sub-adults, Dusky Moorhen and 18
Green Pygmy-goose. Australian Bustard in long grass.
Plenty of small birds in the various bushes: Long-tailed Finch - red billed
form (509), Pictorella Mannikin (510) being 4
feeding on marshy ground and the dry rocky path and bathing, Rufous-throated
Honeyeater and Spinifexbird (that was a
surprise). Little Friarbird and Grey-crowned Babbler at the water's edge.
Then time to drop off people at the end of this two-week trip with Richard
Jordan's Emu Tours. Boy was I glad that I wasn't
going home - I'm staying and doing the 2 week trip back to Sydney. So that
means I have some free time between the 2 trips.
Time to hire a car - a mean feat in Mount Isa. The 4 main companies either
didn't have staff, didn't have the vehicle or, if
they had the vehicle weren't going to let you go anywhere with it !! It was
amazing the conditions they wanted to put on it.
I went through Meteor Car Rentals and they were nicely priced and service was
great. I ended up with a 4WD ute which was
good for dealing with the local roads.
Decided to go to Gunpowder "because it was there" plus nearby Lake
Waggaboonyah. Gunpowder is actually a mining area so the
road was corrugated for several kilometres, and generally the road to the town
was relatively unexciting. Some highlights
though were Red-backed and Sacred Kingfisher, Spotted Bowerbird, Ground
Cuckoo-shrike at 19 59 54 S, 139 22 15 E, and
Wandering Whistling-Duck (19 52 02 S, 139 24 42 E). A whitish raptor at dusk
...... crepuscular....... Is it Letter-winged
Kite please??? Naah. Black-shouldered Kite.
On a couple of occasions I had stopped to do some birdwatching and it was quite
heartwarming that blokes would pull up their
big heavy mining truck to check I was okay. A very nice feature of country
areas.
Another reason for going to Gunpowder was that it extended the northern range
for my trip, and this tactic successfully got
me Yellow-tinted Honeyeater (lifer no. 511), a very pretty bird with its golden
head, feasting on newly opened gum tree
flowers, as were the Varied Lorikeet and Silver-crowned Friarbird.
Grey-crowned Babbler didn't care about the people around them: 2 were
vigorously digging at grass tufts until they extracted
and gobbled beetles.
22 May
Off early in the ute (pity I didn't have a dog to put in the back!), this time
heading up the road to Kajabbi and Lake
Julius. I only made it about 50 kilometres up this road because it was very
scenic: through West Leichhardt station and
with great rivers and creeks, fascinating boulder mountains and termite mounds.
Even the plants were quite different with a
strange "Beefwood" grevillea with terete leaves (don't know the scientific
name).
At various points, saw Brown Honeyeater, Grey-crowned Babbler, Spotted
Bowerbird very yellow underneath, Little Friarbird and
Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater (a bird not seen for a few days by now). One creek
proved to be a magnet oasis, revealing 28
Double-barred Finch (black-rumped form), Mistletoebird and Restless Flycatcher
which was calling like mad and showing the
most amazing blue sheen on its head as it held its forehead/crest high in the
sun. Two Grey Shrike-thrush were zapping
around in a tree and at this place I was able to get sooooo close to all these
birds.
This afternoon, the people for the next 2 week trip start arriving. So what's
coming up? Six more lifers!!!
Irene Denton
Concord West, 12 km from Sydney city, NSW, Australia
33 50' 17" S 151 05' 25" E
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