Hi all,
I was up in Port Pirie for a couple of weeks again and took the chance to do
some birding. The first trip was to the Port pirie wetlands (S 33 11.171
E138 00.235), which turned out to be about 100 metres from where I was
working, right in the middle of Pirie. The highlights included 11 Spotted
Crake, a Buff banded Rail, 20+ red Kneed Dotterel, Banded and Black Winged
Stilts, two wood Sandpiper, two Whiskered tern and two Pink eared Duck. A
total of 36 species.
I also drove over to the Eyre Peninsula (Lake Gilles National Park) in the
hope of finding Blue Breasted Fairy Wren, Rufous treecreeper and Western
yellow Robin. It was a long drive but I was rewarded at s33 04.625 e136
43.373 (the first place I stopped) with Rufous Treecreepers and Blue
Breasted fairy Wrens within a few metres of the road. I must say that the
differences between female Blue Breasted and Variegated weren't obvious to
me, although I think the tails did look bluer on the Blue Breasted.
After wandering around covered with flies, I headed back up the road a short
way to S 33 02.859 E 136 46.299 and went into the scrub again and the only
bird I found was a Western Yellow Robin. After that I stopped a few more
times but saw no birds at all. So either these three species are common
there or I was just lucky in where I chose to stop.
I also had a weekend trip back to the Hunter for a wedding. I stayed at a
place called the Carriages in Pokolbin. I had about half an hour to snoop
around their gardens. IN that time I saw 16 species including a Black Faced
Monarch, Varied Sitella, Rufous Whistler and Yellow Thornbill. I also
discovered Double-Barred finches building a nest in a rose bush next to the
verandah with some Red browed Finches who were also trying to build
eventually chasing them off the nest and taking it over. I checked the nest
again later and found the Double-bars back at work on it. A family of Superb
fairy wrens interrupted breakfast by invading the verandah and I spotted two
tiny tree green frogs (no idea what type but they seemed to have orange/rust
coloured undersides) in the same rose bush, just to cap things off.
Nick
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