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Arriving back from Christmas Island, tired but content as I
hadn't dipped out on anything that I was hoping to see, I had only a few days to
rest up, wash out my sweat soaked gear, unpack a few boxes in my new house ( as
the Big Twitch will see me away from home for about two hundred nights this
year, I kind of had to find somewhere with much cheaper rent for my Melbourne
base) before heading off to another Wollongong boat trip. My plans had been to
get to Lord Howe Island around this time so that I would be able to get both the
winter nesting Little Shearwater and the summer breeding White-bellied
Storm-Petrel at the same time. But the thought of missing out on another great
pelagic like they had just had in Sydney and Brisbane was too much to bear, so I
rang Lindsay Smith and got a berth on the Sandra K for Saturday.
Then South Australia put up its hand, and plans had to be
changed. Reports began surfacing that Scarlet-chested Parrots had been coming in
to drink every morning at the Homestead Dam at Gluepot. With the Hudsonian
Godwit just down the road in Adelaide, I had no choice but to change plans again
and head off on a big S.A. twitch.
My history of twitches to South Aus has been mixed. I dipped
on the '87 Northern Shoveller, but had success with the '89 Grey Phalarope. And
then there was the New Year's 1987 trip which has to be the biggest rare wader
bonanza this country has ever seen. How's this for a twitch: Hudsonian Godwit,
Little Ringed Plover, Red-necked Phalarope, Cox's Sandpiper (as it was known
then) and Baird's Sandpiper. I think all of these birds had been found by John
Cox, and he managed to show us all of these and more on one of the most
brilliant birding weekends in Aus birding history.
I hadn't seen John Cox since then, but speaking to him on the
phone he remembered me and was quite happy to get me into the saltfields to try
for this year's Hudwit which had been found by David Harper. He even reckoned he
could get me Pec Sand and Long-toed Stint as a bonus, as both species had spent
the summer "just over the back fence" of his house at Dry Creek.
So the plan was set. Accompanying me was Peter Lansley who had
never seen Scarlet-chested Parrot before, one of three or four breeding species
he hasn't got for his Australian list. The idea was that we would leave
Melbourne around six in the evening and drive into the night, arriving at
Waikerie sometime after midnight. We would then sleep in the car and pick up the
key to Gluepot as soon as the Shell servo opened at six, and hopefully be at the
dam by 7:30 when the parrots had been coming in to drink.
The plan didn't exactly pan out that way. We sort of didn't
leave Melbourne till about 7:30. Then we realised that as we would be camping
we'd better buy some food. So after stopping at Gisborne for dinner and supplies
(if only these country towns were aware of how much money idiot birders like us
pump into their struggling economies) we were now about three hours behind
schedule. By the time we stopped for a drinks break at Ouyen (still close to
three hours from Waikerie) it was well after midnight and it didn't look as if
we would get to our destination till about four A.M. All I had to show for it
was a Barn Owl on the outskirts of Sea Lake.
As I was stretching my legs I could hear a hissing sound.
"That bloody Lansley, you can't take him anywhere." I thought, but instead of
Peter taking a leak against the car, it was the rear tyre slowly deflating. I
had probably punctured it pulling into the servo. Grumbling at my puny
physique I began the arduous process of changing a tyre on a Land Cruiser.
Struggling and cursing with the wheel, all I could think of was that it we
wouldn't get any sleep.
Here's a tip. If you have to change a tyre, try not to do it
when you are dog tired. I finally got the flat tyre off and was trying to
place it on the mount on the back of the car, the tyre slipped, crushing my
finger and gouging out the nail. Maybe if I had been less tired I would have
been more aware, maybe if I wasn't such a puny wimp I would have been able stop
the wheel from falling. Whatever the reason, I now found myself in casualty in
Mildura Hospital at five in the morning, all hope of getting to the dam by dawn
completely gone.
As it turns out, the parrots hadn't made an appearance that
morning, which was lucky, as I had to hang around Mildura waiting for a
precautionary x-ray. We finally got going all bandaged up and across the Sunset
Country into the Murray Mallee adding for to the list: Spiny-cheeked
Honeyeater, Yellow-throated Miner, Emu, Blue Bonnet and
Southern Whiteface.
After collecting the key we finally headed into the mallee
country towards Gluepot about 12 hours behind schedule. Even before we had got
to Gluepot itself we saw a Chestnut Quail-thrush fly across the
track in front of us. Getting out of the car, the mallee was alive with bird
calls, mainly Yellow-plumed and White-fronted
Honeyeater. I saw a black
and white bird flying off, and chased after it hoping it would be a White-winged
Triller or Hooded Robin, both birds I needed. The bird landed in the top of a
mallee tree about ten metres away and revealed itself to be a male Pied
Honeyeater, an entirely unexpected find, and a bird that I was not
confident about seeing later in the year because it is the kind of phantom
species that can be missed despite spending a lot of time within their range. To
make this stop even more worthwhile Peter managed to track down the elusive
Striated Grasswren, another bird that can be quite tricky.
Once at Gluepot, despite it being in the heat
of late afternoon, birds were in abundance including amongst others;
Apostlebird, Ringneck and Mulga Parrot, Red-capped and
Hooded Robin, Crested Bellbird (heard only), and more
Quail-thrush including a pair that wandered through our camp. As the sun began
to sink towards the west, we set ourselves up by dam, hoping that the parrots
may come in to drink after what had been quite a warm day. Common Bronzewing and
the Black-winged form of Grey Currawong came into drink, but no
parrots.
Penny Drake-Brockman who was putting in a couple of weeks
volunteer survey work at Gluepot wandered over and gave us the bad news that the
birds hadn't been coming in for two days now. She seemed incredulous that
despite this bad news we still persisted in waiting for the birds anyway, but
what she didn't appreciate is that I had come a long long way, had disfigured
myself, ruining my lucrative hand-modelling career in the process and I wasn't
about to let a small fact like the birds not being there from stopping me.
She was right though, the birds didn't come in. But just
before it got dark, an early rising Spotted Nightjar flew a
couple of circuits around the dam giving me my best views ever of this species-
you could really see how much browner this species is compared to
White-throated.
After a night being serenaded by Boobooks and Owlet Nightjars,
we awoke at dawn and headed back out to the dam. Having settled down to wait, a
Peregrine Falcon swooped in over the dam scaring any birds away. I emerged from
the makeshift hide and stood with Peter discussing our options. With the
Peregrine around there was fat chance of the parrots coming and I was
saying as much to Peter when a female Scarlet-chested Parrot
flew in, circled around us and flew out again. It never re-appeared,
nor did any of its stunning red chested mates, but we had good enough views to
tick off the bird- number 739 for Peter, and number 373 for The Big
Twitch.
Satisfied we wouldn't see the birds again, we spent the rest
of the morning around Gluepot, adding even more birds such as Regent
Parrot, Chestnut-rumped Thornbill, Southern Scrub-robin, Gilbert's Whistler,
and Fork-tailed Swift.
Now it was onto Adelaide for twitch number two. We arrived at
John Cox's place to be greeted with the news that the Pectoral Sandpiper that
had been there all Summer had disappeared two days before, but that he had seen
Long-toed Stint that morning. We went out to the drying wetland just behind
John's house and couldn't find the stint. Couldn't find it the next day, and
John still hadn't seen it a few days later. Looks like the little bugger which
had hung around all Summer had decided to rack off the day I
arrived.
Undeterred, we headed off with David Harper out to the Penrice
Saltfields to look for the Hudwit. The Penrice Saltfields, right on the
outskirts of Adelaide is one of the truly magnificent waterbird areas in the
country, on a par with Werribee and in some ways, even better. Aesthetically it
looks grander and it seems to turn up good vagrant with remarkable regularity.
Driving around, waiting for birds to come in on the high tide from feeding out
in the Gulf of Saint Vincent, I got Slender-billed Thornbill,
White-winged Fairy-wren, Grey Plover and Red Knot. But
no Hudwit.
It was quite a small tide, and there is always the risk that
larger waders such as Godwits will roost out closer to the feeding grounds if
the tide isn't sufficient to force them off. We only had about half an hour of
light left when a flock of Black-tailed Godwits flew in. The
Hudwit hadn't been hanging around with these birds, but it was a good sign as at
least the birds were coming in. Then someone saw a pair of black underwings and
yep, there it was, a breeding plumaged Hudsonian Godwit who had
that day decided to hang out with its Black-tailed cousins.
We all retired back to John's house, much relieved, none more
so than David who later confessed to becoming very stressed that he might not be
able to get the bird for me. I told him that I'd been birding long enough to
know you dip a hell of a lot of the time. In fact I always fully expect to dip
out on every twitch. It means if I do I don't feel let down, and if I don't, I'm
always doubly pleased.
But of course the reality is if we hadn't have seen it, I
would have personally held David responsible and would never have forgiven him
and besmirched his name at every opportunity. But we did see it so he's a great
bloke and a brilliant birder. And I left Adelaide with the total on 382, and
another bird (the Hudwit) that at the start of the year I had no expectation of
seeing.
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