SOUTH-WEST WESTERN AUSTRALIA
1-16 NOVEMBER 2003
TRIP REPORT
Introduction
Some friends and I spent two weeks in the south-west of Western Australia
in early November. These friends were my wife, Rosemary, Ross and Jann
Mulholland and Lorand Szucs from Sydney, Fred Smith from Melbourne and
Frank O'Connor from Perth. Of course, the trip was mostly about birds with
an emphasis on the SW endemics. We were also interested in sea-birds, with
trips planned out of Albany and to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. As I will
describe below, the trip went exceptionally well on all fronts.
Trip highlights
On Saturday, 1 November, we all gathered in Perth in the morning and
traveled down to Albany in the afternoon. On the way down, we saw a good
number of birds, which included Laughing Turtle-Dove, Long-billed and
Short-billed Black-Cockatoos, Regent Parrot, Western Rosella, Red-capped
Parrot, Elegant Parrot, Western Yellow Robin and White-breasted Robin. We
stayed at the very comfortable Coraki Cottages. The prognosis for our
planned pelagic out of Albany was excellent.
Sunday dawned fine and cool and we set off with Spinners Charters and two
extra enthusiasts, Stuart Pell and Snow Perry. It started slowly as it
takes a fair while to clear the bay and then to get to the shelf. However,
once we got there, the birds were terrific with Grey Petrel, Sooty
Albatross, Wandering Albatross (two races - exulans and gibsoni) and
Soft-plumaged (including one dark morph), White-headed and Great-winged
Petrels. We managed to show Frank two new birds (the second of which was
his 700th species for Australia), which he was pretty pleased about. And,
Fred also got a surprise new bird in the Grey Petrel.
Early next morning, we set off for Cheyne Beach, Frank's recommended spot
for the "Big 3". We went straight to the territory of a Noisy Scrub-bird
and started looking. It must be a good spot because, in less than an hour,
we had had excellent views of a Noisy Scrub-bird in the open, two singing
Western Whipbirds on a branch and two Western Bristlebirds foraging along
the edge of a fire-break. Quite unbelievable!! We also saw Red-eared
Firetail and Western Spinebill. We spent some time looking for Ground
Parrot but couldn't find it. We were surprised to find a Southern Boobook
hunting in daylight. And that was only in the morning. In the afternoon,
we went across to Two People's Bay and found a single Rock Parrot.
As we had found our target birds in this area, on Tuesday we moved on to
Rocky Gully for Western Corella (race pastinator), to the Karri / Tingle
and Jarrah / Marri forests where we saw Western Thornbill and Red-tailed
Black-Cockatoo (race naso), and to Sugarloaf Rock at Cape Naturaliste for a
breeding Red-tailed Tropicbird. We tried to stay at the Fawlty Towers
Motel in Bunbury but there were no vacancies, so we made do elsewhere.
Wednesday and Thursday found us at Dryandra looking at Blue-breasted
Fairy-wren, Bush Stone-Curlew and Rufous Treecreeper. Some of us saw
Numbat, but unfortunately I didn't. Only Frank saw one Crested Shrike-tit
(of the western race) but it flew and could not be relocated. We did some
spotlighting, which provided lots of common mammals. However, it was not
all that exciting as we saw neither the rarer mammals nor any night-birds.
By now, it was very warm during the day but we were very comfortable for
the two nights at a farm-stay near Narrogin.
Having cleaned up the SW endemics, we were off to the dry country around
Mount Magnet. We stopped off at Flynn Road (east of Perth), which is a
reliable place (if in fact one exists) for the Shrike-tit, but we did not
see one. Heading north, we saw Mute Swan at Northam and Australian Bustard
and Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (race samueli) on the way. It was now
getting quite hot during the day.
On Friday night, we stayed at Payne's Find. The accommodation there was
pretty ordinary but it was very close to the first of Frank's Grey
Honeyeater spots. And, on cue, early next morning, we saw one of these
nondescript but enigmatic little birds, along with several birds new to our
list like Crimson Chat. We also saw Little Woodswallow at the Granites and
Rufous Fieldwren (although this was not the western race montanellus) in a
salt-bush area.
For the next three nights, we stayed at Nallan Station, near Cue. Around
its environs, we saw Western Bowerbird, Chiming Wedgebill, Slaty-backed
Thornbill, Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush and White-browed Treecreeper.
The bowerbird was Ro's 600th Australian bird. Surprisingly, we could not
find any Bourke's Parrots. We also spent some time east and south-east of
Cue at Austin Downs and Walga Rock and found Banded Whiteface, more Crimson
Chats, White-backed Swallow and Ground Cuckoo-shrike. We spent a fair bit
of time west of Cue looking for Inland Dotterels, but were not lucky enough
to stumble over them. The temperature at Nallan was very hot and we spent
most of the afternoons relaxing at the cottage (with the odd cold beer in
the cool of the evening).
On the 11th, we headed off to Geraldton, with a brief and unproductive stop
at Yalgoo. It seemed pretty hot there. We found out why when we got to
Geraldton, where it was 44(superscript: o)C. Fortunately, the "Geraldton
Doctor" (named by Fred) came in soon after we arrived and the temperature
went down into the 20's. The hot weather had one advantage as it
guaranteed that we would get to the Houtman Abrolhos - the constant strong
easterlies were briefly interrupted, which gave us terrrific sea conditions
for the 3 ½ hour trip over and back. The reduction in wind explained why
it was so hot.
The Houtman Abrolhos Islands have a long history. The most significant
event was the loss of Francisco Pelsaert's Batavia in 1629, the first of
several shipwrecks on these islands. The bloody sequel of mutiny and
reprisal is well documented. The islands also have a long fishing history.
However, it is their status as an excellent seabird breeding colony that
attracted us. We visited three islands - Morley, Wooded and Leo. We were
rewarded with sightings of Lesser Noddy, Little Shearwater, Roseate Tern,
Spotless Crake and Sooty and Bridled Terns. All together, we saw 8 species
of tern on the day.
Kalbarri National Park is a good land-based place to visit. On the
Thursday, we saw Rufous Fiedwren (the montanellus race), Square-tailed Kite
and Spotted Harrier among other birds, as well as three out-of-range
Singing Bushlarks south of Kalbarri. The STK story was interesting as we
decided to visit the Ranger's Office just outside of the Kalbarri township
to enquire about the best place to find this species. While we were in the
middle of questioning the ranger, Fred spotted a STK flying over the top of
the office, to the Ranger's amazement and our delight.
Friday found us on our way back to Perth. We went through Moora to find
the northern race of the Western Corella (race butleri). We again visited
Flynn Road for the Shrike-tit (unsuccessfully) and went onto the Fremantle
Hotel.
On our last full day, we went to Rottnest Island, looking for the
introduced specialities - Common Pheasant and Indian Peafowl. We were
hoping to find Red-necked Phalarope (and did). We also saw Rock Parrot
(again), Buff-banded Rail (breeding) and lots of Banded Stilts.
On the Sunday morning before flying out, we optimistically visited Flynn
Road again for one last chance at the Shrike-tit. Our optimism was
misplaced and we left WA without seeing this bird.
Bird Summary
Overall, in our two weeks, we recorded 225 species, a total we thought
quite presentable. There were many new birds seen - from a high of 33 for
Ro (to be expected for someone who had not been to WA before) to only 1 for
Fred. The highlights were bird number 700 for Frank and number 600 for Ro.
Ross also had a small chance of getting to 700 as well, but in the end he
fell a handful short.
Other good things
One of the attractions of SW WA is the wild-flowers. Frank and Jann,
particularly, were very interested in these and we saw many, many species.
More importantly, the WA wine was well sampled. It was generally
excellent.
References
It is hard to go past Frank O'Connor's web-site as a primary reference for
birding in WA. There is a wealth of information there, which helped us
significantly in planning our trip. We didn't use this info much on the
trip itself, but then with Frank accompanying us, that was a bit
superfluous.
All of us were very grateful to Frank for the help he gave and wish to
thank him for his kindness and generosity. I think you will agree that our
trip went very well.
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