3 Grasswren Trip Report part 2

[John Leonard <>]

27/09 Driving from White Cliffs northwards in the morning we saw a lone Bourke's Parrot about 50km along the road. Also along the road we began to see the birds that would be common west of the Darling: Chestnut-crowned Babblers, Chirruping Wedgebill, Singing Honeyeater, Black-faced Woodswallow, Little Corellas, and, nr to the main Broken Hill to Tibooburra Highway, the only White-backed Swallows of the trip.

 

After Tibooburra we headed to Cameron's Corner and began to see Zebra Finches, Australian Pratincoles, Banded Lapwings, and stopped in several places looking for Banded Whitefaces, but saw only Southern Whitefaces.

 

The country west of the Darling was in almost as lush a state as the country east, although fortunately the unsealed roads, throughout the trip, were dry and very well graded.

 

Beyond Cameron Corner and into South Australia, we stopped at the 'Eyrean Grasswren Site', 37 km west of CC. Here we found two Banded Whitefaces, although we were puzzled as to why they were so black and white, with almost no buff on them. They were definitely Banded Whitefaces, perhaps they were juveniles? Can anyone comment, the field guides don't mention the juvenile plumage.

 

We also saw plenty of White-winged Fairywrens, and a solitary Orange Chat. But I must admit I was surprised at the appearance of this site, and the Strezlecki Desert generally. I was expecting it to be more sandy and less vegetated, and this site didn't seem to me to have enough canegrass to be a good Eyrean Grasswren site.

 

Still hopeful we pushed on and 50 km from CC we stopped at a dune that had excellent canegrass along its crest north and south. After less than five minutes north of the road we detected six Eyrean Grasswrens in company with a smaller number of WW Fairywrens. These birds are very distinctive, very rufous above and white below, and altogether ripper birds. We watched them for some time, and although they were curious, perching high in the bushes to watch us, they wouldn't let us get very near. There was no point chasing them further along the dune, so we left them. (GPS 28 55 56, 146 24 45)

 

The rest of the day we travelled to Innamincka without seeing very much else other than a Barn Owl on the road after dark. Just before dusk we came across a solitary dune of pure loose sand, without vegetation. I was amused to find growing on it Sea Rocket (Cakile maritima), a sp of world-wide distribution, though, I had assumed, only on sand dunes near the sea!

 

28/09 We drove from Innamincka south through SW Qld towards the Warri Gate into NSW. The first 100 kms of this road would have to be the most desolate landscape in Australia: pure gibber plain with hardly a sprig of vegetation and a bush perhaps once every ten kilometres. In this stretch we saw one Gibberbird. After a while we came to some creeks and along them found spp such as: Variegated Fairywrens of the inland race, Peaceful Dove, Black-faced Woodswallow with dependent young, White-winged Triller, Mallee Ringneck and White-plumed Honeyeater. A pair of Bourke's Parrots flew by.

 

After this the country becomes more varied and there are sand hills with spinifex. I had half a mind to stop and look for Grasswrens, and I noted, after our return,  that Schodde and Mason refer to reports of a population of Striated Grasswrens in this area (Santos Station).

 

6km north of the Warri Gate a little bundle of fluff ran across the road and we stopped. Two nearby tufts of grass resolved quickly into two agitated parent Inland Dotterel. In all they had three chicks, but the one that had run across the road was much smaller than the others; was this a third chick that was not doing as well and destined to die, or do IDs lay eggs at intervals and have chicks at different stages of development?

 

The interesting thing about Inland Dotterels is that the field guides depict them in profile, and you see a sandy coloured bird with a hint of an orange belly and a shoulder stripe. What you actually see when you see them in round is the prominent disruptive camouflage pattern of a bold black 'Y' on their front and an intense orange/ochre belly.

 

On into Sturt NP and more Budgies and couple more Gibberbirds. At various points on the trip we estimated the speed of various creatures travelling parallel to our vehicle: Galahs can go at 45kph, Red Kangaroos at 50kph, but Budgies' speed seems to be 60kph!

 

The rest of the day we spent getting very lost trying to find the Adelaide Gate.

-- 
John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net