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Victorian Mallee trip in early June

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Subject: Victorian Mallee trip in early June
From:
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:08:27 +1000
Dear Birding-Ausers,

Ro and I went to the Victorian Mallee for the long weekend in early June. 
We spent 3 days in the Sunset country and 1 at Ned's Corner, seeing 107 
species for the trip. 

We started near Hattah and quickly found a couple of groups of Mallee Emu-wrens 
and our only White-backed Swallow.  We then ventured in to the eastern end of 
Pheeneys Track, where we 
camped, and saw some more Emu-wrens and several groups of Striated Grasswrens.  
We travelled along Pheeneys, which was very quiet except for a nice 
group of Chestnut-crowned Babblers, and camped on South Bore Track.  The layers 
of ice in the billy, on the 
car, on the tent, etc were compensated for by good views of a male Red-lored 
Whistler, which visited in the morning.  However, there were no Grey-fronted or 
Purple-gaped Honeyeaters in areas where I have seen them regularly in the 
past.  On the way out of the Sunset, we bumped into our only White-fronted 
Honeyeater out in the very cleared areas where I wouldn't expect this species.  
We 
saw White-browed Treecreeper at Yarrara Reserve, as expected.

We then went up to Ned's Corner for the last night and looked hard for Inland 
Dotterels on the road at night.  We found one.  Ned's Corner has some good 
birds, 
including a little flock of Apostlebirds around the homestead.  These are 
pretty uncommon in Victoria now.

We rounded out the trip by heading down to Raak Plain.  On the way, we 
found one Striped Honeyeater in the trees around Lake Cullulleraine and a pair 
of Spotted Harriers along the highway to Mildura.  We saw Rufous Fieldwren on 
the Plain, but no Orange Chats.

There seemed to be lots of Chestnut Quailthrush, Shy Heathwrens, Crested 
Bellbirds and Southern Scrub-robins in the mallee and Hooded Robins seemed 
reasonably common.  Overall, our observation was that there were 
good numbers of ground birds around, but low numbers of tree birds.  For 
example, there were few honeyeater species and the common ones, like 
Yellow-plumed, were in low numbers.  We didn't see any White-browed or 
Masked Woodswallows.  It seems to me that the on-going drought(s) in 
Victoria have taken a large toll and the flower-dependent species are 
still significantly affected. 

We only saw one group of three Regent Parrots and no Major Mitchell Cockatoos.  
I think the latter, particularly, are 
in real trouble in Victoria as we have not seen any in the last couple of 
years in our trips to the Mallee.

We also couldn't find any Spotted Nightjars, although we went spotlighting 
on two nights, or any Black-eared Miners, but you still need a fair bit of 
luck to see these in Victoria.  I was also hoping to see some 
Scarlet-chested Parrots in the Sunset but, as usual, they weren't 
co-operative at all.

Regards

Chris


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