Hi all,
Joy Tansey and I went to the Little Desert and Wyperfeld for the Q's
B'Day weekend and had an interseting contrast to what Chris reports from
further north.
On Saturday afternoon and again on Monday morning we tried my new
Forester and headed into Salt Lake in the middle of the Little Desert,
almost due south of Nhill (got to love a Forester on a track that says
"Deep Sand Four Wheel Drive Only"). We wanted Slender billed Thornbill
but on Saturday found no "little brown birds" and on Monday only turned
up a small group of Inland Thornbill. Apart from an Owlet Nightjar and
some silvereyes and a couple of something that looked like hooded robins
that disappeared into the fog of Monday morning the most impressive
thing was the large number of Tawny-crowned, Spiny cheecked, New Holland
and White-fronted Honeyeaters. No Slender billed T'bills though. Bother!
Just outside Nhill on the road south to the Little Desert Lodge we came
across a flock of 1000 +/- Dusky Woodswallow and on Monday morning,
again in the fog of early morning, there was a huge flock of very many
hundred Galahs and Long-billed Corella on the Nhill Racecourse.
At Wyperfeld on Sunday we had a good mix of "little brown birds"
including Chestnut rumped, inland, yellow tailed Thornbills and Slendid
Fairy Wrens. We also had lots of Yellow-plumed, White-eared and New
holland Honeyeater, Sittela, Brown treecreepers, Mulga Parrot, Hooded
Robin, Southern Whiteface and Grey Fantails. Red Throats and Slender
billed T'bills were not seen. Bother again! And only 2 Emu.
But what a brilliant weekend with cold, cold mornings, clear sunny days
and great birding. The wind was a bit of a problem on Saturday and
Sunday and it had the LBBs well hidden, but special birds like Southern
Scrub Robin, Diamond Firetail and lots of Tawny Frogmouth found during a
drive after dinner on Sunday night made up for it.
all the best
Jen
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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