Hi All,
Have just returned from an extended inland drive, Sydney, Burren
Junction, Bourke, Wilcannia, White Cliffs, Tibooburra, Peterborough,
Mungerannie, Simpson Desert, Mt.Dare, Finke, Chambers Pillar, Alice Springs,
Tanami, Balgo, Canning Stock Route, Wiluna, Kalgoorlie, Norseman, Nullabor
Plain, Clare, Mildura, Sydney. Not all birding.
Picked up the GREY-HEADED LAPWING at Burren Junction on 21st July,
after half an hour's search it flew in to land near us, over the road and
east of the silos. Three birder's cars pulled up behind us, one from Port
Macquarie. Also videoed a White-faced Heron with completely white head
nearby.
Little to excite birdwise down the Darling River from Bourke, to White
Cliffs thence Tibooburra
It rained for the first time in seven years the night we stayed at
Tibooburra, cruelling our chances of getting to Innaminka via Cameron Corner
and doing the Walker's Crossing route to the Simpson. We detoured via
Peterborough SA, and Mungerannie on the Birdsville track.
Saw 20 plus CINNAMON QUAIL-THRUSH on the Warburton track section of the
Simpson Desert crossing, . Not even footprints of Eyrean Grasswrens on the
occassional dunes we explored. Recent patches of rain turned some of the
swales lush, with Orange and Crimson Chats, Banded Whitefaces, Spiny-cheeked
and Singing Honeyeaters. Mount Dare rife with bedbugs and Red-tailed Black
Cockatoos. Torresian Crows sitting on top of Chamber's Pillar beyond Finke.
More bedbugs at Alice Springs. Diesel at Rabbit Flat on the Tanami was
$2.80/l plus 5% for credit cards.
Lake Gregory was subsiding after floods, the usual YELLOW CHAT areas
of Samphire had been burned out and we saw none. Silver Gulls, Whiskered and
Caspian terns among the thousands of Wandering Whisleducks. Flushed BROWN
QUAIL, and Spotless Crakes along the lake margins.
Numerous PIED, BLACK, WHITE-FRONTED and GREY-HEADED HONEYEATERS,
Spiny-cheeked the commonest but plenty of Singing and Brown Honeyeaters.
Thousands of Crimson Chats and Black-faced Wood-swallows on the Canning
Stock Route, scattered WHITE-BACKED SWALLOWS, many Bustards, but no PRINCESS
PARROT (repeat no) despite a three day stake-out around wells 40 and 39, the
former a stinking pool on this occasion. Grey-headed honeyeaters actually
eating eucalypt leaves, nibbling along their edges, and Zebra finches
feeding on the base of Goose-neck Grevillea flowers were noted along the
track. Western Bowerbirds, Mulga Parrots, Peewees,Cockatiels at Well 6, plus
amorous Kestrels, Western Magpies, Australian Ringnecks, active nests of
Torresian Crow, Hobby.Yellow-thrroated Miners chased everything smaller
away, eg Black and Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters and Variegated Fairywrens in
the perimeter scrub. RED-BACKED KINGFISHERS were almost common, we saw four
at various spots right along the Canning, three of them many many miles from
surface water.
A pair of very approachable CHESTNUT-BREASTED QUAIL-THRUSH seen in
mallee 10km north of Wiluna WA at the S end of the CSR. Black Swans flying
down the main street of Wiluna were a surprise, they were breeding on salty
Lake Violet (not the settlement) 10 km east of town along with 250 BANDED
STILTS and 50 Australian Shelducks. Also White-faced and Pacific Herons,
Sacred and Straw-necked Ibis, Red-capped Dotterels. Wiluna a good place to
compare and contrast Torresian and Little Crows which mingle there.
LAUGHING DOVES at Leonora, south of Wiluna.
51 k west of Menzies, S of Leonora, Lake Ballard, a salt lake in the
middle of nowhere, is, bizarrly, the setting for 51 life size cast stick
figures extending hundreds of metres out onto the salt. Banded Stilts have
bred here.
The Eyre Bird Observatory list claims Chestnut Quail-thrush, contrary
to disribution maps. We didn't see any QTs there, nor along the Arubiddy
road off Cocklebiddy WA, but a tame Bustard was on that road.
Penny found a pair of NULLABOR QUAIL-THRUSH at a site in South
Australia, our only tick of the trip. (Looks quite different to the Cinnamon
of which it is classed as a subspecies) 20 BLUE-BILLED DUCKS on the lake in
the park at Clare SA. White-plumed Honeyeaters sipping from the basal leaf
glands of flowering acacias nearby.
Finished with a great meal and wines at Stephanos at Mildura, (The
quail stuffed with chicken forcemeat was superb), noted another Caspian Tern
and Silver Gulls over the Murray.
We don't need to look at another sand dune or corrugation for a while,
but that Princess Parrot must be out there somewhere.
Cheers
Michael
Michael Hunter
Mulgoa Valley
50km west of Sydney Harbour Bridge
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
