Max,
Totally awesome!! It seems you had the best weekend and ALL those
birds.EXCELLENT!! I'm jealous!!
Rob
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 9:19 AM, <>
wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Im just sharing the trip report from my weekend's trip to Coonabarabran,
> hope you enjoy it. We left at around 7:00am on Thursday morning and arrived
> at my grandparent's farm ( 10km NE of Coonabarabran) at around 12:30am. On
> the way up there were a few birds of interest, that I spotted from the car.
> These included: 3 *White-headed Pigeon's *on the wires at Springvale, in
> the Blue Mountains (a new bird for me). *Little Eagle*, *Wedge-tailed
> Eagle *and many *Nankeen Kestrel's*.
> My Grandparents farm is 1000 acres and is made up of paddocks, creekline
> habitat, dams, and ironbark-cypress pine woodland. After good rains which
> had fallen on the farm in February, all the dams were full and the creek was
> almost overflowing. A spot of birding in the late afternoon on Thursday
> produced: *White-throated Treecreeper*, *Buff-rumped and Yellow-rumped
> Thornbills*, a male *Rufous Whistler,* *Yellow-faced* and *White-plumed
> Honeyeaters*,* *and a *Grey Shrike-thrush*.
> An early morning walk on Friday morning, gave me: *Grey- crowned Babbler*,
> *White-winged Chough*, *Common Bronzewing*, *Blue-faced Honeyeater *and *Musk
> Lorikeet*. Throughout the day on Friday I spent most of the time around
> the house and small, but growing orchard, while my Grandad was participating
> in the local ANZAC march, in town. Around the house the birds included:
> *Red-rumped
> Parrots*, *Eastern Rosellas*, *Double-bar Finches*, *Yellow-rumped
> Thornbills*, a *Fan-tailed Cuckoo*, 2 *Red-winged Parrots *which came to
> feed on the olive tree every afternoon, *Superb Fairy-wren's *and of
> course Chickens.
> On Saturday Mum and Dad, kindly agreed to take me to the Pilliga. My
> brother decided not to come and the weather was perfect, so they were added
> bonuses. My target species for the day were: Yellow-billed Spoonbill,
> Spotted Bowerbird, Blue Bonnet Parrot and Hooded Robin. We headed off around
> 8:30am and on the way to Baradine is spotted 3 *Cockateils *on the
> powerlines, my second sighting of these parrots in the wild. At Baradine we
> turned left onto Coonamble Rd and followed it onto Carmel Ln arriving at
> Carmel Lagoon soon after. At Carmel Lagoon we found lots of *Plumed
> Whistling-duck's*, *Eurasian Coots*, *Australasian Grebe's *and *Grey
> Teal's*. A *Brown Falcon *stirred things up a bit when it began to play
> with the Galah's, but soon left and began to circle in a distant
> paddock. The weird thing was that we saw a *Purple Swamphen *and nesting
> *Black
> Swans*, which are both considered to be rare in the Pilliga, but no
> Yellow-billed Spoonbill, which is considered to be common. On to Bird Route
> 4 in the Pilliga which, while driving produced *Apostlebirds*, White-winged
> Chough's, Grey-crowned Babblers, *Mallee Ringneck*, and many Red-rump
> Parrots, Cockateil's and Eastern Rosellas. We stopped at the corner of Log
> Rd and short walk gave us: *Inland Thornbill *(a new bird for me), *Speckled
> Warbler*, *White-eared Honeyeater *and Buff-rumped Thornbills. Our next
> stop was at the corner od the Western Way, and after writing in the birds
> I'd seen a quick look up in the sky gave me 2 new birds! The first was a
> *White-browed
> Woodswallow *accompanying a couple of *Masked Woodswallows *and *White-backed
> Swallow*. Easily my favourite species of Swallow. After that most of the
> birds began to settle down through the heat of mid-day, but a stop at a dry
> river bed proved me to be wrong. We saw anothern 2 White-backed Swallows,
> and after walking up the river bed a bit me and Mum found a shady pool of
> water. This spot attracted White-plumed Honeyeaters, Double-bar Finches,
> *Striated
> Pardalote,* a distant Wedge-tailed Eagle,* *and *Spiny-cheeked
> Honeyeater's *which I hadn't seen since I was at Uluru last year. From
> there on the birding wasn't very good because it was the middle of the day,
> but at least someone was happy, Dad was in his element (4WDriving) although
> the tracks weren't tough it was still nice to be of the tarmac for a while.
> We arrived at Pilliga Pottery at around 3:00pm had a milkshake and went to
> have a look around, while Mum and Dad were looking at the pottery I found a
> *Brown Treecreeper, Little Lorikeet *and a pair of very obliging *Hooded
> Robins *aswell as a lone *Diamond Firetail*.
> So all in all I only found one of my target species, but we still had a
> great day and accumulated a count of 56 different bird species.
> On the way home on Sunday I saw Wedge-tailed Eagles, *Black-shouldered
> Kite *and when we stopped at Lake Windamere for a break I found a new
> bird, for me. Three *Hoary-headed Grebes*, close to te lake edge.
>
> Max.
> Sydney...
>
> P.S. This brings my Australian Bird List count to 278!
>
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