Hi Max,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your trip report, and I especially loved
the humorous jab at your brother in your trip report (aaaahhhh...
sibling rivalry on a family car trip). Keep up the posts - I think
they're excellent.
Cheers,
Beth.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Mantle
H: 02 6287 7860
M: 0407 174 427
E:
On 28/04/2008, 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!
===============================
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:
===============================
===============================
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:
===============================
|
