I spent two weeks at Borroloola, in the Gulf region of the Northern
Territory, from 19th June to 1st July. It was a work trip, but I was able
to do quite a bit of early morning and weekend birding. This is a report of
some of the good records.
Bing Bong is a port facility for a local mining company on the Gulf of
Carpentaria about 50 kms north of Borroloola along a sealed road. At the
end of the sealed road there’s an unsealed track running east for a few
kilometres to a boat ramp. On 22nd June there was a male White-breasted
Whistler in the mangroves just north of the boat ramp, and on a return trip
a week later, a female was at the same spot, as well as a female Mangrove
Golden Whistler. It is also possible to get to the beach close to the port.
This is a good spot for Beach Stone Curlew, but more surprising was a flock
of at least 500 Common Terns – surely a big flock for the end of June. It
was difficult to estimate the numbers in the swirling flock, which had both
immature and breeding plumage birds. There were also good winter numbers of
some waders here, including 14 Grey Plovers, 20 Greenshank and 21 Lesser
Sand Plovers.
The best record of the trip was a flock of six Orange Chats at the water
treatment plant in Borroloola, which is to the west of the township beyond
the Showgrounds. This plant, with three small ponds, can be reached along a
track on the south side of the showgrounds. At first I saw only
females/immature chats, and was trying to make them into Yellow Chats,
which seemed a more likely record for the region, but a male with the black
facial triangle put an end to that. This could be the most northerly record
for Orange Chat in Australia. The two atlases have no records north of
about Burketown, which is about 200 kms further south, and I can locate no
records for the Top End. Also at the ponds were six Pictorella Mannikins,
far fewer than the flock of about 150 I saw here later in the dry in 2003.
At the more northerly of the two boat ramps on the Macarthur River at
Borroloola there were four family groups of Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens, and
a Buff-sided Robin showed well there. Australian Bustards were happily
common in the area, with about 20 records for the two weeks.
Yet again, on my sixth day searching in three visits to Borroloola, there
was not the slightest sign of Carpentarian Grasswren at the 'traditional'
site near Caranbirini, half an hour’s drive west of Borroloola- not a
squeak, not a shadow, not a suspicious footprint. There were, though, two
Sandstone Shrike Thrushes.
On the drive back to Darwin along the Carpentaria Highway and Stuart
Highway, a good place to stop, at least in the dry, is the roadside stop
about 30kms west of Heartbreak Hotel, where Grey-fronted Honeyeaters are
very common – at least 30 came in to drink at the water tank, the sorts of
numbers I've seen every time I've stopped here. We also saw a Black Bittern
at the Ferguson River, north of Katherine, and a single red-faced Gouldian
Finch at Copperfield Dam near Pine Creek, where there were also three
Partridge Pigeons.
Rod Gardner ===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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