I was originally planning to travel through SW Qld and down to Broken
Hill, but needed to change my itinerary at the last minute. I ended up
travelling to Sturt NP and Broken Hill, setting out 3 weeks ago. On the
Barrier Hwy on the way over and back many goats were evident between
Cobar and Wilcannia. A lot of roadkill, with wedge tailed eagles
regularly spotted, with occasional whistling kite or black kite. Coming
late into Tibooburra a couple of suspected inland dotterels flushed by
the side of the road.
We stayed at Olive Downs for a few nights and this seems the pick of the
campsites, it's tucked into a little gully and quite sheltered. Nice
dawn chorus going every morning as well. The country up there is
starting to green after rain about 3 weeks previously and there's still
water in some of the creeks, quite likely there'll a good display of
wildflowers in a month or so. The loop drives are all very scenic and
the whole time up there we found very relaxing, birds were not super
abundant but I managed to pick up about 8 new species.
At dusk each night we could hear spotted nightjars calling from the
nearby ridges. Some highlights for me were Orange Chats at south Meyer
tank as well as cinnamon quail thrush which gave great views and
photos. Around the camping area chestnut rumped thornbills and southern
whitefaces were seen carrying nesting material, the thornbills were
ferrying sticks and bits of spider web continually to small hollow in a
dead tree about 1.5m above ground. Saw our only Bourke's parrots of the
trip when 2 landed close by near camp. Black Honeyeaters were also
common feeding on eromophilas up on the ridges around the campsite.
Travelled out to the yellow bus site about 50 km west of Cameron Corner
one day to try for the Eyrean grasswren, but dipped there basically
wrong time of day, did find crimson chats, and cinnamon quail thrush,
though. Nothing out of the ordinary seen at Broken Hill. On the way
back flushed a group of about 6 banded lapwing about 1/2 hour west of
Wilcannia and in town, found a flock about 30-40 Red tailed black
cockatoos feeding in a tree in a backyard.
regards,
Chris Ross
www.aus-natural.com <http://www.aus-natural.com/>
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