hi all
i had a chance to squeeze in a couple of days birding around alice and cairns
on a work trip last week. sorry for the late posting.
got off to a promising start with a black-breasted buzzard from the window of
the plane just after touchdown in alice on fri.
n'dhala gorge - picked up hooded robin, grey-headed, grey-fronted and possible
grey HEs and wonderful views of a spinifex pigeon plus a pair courting, all in
a side gully that caught the early sun on a v chilly morning. a dusky grassren
in the creek bed. grey (western) shrike thrushes and a western bowerbird also
(seems weird that the former is clumped and the latter split from the
spotted).?
a fleeting glimpse of a painted finch on the track out plus a banded whitefaces
and inland thornbills. also chiming wedgebills on the main road near trephina
gorge.?
the next day i spent four hours driving the old arltunga track (the pub is
closed) looking for spinifexbird but had to settle for spiny-cheeked HE and not
much else. the next day i got a spinifexbird between, of all places, the
helipads and the start of the finke desert race at the 7 mile, and a peregrine
falcon down at finke plus little grassbirds at ellery creek big hole.
at daybreak on tues i made a beeline for the famed kunoth bore and saw a black
falcon just north of alice but the bore itself was very quiet apart from a
small flock of bourkes parrots in flight, their pink bellies showing nicely in
the morning light. i dipped on inland dotterel, which had been seen in the west
mac ranges in recent days, and other targets but what better excuse to go back
to this amazing part of the world.
cairns - i engineered a stopover on weds to hit the botanic gardens and spent
over an hour looking for the papuan frogmouth family reportedly there for all
to see, except me evidently. i did see orange-footed scrubfowl, white-headed
pigeon, yellow oriole, helmeted friarbird, black butcherbird, varied triller
and a possible white-rumped swiftlet.
i stopped for a breather at the picnic area by the lake and was stunned to see
a great-billed heron having a morning preen just above me.
within minutes i had shining starling, yellow-bellied sunbirds, a bar-breasted
HE, nutmeg mannikins and forest KF without leaving my seat.
birds can really mess with your head sometimes.
on the way back along the esplanade, two strangely similar rocks turned out to
be beach stone curlews but alas there was no laughing gull.
19 lifers all up.
happy birding.
shane b
ascot q
-----Original Message-----
From: Ruth Kemp <>
To: Birding Aus <>
Sent: Sat, Jun 13, 2009 9:51 am
Subject: Lake Apex
I was upset at the possible destruction of a great little birding spot.?
It is to be hoped that the work will be stopped and those responsible dealt
with.?
A transcript of the program can be found at?
http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/qld/content/2006/s2597198.htm?
?
Ruth Kemp?
?
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