We have just returned from a superb week-plus in the Jupiter Well area along
the Gary Junction Highway in WA, where we found the incomparable Princess
Parrot in two different areas. Having tried along the Canning Stock Route from
Billiluna to Kunawarritji in the first week of May, and Jupiter Well for three
days from 6th-9th May, dipping in both areas, we felt we had probably finally
earned it!
The dunes were very different in late June versus early May, with lots of
flowering and loads of good birds that had not been present in the area in May,
including many Pied, Black, White-fronted, and other honeyeaters, and hundreds
of Budgies everwhere, with many prospecting and defending apparent nest sites.
We had Golden-backed Honeyeater possibly well outside normal range, and
bizarrely a flock of Black Swans flying WSW one morning (there is probably no
habitat for the latter within a 500km radius of Jupiter Well).
After searching for a full day on 25th June (when we had some rain) we finally
found some parrots on the morning of 26th, 2.7km NNE of Jupiter Well, after Jon
had first heard one several hundred metres north of the dune top we were on. We
watched 6-8 for several minutes near 0930, then saw where they went to day
roost. We left them alone, returning at 1500, just in time for them to break
roost, where they accumulated in another Sand Dune Bloodwood. We had scope
views here down to 20m for nearly half-an-hour of a flock of 12, even getting
some reasonable digiscopes. They shot off strongly to the E at 1609. All these
observation were within a short radius of 22 51 12.5 S, 126 36 17.9 E.
In the same area on the morning of the 27th we had at least three parrots for a
few minutes. Their footprints were very obvious on the dune tops, and we were
able to identify the grass species they were eating. However, searching this
same area on 28th and 29th, we saw no more.
On the drive in from Alice, we had passed through some dune areas 40-60km E of
Jupiter Well that we thought (in our relative ignorance at the time) looked
potentially good for parrots. Reluctantly leaving the great birding at Jupiter
Well, we stopped in this area on the way out. It was even more packed full of
nomadic birds, honeyeaters, Budgies, etc.
Incredibly, at 0715 on the morning of 30th June we found a flock of eight
Princess Parrots some 44km E of Jupiter Well. Watching them on and off for
nearly half-an-hour feeding in several shrubs (later identified), the flock
swelled to 21 by 0746, but then disappeared to the south, and could not be
refound that morning despite extensive searching. We returned to the same area
in the late afternoon, and had a pair fly strongly overhead going SE at 1611,
but saw no more. We searched the same area the following morning, and a few kms
to the east, but with no more sightings. All of these observations we in the
area of 22 45 37.9 S, 126 58 11.6 E.
Australia is a land full of great parrots, but Princess Parrot is truly
stunning and is arguably the best. It is very well worth the effort involved in
seeing it. It is enhanced, if possible, by the great habitat in which it
occurs, and this is even better when it is flowering and packed full of great
nomadic birds.
Many thanks to Janet Morris (of North West Safaris) who originally told me of
her sightings at Jupiter in late April 2008, Don Hadden for his 2008 update
from there and Well 44 on the CSR, and Merilyn Browne for her more recent
observation from Jupiter Well.
Cheers, Jon and Anne King.
===============================
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:
===============================
|
