Hi Nikolas,
I did a trip to SW-WA back in 2006, I drove over with my family for that
trip. I have a few tips based on what we did:
Stirling Ranges. We stayed at Stirling Range retreat for 3 nights,
there is great birdlife around the park including nesting W yellow
robin, dusky woodswallow, willy wagtail, varied sitella, restless
flycatcher and square tailed kite. When I was there they had a morning
bird walk with a local birder, the guy who took me around was very good
at finding nests. You'll also get Blue Breasted Fairy Wrens there, but
they are exceedingly shy.
I'd suggest checking out the little cafe across the road from Stirling
range retreat they had honey possoms which were living in the grevilleas
in front. They got active round 4:00pm or so. They were quite a
photographic challenge as they were lightning fast and I didn't get
anything worthwhile.
The orchid trip is definitely worth doing if they are still doing it,
they take you out to find some of the local orchid specialities. You'll
find some sun orchids amongst others around the camping area, but it
needs to be a warm day for them to open. I'd have never found them many
of the orchids without the trip. Some good orchids included butterly
orchid, common dragon orchid and blue lady orchid. Some examples are on
my website here:
http://www.aus-natural.com/Flora/Orchids/index_gallery.html
also some other wildflowers here:
http://www.aus-natural.com/Flora/Australian%20Wildflowers/slides/Mountain%20Bell.html
http://www.aus-natural.com/Flora/Australian%20Wildflowers/slides/Purple%20Callitrix.html
<http://www.aus-natural.com/Flora/Australian%20Wildflowers/slides/Mountain%20Bell.html,http://www.aus-natural.com/Flora/Australian%20Wildflowers/slides/Purple%20Callitrix.html>
The purple callytrix was quite common around Stirling Range Retreat.
If you want to photograph orchids, wind I found was a constant
challenge, I used a diffusion tent which is effective at blocking the wind.
We found a bunch more orchids around Nornalup, the tourist info centre
at Walpole had a display of many of the different orchids from the area
and the guy on duty gave me good directions to find about 6 or so
species around the area including the king in his carriage orchid.
Tourist info centres all knew a little about orchids, some were better
than others but all worth asking about. I found the Karri spider orchid
at the start of the walk to the giant Karri tree which is between
Nornalup and Walpole. The tourist info centre at Albany was also good
with some directions to orchids.
If you're wanting to see Noisy scrub birds and west bristlbirds, I'd
recommend staying at Cheyne beach caravan park, they advertise in
Wingspan, they'll have info about what's been seen around there, the
heath where you'll find these 2 birds is right outside the fence.
There's lots good birdlife within the park including red winged fairy
wrens and white breasted robins. I got this shot of a western
bristlebird there:
http://www.aus-natural.com/Birds/Australia/Songbirds/slides/Western%20Bristlebird.html
and this in the van park:
http://www.aus-natural.com/Birds/Australia/Songbirds/slides/Western%20Bristlebird.html
Didn't manage to see any noisy scrub birds but had 3 or 4 different
birds calling one, right on the corner of the van park. I also heard
western whipbirds there but didn't see them. I'd recommend calling into
Two People's Bay as it is very scenic. I heard scrub birds there but no
sighting and no bristlebirds either, though if I call recall correctly
it was windy there. Splendid fairy wrens and red eared fire tails
started to become more common around Nornalup.
There's also plenty of landscape photo opportunities, particularly
beaches, I've got a gallery from SW WA in the scenic gallery on my website.
For orchids this book is highly recommended it has mud maps for finding
many species.
"A guide to Native Orchids of South Western Australia" by Bob
Liddlelow ISBN 0 9587532 4 5
I used it on a subsequent trip to Perth and found the orchids without
too much difficulty.
I didn't go further west than Walpole on that trip, if you look in the
orchid book there are a lot of mudmaps for orchids in the Cape Leeuwin
Margaret river region which would be worth checking out. The book
should be available from tourist info shops or bookshops when you get to
WA.
Hope that's helpful,
Chris Ross
http://www.aus-natural.com/
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