We took advantage of a moderation in the temperature in Perth (50 odd days
above 30 degrees) and a Labour Day long weekend to try and check out what
has been happening ornithologically up north and strapped on our heavy
non-leica bins and non-leica scope and headed up the Great Northern highway
with hope in our by heart, mostly brought about by the BOM 3 month rainfall
maps which show 100 mm rain contour lines spaced about 100 km apart. A
thrown fan belt had us limping into Dallwalineu late Fri night, a bit short
of our intended target. The car died in the car park of the hotel. With the
help of half a dozen locals we managed to get going at about 10:30, a good 6
hours later than planned. Anyway country looked promising as we approached
Paynes Find - we arranged overnoght accomodation at Ningham Station - with
increasing greenery in the bush, standing water becoming more obvious. The
normal dry-country Redthroats, Crested Bellbirds, Slaty-backed Thornbills
were in song so things were looking good. Then the second hicup - Paynes
Find Roadhouse had been so thrashed by a recent storm it was out of action
with no bowsers working. This is almost exactly half way bewteen Wubin and
Mt Magnet, leaving a 300 km gap in the fiuel supply chain which we had not
counted on. Anyway, we had to backtrack to Wubin to fill up on enough fuel
(high octane to stetch it further - first time a tank has cost me over $100
- thanks Ghaddafi, why don't you retire to the desert?). So somewhat
constrained by this we really only had Sunday to do some decent birding. And
this is what we saw:
White-faced Herons A few about in the floods.
Wedge-tailed Eagles Of course
Little Eagle One near Mt Gibson
Kesterls
Brown Flacon A couple
Hobby A few
Australian Goshawk One over Warne River
Maned Duck Only other waterbird
Crested Pigeons Common
Common Bronzewings Mostly SE of PF
Diamomd Doves Common along Warne River
Port-Lincon Rigneck Common
Mulga Parrot Common PF to Warne River, also Wubin
Major Mitchell's Pair at Ningham station (lifer for Mark
: - )
Red-tailed Black Cocaktoo Flocks at Wubin and SE of PF
Little Correl ID'd at Dalwallineu while waiting for
car part.
Western Correllas Seem to have replaced Littles at
Dalwallineu on the way home.
Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo A few seen and heard along road to warne river
Black-eraed Cuckoo Heard at many stops, seen briefly once
Rainbow Bee-eater
--
Mark Stanley
+61 439 025 774
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