Yesterday Warren Thompson and I travelled up the Old Glen Innes Road from
Grafton and returned along the Gwydir Highway via Gibraltar Range National
Park. I hadn’t travelled the road for a few years and wanted to check it out
as I needed some fresh air after being chained to the computer so much
recently. The Old Glen Innes Road, or the Old Grafton Road if you are
travelling from Glen Innes, was the main route between Grafton and Glen Innes
before the section the Gwydir Highway running up the Gibraltar Range was opened
on 9 December 1960. The old road opened in 1873 and is a very scenic route
which follows the Boyd and Mann Rivers for many kilometres. The vegetation is
mostly dry open forest but there are numerous stands of Dry Rainforest in the
gullies. The forests frequently have emerging Hoop Pines Araucaria
cunninghamii. Araucarias are relicts from the Gondwanaland past, dating back
to the early Mesozoic Age. We drove through the ‘convict tunnel’ at Dalmorton
(actually I walked accompanied by three Welcome Swallows) which apparently was
not built by convicts but by contractors in 1866-1867. The day was very hot
and muggy. For most of the trip very few birds were seen or heard, partly due
to the incessant buzzing of Cicadas, and partly due to the hot conditions. We
stopped to check out a bird in a rainforest tree which did a disappearing act
but while at the site I heard the distinctive call of the Glossy
Black-Cockatoo. I then observed three of them feeding in a Forest Oak up a
steep embankment. I managed a couple of record shots after climbing the
embankment and wrestling with some Blackberry stems and thorns. Another stop
at a shady grove of rainforest trees produced a juvenile Spectacled Monarch and
a female Scarlet Honeyeater collecting spider webs in a fig tree. An immature
White-bellied Sea-Eagle soaring over the campground at the Mann River Nature
Reserve was a bonus and the call of the Brush Cuckoo from a riverside tree was
also welcome. We were lucky to hear anything above the din of the Cicadas.
Raspberry Lookout, in Gibraltar Range National Park, produced Superb Lyrebird,
on call, and good views of the Varied Sittella (a threatened species), Golden
Whistler, White-naped Honeyeater and Satin Bowerbird. A road-killed
Black-shouldered Kite near Jackadgery was unfortunate but we did see two live
ones later. We finished with a total of 85 bird species and also saw the
Eastern Water Dragon, Eastern Bearded Dragon, Lace Monitor, Garden Sun-skink,
Eastern Grey Kangaroos (at a number of locations) and one Swamp Wallaby. There
were also two road-killed snakes, a Common Tree Snake and a Red-bellied Black
Snake. We were happy with the tally considering the extreme humidity and the
fact that we didn’t visit any large wetlands or coastal sites.
The full list is as follows:
Australian Wood Duck Pacific Black Duck Spotted Dove Brown Cuckoo-Dove
Crested Pigeon Wonga Pigeon Australasian Darter Little Pied Cormorant
White-necked Heron Eastern Great Egret Cattle Egret White-faced Heron
Australian White Ibis Straw-necked Ibis Black-shouldered Kite
White-bellied Sea-Eagle Wedge-tailed Eagle Purple Swamphen Dusky Moorhen
Masked lapwing Glossy Black-Cockatoo Galah Little Corella Rainbow
Lorikeet Scaly-breasted Lorikeet Musk Lorikeet Australian King-Parrot
Crimson Rosella Eastern Rosella Eastern Koel Fan-tailed Cuckoo Brush
Cuckoo Azure Kingfisher Laughing Kookaburra Sacred Kingfisher Rainbow
Bee-eater Dollarbird Superb Lyrebird White-throated Treecreeper Satin
Bowerbird Superb Fairy-wren Red-backed Fairy-wren White-browed Scrubwren
Large-billed Scrubwren Brown Gerygone Striated Thornbill Brown Thornbill
Eastern Spinebill Lewin’s Honeyeater Yellow-faced Honeyeater Bell Miner
Noisy Miner Scarlet Honeyeater Brown Honeyeater New Holland Honeyeater
White-naped Honeyeater Blue-faced Honeyeater Noisy Friarbird Little
Friarbird Eastern Whipbird Varied Sittella Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Golden Whistler Rufous Whistler Grey Shrike-thrush Australasian Figbird
Olive-backed Oriole White-breasted Woodswallow Pied Butcherbird
Australian Magpie Pied Currawong Grey Fantail Willie Wagtail Torresian
Crow Leaden Flycatcher Black-faced Monarch Spectacled Monarch
Magpie-lark Eastern Yellow Robin Silvereye Welcome Swallow Fairy Martin
Tree Martin Red-browed Finch House Sparrow
Mammals – Eastern Grey Kangaroo Swamp Wallaby
Reptiles – Lace Monitor Eastern Water Dragon Eastern Bearded Dragon Garden
Sun-skink Common Tree Snake Red-bellied Black Snake
Greg
Dr Greg. P. Clancy
Ecologist and Birding-wildlife Guide
PO Box 63 Coutts Crossing NSW 2460
0266493153 0429601960
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