Hi all.
We have just returned from a two week trip to northern and western WA.
Highlights were the organised stay at the Australian Wildlife
Conservancy sanctuary at Mornington Station in the Kimberly where we had
Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens and Buff-sided Robins at our door. There were
Gouldian Finches in good numbers (lots of young birds), Long-tailed
Finches, Double-barred Finches, Crimson Finches and a couple of
Pictorella Mannikins.
The scenery there was spectacular and we were shown some magnificent
locations as well as spent some worthwhile time at Lake Gladstone on the
neighbouring Glenroy station seeing a good variety of water birds. The
AWC did a marvellous job of hosting us and showing us what they were
doing with the site in particular the very positive results achieved
with the removal of ferals and an early dry season fire regime.
We also spent some days at the Broome Bird Observatory which, as always,
had much to offer. The highlight was the two Asian Dowitchers amongst
the over-wintering small flocks of waders. We also saw many of the
mangrove specialities of the area including Dusky Gerigone, Mangrove
Grey Fantail , Broad-billed Flycatcher (and being able to compare it to
a Leaden Flycatcher later in the same day).
Following this we spent a few more days at Monkey Mia where it is almost
impossible not to run into the local Grasswrens (a split from the
Thick-billed Grasswrens in some taxonomies) literally in the car park.
Southern Scrub-robins were also very common as were the harder to see
Chiming Wedgebills. We also saw the Indo- Pacific bottle-nose dolphins
being hand fed, a dugong, loggerhead and green sea turtles.
All up a fabulous couple of weeks.
Happy birding.
--
John Reidy
Sydney
Phone 02 9871 4836
Fax 02 9871 2616
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