William woz here. Dampier that is. Twice, in 1688 and 1699. He left his name on the peninsula and both his ships have also been immortalised in the names Cygnet Bay and Roebuck Bay. In the latter there is a little island called Buccaneer Island in his honour. Behind Roebuck Bay the Roebuck Plains stretch off into the distance, open country, occasionally flooded, few trees. sometimes swarming with ducks and Magpie Geese, the nesting place for terns. Other times a dry grassland, home to the beautiful Spotted Harrier and the Red-backed Kingfisher. And like most of Australia’s Kingfishers the Red-back wouldn’t know what a fish is.
Dampier was a pirate, a naturalist and an author. He circumnavigated the world three times. His botanising increased the sum of human knowledge, his writing added plenty of new words to the English language and inspired Banks, Humboldt and Charley Darwin himself. He published the first English language recipes for Guacamole and Mango Chutney. Where would we be without guacamole? Living in Broome I trip over his name almost every day but on the whole he is not as well known as he should be. I recently watched a YouTube video that gives a reasonable account of the guy. You may enjoy it …
Not Ar Derby pronounced in the English style, they’ll look at you funny. This is the far north of Western Australia we’re talking about. Population 3,325 unless someone has gone to Broome for the day which is a little over 200km to the south. The main tourist attraction is the Prison Boab and it has a port and some interesting sculptures. There are no take-away alcohol sales on Sundays or Mondays. The sculptures are best seen at sunset (Tuesdays to Saturdays).
The birding is good. The number one hot spot is the water treatment plant and the adjacent wetland. Access is via Conway Street off the Derby Highway and can be interesting in wet weather. You are sure of a good list of the regular suspects and it gets more than its fair share of rarities.
The port area is also good. It lies across a causeway on the shore of King Sound famous for its 11 metre tides. A lot of mud at low tide, good for waders in the summer not so much in the dry. Always a chance of a nice crocodile. All the mangrove species are close at hand but they are easier to see in Broome (take the Broome Bird Observatory Mangrove Tour).
Munkajarra Wetlands are 21km south of town, the last couple of kilometres are on an unmade track. Easy going if the weather is dry. The lake will be on the eastern side of the track therefore best in the afternoon. Mosquito repellant, long sleeves. You know the drill.
In town the ovals and even the median strip can turn up some nice birds especially in the wet. I have seen Little Curlews running around down the main street.
For a nice quiet drive birding from air conditioned comfort start at the Pioneer Cemetery and follow Lovegrove Street south east until it meets the Gibb River Road. It’s, for the most part, a one lane sandy track through open savanna and tidal flats. It’s about 8km and I have yet to encounter another vehicle on the route.
Where to stay? Birdwood Downs Station, about 17km out of town and there is a nice walk among the Boabs and some good birding. Cabins and un-powered camp sites.
The Pied Butcherbird is sitting in a Jigal Tree Lysiphyllum cunninghamii otherwise known as the Mother-in-law tree. In Aboriginal culture a man does not talk to, or sit facing his mother-in-law. The paired leaves of the Jigal face away from each other. It has nice red flowers. Click on the gallery for a better look.
Broome’s little peninsula points south. Roebuck Bay is to the east, the Indian Ocean to the west. Shores are rocky or sandy or covered by mangroves. Habitats galore …
Friends have a little dog. He’s only young but he’s had a very tough life, brought to death’s door by thrombocytopenia. Saved by a blood transfusion and a lot of medication, he is very precious to them. They’ve recently had a well deserved holiday and rather than put little Wilco in a kennel they opted to have people that he knows look after him in his own home. That’s Gayle and me. It just happens that they live on a bush block and routinely put out water for the birds. So much birdier than in town. Volunteering was a no brainer.
Then came some unexpected rain, very high tides and a steady wind that delivered hordes of ravenous mosquitoes. All of which reduced the opportunity to wander around enjoying the outdoors.
My usual mode of bird photography is to go for a walk and take photos opportunistically. I enjoy it but backgrounds are often messy. Branches intrude on the subject or twigs seem to grow out of their heads. The alternative is to build a set-up and entice the birds to come to you. In a dry country water is usually a sufficient bribe to bring in some birds. If the background is uniform and well behind the subject it will produce a nice creamy bokeh. You can even scour the countryside looking for a particularly photogenic perch.
So I set up close to the house, offered water and took some photos standing at the kitchen sink straight through the window. The frustrated mosquitoes queued up at the door.
It’s called the Australian Hornet (Abispa ephippium)but it’s not a true hornet and it’s not nearly as nasty. This is one of the potter wasps (subfamily Eumeninae). The female builds a mud nest which it stocks with paralysed spiders for the larvae to feed on. They occur in all the mainland states of Australia.
After pushing the button on the last post I received this …
This is the road to the Broome Bird Observatory and that’s the warden checking the depth to which it’s flooded. It would indeed be a great adventure and yes it would be illegal. There are big penalties for driving on closed roads. To get to that point from the highway may well have taken you through worse!
The forecast for the next few days is warm and dry. It will soon reopen but it will still be an adventure – 4WD only for a while.
The late May deluge has so far amounted to 123mm (almost 5inches in the old money) or 4.5 times Broome’s average monthly rainfall in just two days. A trip out to the Broome Bird Observatory at the moment would be a great adventure (and probably illegal). Bike riding has taken a brief holiday. It has given me a chance to review and edit some recent photos.
Broome is not the place to come looking for Australia’s colourful parrots. We do have Red-collared Lorikeets and occasionally Varied Lorikeets but when it comes to the larger parrots (I’m excluding Cockatoos from this discussion) Red-winged Parrots are the best we can hope for. They come and go. Just recently they have been abundant. And they are gorgeous especially the males.
They eat flowers, seeds and berries. They are mainly found in woodland and have a broad distribution. which extends northward into Papua New Guinea. Broome is close to their western limit.
I started to get worried about a couple of days ago when Weatherzone published Unusual late May deluge for northern Australia with the news that “The coastal tourism hotspot of Broome sees just 27mm of rain in on average in the whole of May but is expecting as much as 80mm next Tuesday alone.” It was accompanied by a very colourful map …
and followed by local government warnings about driving into flood waters and a flood alert for the Great Sandy Desert. I have little faith in weather forecasts.
Just to illustrate how bad they are today’s forecast was for showers this afternoon amounting to about 4mm. I headed out for my morning ride at 0630 in a very light drizzle and made it back by 0700 looking like a drowned rat. There was at least 4mm in my left shoe alone.
Readers who’ve been with me for a while may remember a flurry of posts proclaiming that cycling is the best form of exercise for the mature human. What became of all that? Well, it persisted. It’s part of my life. I enjoy it. It does me good. But …
You knew there was a but coming didn’t you? A good time to ride is early morning, especially in the tropics. The best time to watch birds is early in the morning, especially in the tropics. At home it’s OK to fit them in side by side. Some mornings the bike, some mornings the binoculars. On my expeditions the suite of birds is changing fairly quickly. The bike goes with me but the birds win out.
Having settled back into Broome it’s time to charge up the little toys that cyclists attach to their conveyance, oil the chain, pump up the tyres and head out. I consulted Strava. I presume there is some algorithm in the core of its soul that takes account of recent activity (none) and perhaps age (ancient) and comes up with a suggested target. It did a splendid job and suggested 15km per week. An excellent idea, I thought. Sadly it was immediately vetoed by my dearly beloved. Thirty five today she insisted. A short ride to ease back into it.
On with the Lycra. I felt like a multi-coloured whale. Then the zip popped. A stranded multi-coloured whale that had bloated and burst. That was my largest top but fortunately I found a smaller one with a stronger zip.
Swing onto the saddle, clip in, wobble. I could not have felt more alien. My new multifocal sunglasses conspired to create the illusion that I was on top of a penny-farthing but the legs felt really good … for a while. After 35 km it all felt like old times (apart from my bottom, that is). Just like riding a bike.
Looking for Whales at Entrance Point
Broome has one major road in and out. Large trucks, speed limit varying between 90 and 110kph for the main part. The alternative is to ride around town. You have to be creative to come up with a long enough ride and then it does become repetitive but you can take in some beautiful spots like Cable Beach and Entrance Point. You do have to share the road to the Port with road trains that are four trailers (60m) long but they are driven by professionals. I’m actually more frightened of the old men towing caravans.
And, in winter, the weather is perfect. Get out early to avoid sunburn. It isn’t going to rain.
About half way between Cygnet Bay and Broome, close to the community of Beagle Bay, there is a turnoff to the west that leads to Banana Well. The road is unmade and presently the last 4km is pretty rough. The camp site is grassed and the facilities are adequate. There are some ponds adjacent to the camping area. It’s a couple of kilometres from the “beach” across tidal flats that are not without hazard. It’s a great spot for the birdo, hopeless for a family beach holiday, seems popular with some fisher folk but would be a bugger of a place to launch a boat.
It’s not hard to get into this situation but expensive to get out. I’m pleased to say that’s not me. I took the photo on a previous visit. Had he taken his foot off the accelerator when the wheels started to slip we could have pulled him out. He gunned it and managed another 150 metres ending up well beyond solid ground. The momentum system of four wheel driving has its drawbacks!
There is a marked walking trail starting from the camp ground that visits the ponds, some savanna woodland, tidal flats, mangroves and some fairly dense Melaleuca. Birding is excellent around the ponds.
There is a large population of feral Donkeys in the neighbourhood.
The Grey-crowned Babblers were busily building a nest but this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s breeding season for them. They build dome shaped nests for roosting as well as for egg laying.
I finished the gallery with the two noisy ones. The Donkeys seemed less shy this visit and the Kookaburras are never shy.
bobmcgee 