birding – Page 20

One journey’s end …

I have just got back from a spin around my beautiful home state with Mark Brazil and Mayumi Kanamura as well as my current dearly beloved. Gayle and I have travelled with Mark overseas, this time it was his turn to travel with us, and there could be no better excuse to have a fresh look at Victoria.

We started in the Dandenongs and headed west via Werribee Sewage Farm to Port Fairy. Then north into the Goldfields, west into the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then down the Murray Valley Highway, over the Alps and east to Mallacoota, coming back to Melbourne via Wilson’s Promontory. The round trip was nearly 2,500 km in fifteen days and took in every National Park, forest and sewage pond in reach. The weather was all that one could expect … everything from torrential hail, heavy rain and cold wind to uncomfortably hot, but nothing that could stop us having fun.

The objective was to see as much of Victoria’s natural heritage as we could find in the time available.

Mark managed to level his Swarovski 10X32’s on 214 species of bird and a dozen species of native mammal. He was impressed by the birds whilst I was impressed with the binoculars, I am currently using the much heavier Swarovski 10X42’s and as lovely as they are, they are not worth the extra weight in these days of restricted hand luggage.

After the first few days had passed Mark and Mayumi began a fascinating debate on their top ten, the only criterion for consideration was the impact the bird made on them. Some gorgeous birds had their moment in the sun, stunning views of Brush Bronzewing, for instance, put it in real contention for a few days. For a while Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo was in top spot but fine feathers are not always enough to beat off the opposition. Mark and Mayumi’s final top ten were :-

Laughing Kookaburra
Splendid Fairywren
Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo
Red-kneed Dotterel
Turquoise Parrot
Gang-gang Cockatoo
Red-capped Robin
Varied Sittella
Variegated Fairywren
Rainbow Bee-eater

My highlights were somewhat different, I really did enjoy seeing all four Victorian Treecreepers in one trip and I was thrilled that the visitors so enjoyed the Kookaburra, it is the bird I miss most when I am away from Australia for any length of time.

They put together a similar hit parade of native mammals :-

Sugar Glider
Echidna
Yellow-footed Antechinus
Swamp Wallaby
Wombat
Koala
Brush-tail Possum
Ring-tail Possum
Red Kangaroo
Dusky Antechinus

It’s nice to see the little creatures beating out the Grey Kangaroos and pushing the over-rated Koala well down the list.

Mark was kind enough to give us a copy of his latest book, The Nature of Japan, and Mayumi gave us a beautiful furoshiki and a calender. We look forward to catching up with them again…

Victoria …

My apologies, dear reader, or maybe, even to both of you, for the current lull in my instruction of how you should think.

I am part way through a grand tour of Victoria with Mark and Mayumi Brazil. Mark is a well known ornithologist and author of some good books on birds, a resident of Japan and regular contributor to the Japan Times. It is the couple’s first visit to this neck of the woods. So far we have waded through the mud in the pouring rain in the Dandenongs, enjoyed the great pleasures of the Werribee sewage works, frozen in the bitter winds of Port Fairy and the Great Ocean Road, thawed out in the Goldfields and enjoyed every minute.

Our next leg takes us through the Little and Big Deserts and the Sunset Country. Then we head east.

I will post some photos and more detail when we hit some broadband.

Wyperfeld …

Spent a few days at Wyperfeld National Park in north-west Victoria.

It is the eastern fringe of the Big Desert and ranges from dune scrub to mallee with Black Box woodland in the parts that flood (on very rare occasions). There are two main camping areas, Wonga in the south and White Plains in the north. On this occasion I stayed in the south although I had a run up to White Plains to test out the recently acquired short wheelbase Prado on the desert track. It performed beautifully.

Also working as well as expected was the recently acquired Kwik Kampa.

The Pod Trailer is a delight to tow, I had a previous version that went all the way to the Gulf of Carpentaria with us but the first tent design was nowhere near as elegant as the trailer it was mounted on. This version is quick, simple, light and efficient. And Stockman Products are a delight to deal with.

The country was a riot of flower, the mallee sections especially …

The weather was kind and some of the locals were making good use of it …

Highlights of the bird list included good views of Mallee Fowl in the south and Orange Chat and Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo in the north.

Broome …

The Kimberley adventure brought us finally back to Broome. We finished the trip at the Broome Bird Observatory.

One of the trio still needed a few mangrove birds for his Aussie list and Little Crab Creek, not far from the observatory, would be the place to find them. A tour of Broome including the Port, the playing fields and the sewage works is birding heaven. Add the proximity of Roebuck Bay, which even over winter holds a wonderful trove of migratory waders, Pindan woodland and open plains and a hundred species in a day can be seen with relative ease. I gave a guarantee that I would deliver the White-breasted Whistler and the Dusky Gerygone.

The first morning saw us in the mangroves beating off the mozzies. The whistler duly surrendered and what’s more, the first one to parade for us was a beautiful male, usually much harder to find than the drabber females and young males. But no Dusky Gerygone. Then off to Nimilaica, Barred Creek and back up the Derby Road to Taylor’s lagoon. A great day, some great birds but …

Dawn of day two and we were back in the mangroves, swatting the mozzies, ignoring the White-breasted Whistler, the Broad-billed Flycatchers, Yellow White-eyes, Mangrove Grey Fantails, Sacred Kingfishers, Brahminy Kites and the rest, reputation is at stake, I have never dipped on the gerygone, ever.

The Dusky Gerygone is found only in the mangroves from about Broome, south west along the WA coast to about Shark Bay. Gerygones are little birds, often grey or brown or greyish-brown, distinguished by subtleties of eyebrow or tail tip, and amongst all these the Dusky is distinguished by its lack of distinction, no contrasting tail tip, the subtlest of eyebrows. The clinching detail is the pale iris! You need a good look.

My colleague slapped another mozzie, I distinctly heard him muttering about trusting me instead of trying Streeter’s Jetty. Everybody gets them at Streeter’s Jetty.

A Yellow White-eye peeked out …

Dime a dozen. Mangrove Golden Whistlers are much harder to find, I doubt that one has ever been dismissed as lightly as this one …

More muttering, then …

Reputation rescued.

The Black Grasswren …

Bachsten Gorge, 11th June, 2013 …

Got it. First a call, then a fleeting glimpse of two birds up hill of us on top of a blackened sandstone boulder. We wait in the hope of a second look but a couple of minutes pass with no success. We creep up to a spot where we can look down on the boulder. Gone.

A few moments later the whole party can be seen travelling fairly quickly across country about a hundred metres up hill. Hoping that they would be consistent in their direction of travel we hiked hard to intercept them at a rocky knob on the skyline. We got there just in time to enjoy very brief close views as they went one by one over the crest of the hill.

This is, of course where I would put my photograph, but on this and subsequent contacts they were just too active to get them in the open and in focus. I hope Drew Fulton will forgive me using this superb photo of his …

This is a male, the girls have chestnut bellies. They are bigger than I expected, certainly bigger than the majority of Grasswrens and superbly coloured to fit into their environment. Picture it, open woodland with spinifex between the trees, broken by large sandstone boulders ranging from red to black, harsh shadows cast by the tropical sun, the grasswrens on the move, bold, active and beautiful.

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The Kimberley …

A fabulous and fabulously remote part of Australia.

It is the northernmost portion of WA, it is entirely north of the tropic of Capricorn. It has a wet season, the southern hemisphere summer and a dry, the winter. It is scenically splendid, and among many other wonderful creatures it is the home of the Black Grasswren. The McGee Australian birdlist hadn’t had an addition for a couple of years, an expedition was in order. Enquiry revealed that the only “accessible” places where it might be sought with a reasonable chance of success are Bachsten Gorge and the Mitchell Plateau. Early in the dry was tipped as the best time, swollen rivers close many of the roads in the wet. Access to both sites is from the infamous Gibb River Road.

The western half of the Gibb River Road provided access from Derby to cattle stations as far as, you guessed, the Gibb River. It was completed in 1956. Subsequently it was pushed further east and is now the scenic route from Derby to Kununurra. It is a reasonably well graded dirt road, 4WD is recommended. Almost all the car hire companies prohibit using the Gibb River Road. Broome is a very civilised place to begin and end, a circular tour can be completed via the Great Northern Highway, which is sealed and has the added advantage of taking you past the Purnulu National Park, better known as the Bungle Bungles.

This year has seen very late and heavy rainfall, as the time to go approached none of the roads were open. Two hundred millimetres of rain fell on Broome just before we arrived, but the outlook further west was encouraging. McGee and two intrepid companions left Broome on the 7th of June. The Gibb River Road was open, but for access to the Mitchell Plateau the King Edward River needed to drop a fair bit. It had a few days to do it.

In Derby we visited the wetlands and sewage works, a fair test of the 4WD capability of our Toyota Prado. The covering of red mud that it acquired made us look especially authentic. We headed for Windjana Gorge for our first camp site … <NEXT>.