BIRDS CENTRAL AUSTRALIA

Eaglehawk Neck - A Tasmanian Pelagic

2012-01-29T13:33:00.001+09:30

The star of the show - Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta.

What a way to start the year, out on a boat with a few mates, berleying in some seabirds. From the very start it promised to be an interesting trip. In contrast to just about any pelagic trip anywhere, the boat was occupied by a minority of birders. The bulk of the passengers were varying degrees of tired, hungover, uninterested, and mildly curious. A motley crew if ever there was one!

Buller's Albatross Thalassarche bulleri, followed by White-chinned Petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis.

It all began when Mark Carter and I realised we would be in Tasmania at roughly the same time over the new year period. Mark was an old hand in these waters having guided on boat tours here for several months in the past. I was curious having never managed to get on one of the southern pelagics, so I hatched a plan to fill the Pauletta with as many birders as I could find, and then fill the remaining vacancies with friends that I would be travelling with at the time. I made a very enthusiastic sales pitch to any of my friends who would listen - all of them non-birders except for maybe two or three whom I was slowly turning to the "light side".

Buller's Albatross.

Anyway, the positions on the boat duly filled up, and at 5am on 3/1/2012 I was dragging sullen people out of beds and cramming them into our hired van for the trip down the coast to Eaglehawk Neck. I stuffed Kwells into their gobs as we drove through the early morning light and as the panorama of Pirate's Bay spread out before us it seemed like we'd pulled it off.

White-chinned Petrel.

The only local birders I had managed to attract on such an awkward date were Paul Brookes and JJ Harrison. As the only trained eyes on the deck (with an honorable mention to Mark of course), I would be relying heavily on these guys for any curly ID questions. In these waters I was literally and figuratively, well out of my depth.

Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans.

The harbour allowed us to get out to sea with the minimum of fuss, but it became apparent early on that it might be a hard day for some. A steady swell rolled in varying from 1 - 3 metres, but with little chop. I have never suffered from sea-sickness but it didn't take long for a late night at The Taste of Tasmania festival and the prospect of a long day at sea to get the first few sending some berley over the side. The central seating soon resembled a casualty ward with prostrate and motionless bodies piled like so many wet towels in a laundry basket. So much for introducing my friends to the pure bloody joy of pelagic birding. Oh well...

White-faced Storm-petrel Pelagodroma marina.

It didn't take long for the first mollymawks to start appearing and from that point there was barely a moment that we couldn't find a Shy Albatross somewhere close to the boat. Over the whole day we probably would have counted several hundred.

White-faced Storm-petrel (foreground) with a Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur, behind.

These were followed by the White-chinned Petrels - a flock of around 40 of these dogged birds followed us around all the berley points.

Fairy Prion

The highlight of the day for myself, was a lengthy visit from a Buller's Albatross. It may have actually been a couple of different birds, but I only ever saw one at a time. There were also a few visits from Southern Giant Petrels, a couple of youngish Wandering Albatross, and at least one Royal Albatross.

Shy Albatross

Other more or less constant companions in pelagic waters were good numbers of Fairy Prions and White-faced Storm Petrels, but we also had fleeting visits from Grey-backed and Wilson's Storm Petrels.

Shy Albatross

Throughout the day we witnessed many thousands of Short-tailed Shearwaters skimming the surface in skeins of between 6 and up to a few hundred birds. Sharp eyes managed to pick out a few Sooty Shearwaters among them, and a real treat on the outward leg was a brief encounter with a small pod of Common Dolphins.

Common Dolphins

A brief visit from a Jaeger caused much confusion for a while but was identified later from photographic evidence as a Long-tailed. Among the many Shy Albatross we picked out at least 2 Salvin's Albatross, and we also had a brief visit from a couple of Great-winged Petrels.

Good numbers of Shy Albatross were with us for the whole day.

The really big tick for me came in the form of some great views of a Mottled Petrel out at one of the berley points. Fleeting and distant views were also had of birds which were likely to be Grey and Soft-plumaged Petrels but the ID just couldn't be nailed down to a satisfactory degree.

4 of the 6 trained eyes on the boat! MC and JJ hiding behind with his lens.

A couple of immature Yellow-nosed Albatross rounded out the pelagic list and we headed back to shore via a tour of the seal colonies and extraordinary sea cliffs along this part of the coast.

Shy Albatross

Thanks to all who came along and made the trip possible merely by your participation. To JJ, Mark and Paul, I apologise that we couldn't have had a few more pairs of trained eyes out there. I reckon we would have definitely picked out a few more "good" birds among the chooks. But a great day out nonetheless. If you ever get a chance at a pelagic trip down this way - jump at it!

The full list is here - http://www.eremaea.com/Lists.aspx?List=106801

CBW

Strange Fruit - Musk Lorikeets

2011-12-28T21:53:00.000+09:30

Musk Lorikeet Glossopsitta concinna.

After a successful day up in the Dandenongs, I decided to take a quick detour through Cheltenham Park to see if I could find the Australian Hobbys that were nesting there last year. To cut a long story short; there were no Hobbys. Poking around among the large pine trees it was impossible not to notice the racket that was being caused by the feeding lorikeets in nearby flowering gums. It's not hard to imagine that this is what attracted a bird like an Australian Hobby to this area in the first place.

After initially dismissing the lorikeets as Rainbows (imagine being in such a place where it is possible to get enough of such a stunning bird!), a few of their calls sounded off and a few tails looked a bit short - muskies! I haven't seen these for a bit, having been stuck up in the NT for most of the year so I was keen for a better look. Rainbow Lorikeets are a stunning bird but they are just so dominant around the Bayside suburbs that it is easy to get bored of them.

The Musk Lorikeets were feasting on a stand of Flowering Gum that were heavy with blooms. They were so preoccupied with their feasting that they allowed me closer approach than I think I have ever experienced with this species. In order to make the most of the opportunity I climbed the tree as they feed but still they continued feeding. I sat beside them as they went about their business and at one point the birds were hanging from the branches around me like some bizarre tropical fruit salad. I was immediately reminded of the Nina Simone song, "Strange Fruit", but the sinister and melancholic theme of that song had no place in this nectar-fuelled orgy of activity.

The lorikeets were eventually seen off by a couple of Australian Magpies but not until after they had allowed me these few keepsakes.

Strange fruit indeed.

CBW

Sherbrooke Forest; A Day in the Wet Forest of The Dandenong Ranges

2011-12-28T15:45:00.001+09:30

Sherbrooke Forest. Mountain Ash in every direction. Coastal Redwood? I've eaten bigger chips than that.

It would be difficult to find a habitat more removed from Alice Springs than the forests of the Dandenong Ranges, near Melbourne. This is the home of the tallest flowering plant on earth, Eucalyptus regnans, the mighty Mountain Ash. If I didn't see a bird all day, standing beside these colossal trees would make the trip worthwhile in itself. Fortunately enough for birders, the Mountain Ash lives in a lush wet forest that resonates with the sound of bird song all day long. At a current maximum height of 100m and with historical records of trees well over 110m, the Mountain Ash provides a high, wide canopy. Beneath this, the forest floor is cool, damp and thick with tree ferns, flowering shrubs and orchids.

A friendly forest sprite, the Rufous Fantail Rhipidura rufifrons.

High in the canopy, cockatoos and ravens screech and caw; among the trunks, treecreepers and rosellas peep and pipe; and in the thick growth near the forest floor, whipbirds, honeyeaters, thornbills, robins, scrubwrens, fairy-wrens, lyrebirds, kookaburras, and fantails call their messages to one another with industrious fervour. Bird song is everywhere here and my visit was quite late in the morning.

The Rufous Fantail was eventually very friendly and an unstoppable poser.

My excursion into the forest was fairly short. I walked along Lloyd's Track and down the Wattle Track then returned the way I came. Despite the brevity of this course I was rewarded with some amazing encounters. Not least of these was the Rufous Fantail pictured above. Despite the dappled light, he was happy to dance among the branches beside my head until he was satisfied that I had all the pictures I wanted.

Eastern Whipbird Psophodes olivaceus.

This is how I usually expect to find whipbird - a strongly terrestrial forager, scrabbling around beneath shrubs and leaf litter.

Another secretive species that surprised me was the Eastern Whipbird Psophodes olivaceus. I'm accustomed to hearing this species' distinctive whipcrack in south-eastern forests but have been defeated many times in my efforts to locate the source of the call. It's a retiring, ground-dwelling sort of bird. Along the Wattle Track though, there was a pair playing around and foraging right in the middle of the track who were quite happy for me to join them at very close range. This was the first time I'd had a good close look at this bird and I was surprised by how much colour was in the plumage. I'd been tricked by previous encounters into thinking of a drab and cryptic bird, but the bold facial markings and olive wash down the back really struck me.

Crimson Rosellas were common right along the walk, as were Lewin's Honeyeater. Other species of interest that we picked up were Brown Thornbill, Striated Thornbill, Brown-headed Honeyeater, and lots of leeches. These were the inoffensive tiny creatures that most Victorians will be used to on camping trips in wet areas so nothing as amusing as the giant leeches in Thailand. Plenty of fresh wombat scat was found around the forest so I imagine if you chose to visit a little earlier in the morning it might be quite possible to encounter one of these magnificent beasts in its forest home.

"Bye! Take care out there!"

Probably the encounter of the day was with a very speedy Superb Lyrebird Menura novaehollandiae. This bird shot across the path in front of us when we had gone less than 100m from the car park. It dashed into the undergrowth and despite much careful listening and searching we were unable to relocate it. You can see the complete list of birds I managed to find during this short walk on Eremaea Birds here.

The departing highlight, was a pair of Gang-gang Cockatoos Callocephalon fimbriatum, that I heard high in the canopy and briefly located with the bins. They were just too stand-offish to surrender to the lens but next time I'll bring the climbing gear!

CBW

Southport Pelagic, 17th of December, 2011

2011-12-24T16:03:00.002+09:30

Gould's Petrel Pterodroma leucoptera.

It's been said, that absence makes the heart grow fonder. As an Aliceversary ticks over, marking another year of living equidistant from the coast, it becomes obvious that what I miss is the ocean. Not the beach mind you, and it's an important distinction. Hate is too strong a word, but I can't say I've ever been a big advocate of beach culture in Australia. All that sitting around frying your skin while self-obsessed perverts pose and promenade like so many lekking Bustards... it's not for me. I've always had a fairly utilitarian approach to the beach as a convenient access point for swimming in the ocean - which I love. Skinny dipping in the frigid waters of southern Tasmania is an annual ritual that I never tire of. If you've never given in to that urge to strip off and run, full pelt, arms flailing like an 8-year-old girl (as olympic running coach Percy Cerutty would encourage), you're letting the best in life pass you by. Running through the first electric cold-shocks of the shallows and into the knee-deep water, lifting your knees high to get those few extra steps and then allowing yourself to fall, face first, into the chilly brine - is both hilariously funny and an unmitigated joy. But I digress.

Black-winged Petrel Pterodroma nigripennis.

The sandy deserts and the oceans, in an ecological sense, have much more in common than people might think; dunes are as much subject to the particular forces of wave motion as the seas, albeit in a different realm of time. At first glance, both habitats seem hostile and devoid of life entirely, but knowledge dispels this nonsense and we quickly understand that both these worlds sustain myriad forms of highly specialised wildlife. Some of these - the deep sea fish and invertebrates - remain largely beyond our ken, and accessible to only the most sophisticated submersibles and remotely operated research devices. These will remain the stuff of Attenborough documentaries (even when they're narrated by Sigourney Weaver) for the foreseeable future. Others - like the common fishes and marine mammals - we may be fortunate enough to have the occasional encounter with, although this is likely to be fleeting and surreal.

Black-winged Petrel Pterodroma nigripennis.

Anyone with an ounce of romanticism, able to set aside the empirical glare of scientific observation for just a few moments, meeting a dolphin or great whale in oceanic waters, will, I hope, be able to admit to the raising of goosebumps and the small hairs on the back of the neck. An animal response to the recognition of an ancient affinity.

Gould's Petrel Pterodroma leucoptera.

This is all very uncharacteristic and "new-age" of me, but I always feel weird after meeting these animals. It twists my mammalian brain in knots to think that these creatures, still superficially adapted to life at the surface and with many vestiges of their terrestrial ancestry, are nonetheless so utterly at home in such a foreign world. As a land mammal, to venture beyond sight of land and continue out past the continental shelf, is to feel literally out of your depth. Perhaps this is why it is so comforting to bump into cousins thriving out there oblivious to the small world of human affairs (well mostly). These encounters are a reward for the substantial effort of temporarily abandoning the comfort and familiarity of the land.

Crested Tern Sterna bergii, not a truly pelagic species but a pretty companion nonetheless.

There is other wildlife out here which is usually hidden from our land-bound view. Unless I'm mistaken, anyone who has read this far will already know that I am talking about birds. Sea birds, pelagic birds, ocean birds, storm birds, tube noses, or Procellariiformes; call them what you will, they are the birds of the open ocean. Albatross, petrels, storm-petrels, shearwaters, prions and diving petrels. Intriguing colloquial names that various members have been lumped with over the years include, Mother Carey's chickens, mollymawk, gooney-bird, waterwitch, satanite, and muttonbird. They represent one of the more successful and diverse of the vertebrate orders, and probably the greatest challenge to even experienced birders.

Great-winged Petrel showing the "tube nose" that gives sea birds such acute and directional powers of smell detection.

They have the freedom and ability to roam the world's oceans and circumnavigate the globe using only the wind - something many species take advantage of regularly, making vagrancy reasonably likely. Added to this, the taxonomic status of many species, is uncertain at best, and disputed by many, so even if you manage to identify one from another you will almost certainly have to revise which bird it was that you saw at some point (depending who you ask, there could be anywhere between 13 and 22 species of albatross).

Wilson's Storm-petrel Oceanites oceanicus. We saw this tiny species a few times but it never really approached very close to the boat.

As much as I like to draw those slightly poetic parallels between the ocean and the interminable dunes of our sandy deserts, there is one important difference - motion. The home of these birds dictates that whenever you see them, you are almost guaranteed to be rolling on ocean swell making holding binoculars or a camera steady, an exceedingly tall order. This is what regular sea birders refer to as "The Blue Paddock". The name Procellariiformes actually describes these species' association with stormy weather, and when calm conditions prevail they are often less active and trickier to find. Very stormy weather sometimes provides the only chance to view some of them from land as some will come in closer to inshore waters to shelter from the worst of the wind and may occasionally be viewed from sea cliffs and headlands. But for the most part, sea birders will don serious wet weather clothing, scoff down hyoscine hydrobromide tablets like beer nuts, and head for deep waters beyond the continental shelf.

Mmmmmm... shark liver.

Into the spaghetti scoop, and over the side.

If your luck is in, and you have gone out far enough, it is time to start berleying. Shark liver is the berley of choice for most sea birders but anything fishy and oily enough to float, create a nice oil slick, and send up a bit of a scent trail, will do the job. Shark liver just happens to be about the smelliest substance on earth and Procellariiformes are famous for their extraordinary olfactory sense, so it is a match made in heaven. The boat drifts and once the berley is over the side it is usually only a matter of a few minutes before the birds show up. They travel up the oil slick towards the boat, instructed by their tubed noses like guided missiles.

You can make out the slick of fish oil in the center of the picture here. It is the swathe of smooth water heading straight up the middle from the side of the boat.

These birds spend years at sea. I've marvelled in the past at the long distance feats of stints, sandpipers, and godwits but, impressive though their journeys are, they are usually all over in a matter of weeks. Some seabirds will be at sea for many years before heading to some wind-blasted, wave-battered rock sentinel in the ocean. Here they will court and breed, before heading back to sea. While out at sea, they will only rest on the surface while feeding or during calm weather to avoid enervating flapping-flight. Most of them employ flying techniques with technical names like dynamic soaring and slope soaring. Simply put, if there is wind and waves, seabirds can fly almost indefinitely without having to expend any effort other than steering.

What this means for sea birders is that even reasonably large birds like petrels and shearwaters can be almost invisible as they work their way up the smell slick towards the boat. They have long narrow wings which means they must fly fast to maintain lift. As they hug the wave tops and plunge into the valleys of even moderate seas, they fly at high speeds and only intermittently wheel up above the wave tops to dive down for their next burst of speed. When they first become visible, they may be zipping along a trench between wave tops only centimetres above the surface, with their wings flat and motionless like a great moth hugging the contours of the ocean.

Sometimes this is all you will see of an approaching seabird as it whizzes through a trough. Can you identify this bird? I know people who can.

Only as a morsel of shark liver or chicken skin becomes visible do the wings start to change shape and the bird slow to snatch the food from the water. This is often when they will offer up the best views for boat-bound land mammals. The petrels and storm-petrels have a habit of semi-hovering over the water and pattering on the surface with their webbed feet as they pick at food. The word petrel traces it's origin from St Peter who is widely reputed (who am I to argue?) to have performed a similar feat some time ago. Being animals that spend most of their time far from human contact they are often quite unconcerned at the presence of a boat full of gawking people wearing slickers and zinc cream. It is not unknown for birds to land on the boat when they realise there is food on offer.

Great-winged Petrel on final approach.

Unfortunately, apart from a Great-winged Petrel that slammed on the air-brakes right at the stern of the MV Grinner to scoop up a lump of liver, we didn't get any of these static close views on the recent Southport pelagic trip run by Paul Walbridge. However, with this one concession, it was a truly exceptional trip, even by the stellar standards of the usual Southport bird list. As a sea birding ninja (he recently picked out a Chilean species, Stejneger's Petrel, from among the other Pterodromas off Southport), Paul's identity must be protected. As such, you will find no photos of him here, but the ever-photogenic Craig "Grinner" Newton was happy to be pictured going about his job as skipper.

Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera, demonstrating precisely where the name petrel comes from.

Great-winged Petrel. This is race gouldii which I'm told is a possible split which might then become Grey-faced Petrel.

The challenge of sea birding is what draws some people. The thrill of this challenge is undeniable as the birds make their sneaky approach. I've got pretty good eyes, trained by spending lots of time in the outback where there are plenty of opportunities to look at things which are far away. Despite this, it takes some time to tune your eye in to the particular distance at which a sea bird might first become, momentarily, visible wheeling above the wave tops. I was reassured to find that I could spot the birds as early as anybody on the boat, but there my abilities as a sea birder end. While I was chuffed at spotting them and maybe having a stab at calling it a shearwater rather than a petrel (a broad distinction if ever there was one), the good sea birders were calling them, and calling them right.

"GREAT-WINGED PETREL! Race gouldii in heavy moult, slightly myopic in the left eye, and he left the stove on when he left New Zealand on October the 18th!!!", comes the call. Well... no, obviously that is an exaggeration, but it serves to highlight exactly how impressive experienced sea birders can be. Blokes were calling in species from a good way off, even as they were moving through troughs at high speed and the boat was wallowing in moderately heavy swell. As a relative sea birding novice, it was reassuring to be amongst a mob who were so generous with their knowledge. Several people at different points during the day took time to explain the origins of the different races and species, and the minute field marks that surrendered their identity to the careful observer.

A Great-winged Petrel with some decidedly tatty feathers.

On my patch, birders often have difficulties with the tiny thornbills because they are such active birds, and rarely give you a chance at a prolonged view settled on an exposed perch. If anybody thought that was tricky, they've got nothing on Pterodroma petrels. They come from a diverse family with many species possible in the waters off Southport, they fly fast, and some of them are infuriatingly similar. This is where the learning process begins. By the end of the day, even I could pick them apart at a distance from the way they fly as much as by the way they look. Like so many things, with a bit of practice comes noticeable improvement. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but with a few more trips under my belt, I might even be able to identify a few birds to species level without having to nudge the bloke beside me, "hey, is that a Short-tailed or Wedge-tailed Shearwater?".... "ahhh... that's my backpack mate." OK, I've got a long way to go yet.

So much for identification. Photography didn't go much better I'm afraid. I have a growing admiration for the talent of folks like Raja Stephenson and Geoff Jones whose images of sea birds make mine look like models constructed from Lego blocks and photographed through a jar of Vaseline, but I'm hoping practice might help in this regard too; this was my first attempt at photographing sea birds and it ain't easy.

An unexpected curiosity - a flying fish of unknown species. This one ended up in the boat. We saw many flocks of these as they flew across the surface on the return journey.

Practice is certainly what I'm in for having just organised another pelagic trip out of Eaglehawk Neck in Tasmania in a couple of weeks. We've got a good mix of novices and experienced hands on board so it should be another interesting day. This time we'll hopefully pick up a few of the albatross species which will present a whole lot of fresh challenges. I'll see if I can't bring back a few better photos from Tassie than I managed on this trip.

Cool as a cucumber. Craig Newton, skipper of the MV Grinner.

This is a fairly incomplete report of the goings on off Southport, but Paul Walbridge's official report is available for reading on the Birding-aus archives here. Huge thanks to Paul and Craig Newton, the skipper of MV Grinner for a fantastic day out. As usual the learning curve was steep. Thanks also to the many others on board who were so generous with their knowledge of pelagic species and who graciously tolerated my incessant questions and childish hoots of delight every time a bird appeared.

Stay tuned for more pelagic shenanigans from Tas in 2012!

CBW

Christmas Turkey in Brisbane...

2011-12-24T14:47:00.000+09:30

Australian Brush-turkey Alectura lathami.

Needless to say, this turkey won't find itself on the dinner table this year. Silly Season is upon us and it seems Alice Springs might finally have a brief respite from the fires and smoke of recent weeks. I'm still away birding the less interesting parts of Australia, where all the people live. Over this way, the best known destination for birders is Lamington National Park and the famous O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse, which promises Albert's Lyrebird, Paradise Riflebird, Regent Bowerbird and many other delectables. For some reason, every time I'm over here, I never quite manage to visit this amazing area.

Not to worry; Brisbane itself has been a great birding experience this time around and, as is often the case, the common suburban birds provided some of the most memorable experiences. I stayed with family in the suburb of Sinnamon Park and was immediately relieved to learn that it is named for the pioneering Sinnamon family, and not a boganisation of the word "cinnamon". The urban birding and wildlife spotting around this part of the world is fantastic.

Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus.

Brush-turkeys are back yard birds in Brissy and there are usually Scaly-breasted and Rainbow Lorikeets zipping through the trees overhead. The dawn chorus was replete with the constant carolling of Grey Butcherbirds and Pied Currawongs punctuated by the squawks of Channel-billed Cuckoos. The highlight of the Brisbane birding was, without a doubt, the Southport Pelagic, but there is enough material there for a separate post.

A young Eastern Water Dragon takes advantage of a small mid-morning snack - an unidentified wallaby. All this within a short walk from shops, homes, and car parks... the mind boggles as to how jammed with wildlife this area must have been before settlement.

Eastern Water Dragon Physignathus lesuerii. This is an adult, and probably close to a metre long.

Even just around the suburbs, Brisbane has a surprising amount of wildlife. In the area behind Seventeen Mile Rocks (a great destination in itself) wallabies bounded, Lace Monitors scrabbled their way up tree trunks as I passed, and Eastern Water Dragons lazed on waterside logs. Along any suitably vegetated section of river, Mangrove Honeyeater was a pretty easy bird to find, and Pale-headed Rosellas were also pretty common in wooded areas.

Thanks Brisbane! Next time, I'm definitely making it to Lamington.

CBW

Of Pheasant Coucal and Painted Button-quail...

2011-12-22T12:46:00.000+09:30

The birds have been good to me lately and I've been birding myself into a lather in Brisbane for a week. Currently, I'm in Melbourne preparing for more action on the high seas off southern Tasmania.

Twitter has been abuzz with the terrible news of more habitat being reduced to ash around The Alice, but there has also been some more uplifting news drifting in. Mark Carter tweeted through a bunch of great reports of Pheasant Coucal in a backyard in Alice Springs this week. This is confirmation, if it was required, that we are seeing quite a few of these birds pushing further south in the NT than they have been seen for some time. Presumably this is a response to the good seasons we've had. They've now been reported pretty widely through Central Australia, culminating with Bruce Wedderburn's report of a bird near Erldunda earlier in the year (probably the most southerly NT record of this species). Also this week, Jeanie Burrell reported (and photographed!) a Pheasant Coucal in her backyard which she has kindly posted to Birdline NT. So perhaps the coucals will be in Alice for a while yet.

My own unexpected urban birding encounter was similarly intriguing. It seems that my outback-trained eye for roadkill is undiminished in an urban setting. Driving home from tern watching at Mordialloc Pier, a brown smudge on the road called to me as we passed. Momentarily forgetting that I was on Mentone Parade and not the Old South Road, I pulled the car into a hasty u-turn via someone's nature strip and motored back to confirm... Painted Button-quail.

Painted Button-quail Turnix varia. Certainly not a species we get in The Alice... yet.

I'm a relative novice with this species, but I believe that the females are the more brightly marked in most of the button-quails. So this bird seems to be a female (always happy to be corrected reader). This is not a particularly uncommon species through the south-east of the country but there seems to have been a recent spate of urban sightings. One was even reported ambling down the footpath in Bentleigh the other day.

Our unfortunate bird was hit by a car out the front of Mentone Girls Grammar on Mentone Parade just a stone's throw from the foreshore reserve. There's not much in the way of button-quail habitat in the school so perhaps this bird had wandered over from the foreshore scrub. Anyway, it's nice to know that they are around; now I'll be heading off to track down its living relatives.

If anything positive can be recouped from the loss of such a jewel of a bird, then this encounter certainly fits the bill. Short of gaining access to museum skins, there are few opportunities to scrutinise such elusive birds up close...

...and it was staggeringly beautiful.

CBW

Double-headed Wedge-tailed Eagle

2011-12-08T21:21:00.000+09:30

Wedge-tailed Eagle, Aquila audax subspecies, bicephalus.

A common symbol in heraldry and vexillology from the 20th century BC to the present, the double-headed eagle has appeared in the mythology and symbology of cultures as disparate and widespread as ancient Sumeria, Carthage, India, Russia, and Scotland (thanks Wikipedia).

Not surprisingly, the bird in this picture is not the manifestation of the mythological figures described in any of these cultures. In my opinion it is even more amazing - this is a real bird, albeit with a bit of Photoshop tinkering.

The wedgies have been loitering around the poo ponds lately and I managed to snap off a few nice close shots of one bird just as it was finishing up a meal. I was lucky enough to get two contrasting shots in quick succession; one with the nictitating membrane fully closed and another with it fully retracted (you can click on the image above for a closer view). The translucent third lid comes across the eye horizontally to protect the eye from twigs or airborne particles. A quick Google search will put you in touch with a variety of literature explaining the presence of this membrane in different animal groups and the vestigial homologues of the nictitating membrane that exist in some groups, including the primates, which is to say, us. You know that little fold of skin in the corner of your eye (the semilunar fold)? Our ancestors had a nictitating membrane when they were lizards.

Chocks away!

I was also lucky enough to get a few close pictures of "the launch". The eagle wing is one of the mechanical wonders of evolution so it's always great to get a close up view of it in action. The way feathers can one second be neatly folded and layered, and then a second later spread evenly to increase surface area while maintaining a seamless and smooth surface is a feat that I simply cannot imagine will ever be simulated by human aeronautical engineering.

Not a great bird picture, but a great feather and talon picture. Still a bit of lunch left in the left foot for later.

Like a card trick magician perfectly fanning a deck, the primaries, secondaries, and tertials all snap out as one to form a massive, continuous pane. The coverts slide delicately over one another to maintain the smooth contour of the surface of the wing, and the tail fans out to provide stability and that crucial bit of extra lift. It's all over in a second but the perfection of each feather working in unison with its neighbours is staggering to witness up close.

The result is among the most astonishing effects in nature - eagle flight. Get out and enjoy it every chance you can. There are few who live in a town like ours in which you can so easily leave your home and quickly find such an impressive bird soaring along the ranges.

CBW

Australian Owlet-nightjar: Cute vs Creepy

2011-12-08T20:14:00.000+09:30

Australian Owlet-nightjar Aegotheles cristatus. Literally translated - the crested goatsucker.

A lot of birders get particularly excited by night birds, myself included. There is something magical about the rare privilege of discovering an owl at its daytime roost. It's an encounter with a creature that lives in an entirely different world to us. Meeting one where its world overlaps with ours is less common than fleeting encounters in the spotlight with these eerily silent hunters. I've had my share of these encounters with the different night birds of the outback; Boobooks sulking quietly in a suburban tree, Tawny Frogmouths suddenly materialising on a branch beside your head where a moment ago it seemed only a stump, or Barn Owls glaring imperiously from the depths of a cave in the hills - magical moments all.

But one experience has been lacking from my pursuit of night birds and to invoke a tawdry old cliche - when it rains, it pours.

The Australian Owlet-nightjar is reputedly a very common and widespread species in Australia. Judging by the frequency with which their calls are heard on camping trips around Alice Springs, I would have to agree with this assessment. As is very often the case with nocturnal species, their ubiquity doesn't make them any easier to see. For me, this is a large part of their charm. To know that they are there all the time, all around you as you move through the landscape, but only revealing themselves on those rare occasions. To add to this, the Owlet-nightjar is a bit special among night birds as well. It's part of a fairly small family with only a handful of other representatives in other countries. It is tiny, perhaps only the size of a small pigeon or a slightly chunky Diamond Dove. Among all the night birds of Australia, it would have to rank as probably the most cryptic and secretive. It roosts in tree hollows and usually maintains several "safe-house" hollows within its territory. It has an escape route all mapped out in readiness, and if it is flushed from the primary roost it flies swiftly and directly to the next and disappears. If flushed from this, it will head to the next, and the next, and the next... or back to the original, by which time you are probably lost in the desert. At night it is renowned for reflecting almost no eyeshine at all which is in marked contrast to other species of birds and mammals, and many invertebrates, which reveal their position at the first careful sweep of a spotlight (spiders in particular have one of the strongest eyeshines of any animal I have encountered. Even small spiders can be spotted from a long way off by the conspicuous white glint they emit. No doubt an invert expert out there will have an explanation of this phenomenon for me). Recently, I've read that they are largely terrestrial foragers in contrast to the "real" nightjars which take most of their prey on the wing. A researcher discovered this almost by accident when she kept finding Owlet-nightjars in pit traps that she had set for invertebrates. She went on to demonstrate that the population of Owlet-nightjars that inhabit the arid zone of Australian make up 60% of their diet with ants. I'm sure I can't be the only one that finds this astonishing.

On the rare occasions it's spotted sunbathing on a chilly morning you may get the best opportunity for viewing the species; or so I am told. I've been listening to the Owlet-nightjar's friendly, churring calls from my swag at night for years. I've had them spear through the spotlight beam on the odd occasion or seen them flee from the road after being disturbed, mid-moth, by the passage of my car at night. I have never managed, try as I might, to pick one out in the daylight. This week, with the help of a few friends, I lucked into daytime encounters with two Australian Owlet-nightjars on separate occasions.

The first was picked up by my work mate Jesse as we wandered through some dune country down near Yulara. It flushed from a tree over my head and I just caught it in my peripheral vision as a blur heading, just as the stories would have it, directly to another prominent hollow a few metres away. This bird was kind enough to perch for a few generous seconds before disappearing back to his original roost and we felt no need to disturb it further.

Searching for the next hollow...

The second, also spotted by Jesse during a work trip south of Alice, flushed from a tree and then sat obligingly on an exposed branch for the best part of 20 minutes.

The second bird, about 30kms south of Alice in sandhill country again. Not timid at all and quite happy to sit in plain view for a good long time.

The overwhelming impression I got from these birds was an ethereal mix of cute and creepy. Their faces so closely resemble a mammalian countenance, like that of a Sugar Glider Petaurus breviceps, that they are easily mistaken for one when they are peering from a hollow - very cute. The huge eyes stare with a complete blackness that is all the more creepy when you see them in a torch beam at night - like a binary black hole system sucking in all available light.

These are probably not the best photographs I could have taken in the situations, but I'm happy to admit that I was shaking with excitement during these encounters. It was one of those times when you immediately and fully appreciate the luck of the situation you find yourself in and simultaneously realise that it is going to end abruptly at any moment. I'm sure there is a succinct word for the concept in German. The second bird was very harshly backlit which showed up my lack of experience in these conditions and the first bird was quite distant, but I'm pretty happy with the results all the same.

My only advice for anyone trying to find one of these critters is to stay on your toes when you're moving through country with good tree hollows. They'll be there somewhere. Otherwise, just roll out the swag and enjoying their night time conversations, secure in the knowledge that they'll (hopefully) be eating the ants before the ants eat you.

CBW

Welcome Swallows at Erldunda

2011-12-06T23:39:00.001+09:30

Welcome Swallow Hirundo neoxena. Erldunda, November 2011.

It seems that every time I send a visiting birder off to Yulara with advice about where to look for this or that, I always end up asking for an update on the Welcome Swallows at Erldunda. For four years, plying my trade as a tour guide, I was in and out of Erldunda (at the intersection of the Stuart and Lasseter Highways and the only sealed access to Uluru) 5 or 6 times a week.

It was always surprising that anytime I used the gents here, there would be a small flock of Welcome Swallows roosting on the reo mesh underneath the eaves of the public dunnies. Up in the rafters were the unmistakeable signs of their nests, and the birds took advantage of plentiful food and water provided by the gardeners and tourist scraps and seemed to have a thriving little population.

Anywhere north of Erldunda, Welcome Swallows seemed to be extremely infrequently reported and a few reports I had heard were quite probably mistaken IDs of White-backed Swallows Cheramoeca leucosternon. The little population at Erldunda was the only mob of this species that I knew of within coo-ee of Alice Springs. They were ridiculously reliable, always able to be found in and around the dunnies where they roosted, and nested, and for all I knew, drank and bathed in the urinal trough.

Anyway, every time I have packed a visiting birder off south with pointers on Banded Whiteface and Chiming Wedgebills, they have reported back with no news of the Welcome Swallows of Erldunda. I have come to realise that this could be that the vast majority of visiting birders come from, or come through, the southern states where Welcome Swallows are in every suburban park and barely warrant a second look from "tickers". So with the recent opportunity to travel down through Erldunda on work, I made a special effort to check on my little mates and make sure I wasn't going mad.

It wasn't tricky. I stuck my head inside the door of the gents and, sure enough, two dark, familiar, silhouettes presented themselves above the artificial horizon of the brickwork. Being apparently alone in the conveniences, I quickly pulled out the SLR with 400mm lens attached and realised almost immediately how ill-advised this was. A toilet flushed and a burly, tattooed gent in a shearer's singlet emerged from a cubicle and appeared to suddenly fill all available space in the room. Mustering every last ounce of macho nonchalance at my disposal I pointed to the birds and said in my best Les Hiddins voice, "don't normally see Welcome Swallows this far north eh?"

My gruff posturing seemed to go some way towards dissuading the chap from his very justified assumption that I was some sort of scatological photography buff, hunting fodder for a new website with even more limited appeal than the one you are looking at now. His eyes rose to take in the tiny birds preening on the wire, oblivious to the awkward scene playing out before them. After only a couple of seconds, a flash of recognition played across the granitous features of the man-mountain and he replied, "no - I saw some in William Creek the other day but I believe even that is a bit further north than usual".

That is about as much ornithological chit-chat as one mens' toilet can handle for one morning, so we left it at that and he washed his hands and left. I remained, snapping off a few shots of the harshly backlit birds, and the snap of the shutter echoed off the walls. When a voice called from over the wall in the ladies' side of the facility, "has someone got a camera in here!?!", I decided to quit while I was ahead and vamoose.

I considered chasing down my unlikely dunny birding acquaintance to point out that, in fact, Welcome Swallows are reasonably common around William Creek, and Coober Pedy at a similar latitude, but I thought better of it. Probably just as well.

So I don't care what anyone says, you can find Welcome Swallows at Erldunda. Just don't try to take pictures of them or they may be the last species on your NT list.

CBW

An Ex-Pratincole and a Hidden Treasure Trove of Post-mortem Birding

2011-12-06T09:00:00.000+09:30

This posting should really take the form of an apology. I sent Richard Waring and Mark Carter on a bit of a wild goose chase last week when I tweeted, rather belatedly, about an Oriental Pratincole Glareola maldivarum, that I had found in an industrial part of Alice Springs. Oriental Pratincole are not unknown down this far in The Territory, but they are certainly unusual enough that it is worth leaving an air-conditioned office on a day of 42 degrees, to go for a dekko.

The unfortunate Oriental Pratincole Glareola maldivarum.

Crucial information that I left out of the tweet in my haste, was that the bird in question had most certainly dropped off the perch some time ago, and probably some distance from Alice Springs.... the shame...

The chestnut underwing and facial markings make the ID pretty straightforward.

I had occasion to be at the road-train refilling station on Ghan Road. This is not a roadhouse, or a petrol station, or a truck stop or anything like that. This is for 3 and 4 trailer road trains to fill their thirsty tanks having just arrived from up or down the track in Adelaide or Darwin. It is a huge expanse of concrete with a couple of high-flow diesel bowsers and scant shade. There is no "truckers' tearoom", a la Glendambo, with lace doilies and bottomless coffee; no magazine rack stocked with the latest garish glossies and HEMA maps. Filling a roadtrain takes quite some time, so with nothing else to do, the pilots (for anyone commanding such a machine can surely be afforded this title), spend their time picking the grilles clean of the feathered quarry their bullbars have claimed during the overnight haul across the Barkly Tableands or the gibber plains south of Marla. In the obligatory garden of rocks and palm trees the flotsam and jetsam of the Stuart Highway lays discarded and dessicating in the sun.

This combing on the claw apparently has something to do with the taxonomic separation of this pratincole into a different genus to the Australian Pratincole Stiltia isabella.

It was here, amid the numerous Spotted Nightjars, Magpie-larks, Budgerigars, and countless other species, that I found the Oriental Pratincole.

Sorry about that.

CBW

Poo Ponds Temporarily Closed for Birding

2011-12-06T08:28:00.000+09:30

One of a family of three Wedge-tailed Eagles Aquila audax, that have been regularly seen at the poo ponds in recent weeks. At least the doggers won't have to worry about carcass disposal.

Yes, it's disappointing news I'm afraid, but much better than the alternative; a Benny Hill-style chase scene involving, not a pack of buxom nurses and an oversized syringe, but vicious, salivating wild dogs. That could be a bit dramatic, but I couldn't think of another way to get a Benny Hill reference into a birding blog.

Anyway, Power & Water have taken the very sensible decision to temporarily close the Alice Springs Sewage Ponds to birdwatching access until they can eradicate this latest pack of wild dogs. As Mark Carter put it on Twitter, it's been duck carnage lately (a bit of botulism floating around never helps either). It will be good for our waterfowl, many of which are breeding, not to have to worry about dogs. Letitia will let us know as soon as she has a date for the reopening.

Hmmm... I wonder if this was the work of the dogs or the wedgies? A dead feral on the back road at the sewage ponds.

I'll keep you posted!

CBW

Ilparpa Swamp - A Worthy Procrastination Destination

2011-12-02T00:52:00.000+09:30

White-necked Heron Ardea pacifica, shaking out the cobwebs at Ilparpa Swamp.

It's been a few weeks since a posting of my bird-babble so I guess it's about time to dust off the keyboard and get back into it. Most of the last few weeks I've been spending every spare moment down at Ilparpa Swamp - it was recently filled again by treated water overflow from the Power & Water facility next door so it has been perfect for a whole range of species. The thing with Ilparpa Swamp is timing; too soon after the inundation and you'll be up to your armpits in muck before you get anywhere near the birds. If you leave it too long... well the birding will still be great but you'll miss that golden window when waders use the shallow pools and all sorts of lurking birds are stalking through the reed beds.

The same individual from above looking much more sleek and heron-like.

One of those golden windows is rapidly closing as I write. The swamp is drying, but at the moment there are some substantial pools remaining at the heart of the swamp and many species have chosen to nest in the area. The edges of the swamp are dry enough now that your approach can still be stealthy with the soft ground underfoot, but you won't sink in so far that you'll be fishing for your dunlop volley after every step. If you add to this the extensive reed beds that act as a tailor made screen for snooping birders, Ilparpa Swamp becomes one of our best destinations for a fun afternoon.

An adult Black-winged Stilt strides like a spindly-legged colossus among Sharp-tailed Sandpipers.

One pattern that I have noticed, is that many of the migratory waders that we are accustomed to seeing at the sewage ponds next door are very likely to be found in the swamp during the middle of the day and into the afternoon. As evening approaches they seem to head back to the poo ponds - perhaps this is a safer overnight roost? There is plenty of dog scat about the swamp so I imagine it might be a bit hairy after dark. Luckily, the obvious presence of feral dogs has not discouraged a few birds from setting up camp in the swamp and making a go of nesting.

The nest of the Black-winged Stilt.

Black-winged Stilt eggs in close-up.

The ubiquitous Masked Lapwing Vanellus miles, has been nesting here, but alongside them are nests from the Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus. Their eggs are actually quite similar but the difference lies in the effort made in nest-building. The lapwing makes about zero effort whereas the stilt at least makes a rough attempt at piling vegetation into a slightly raised and well-defined cup on the ground.

The very cute result of Black-winged Stilt nesting. A recently hatched chick at Alice Springs Sewage Ponds.

In a far superior display of avian architecture the Willie Wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys, makes a neat little cup of woven bark, spiderwebs, and feathers that is a marvel to behold. Placed out along a tree branch it can blend in quite well until it is filled with three or four squawking mouths.

The Willie Wagtail nest; at a distance indistinguishable from the tree branch.

The eggs within the Willie Wagtail nest.

The dedicated parent gives a sense of the miniature scale of the operation.

Not nesting, but an unusual visitor, is the Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus. These stunning birds often turn up in ones and twos through the year but at the swamp lately there has been a roving flock of close to forty birds. Among them have also been Common Greenshanks, Marsh Sandpipers, and plenty of Wood and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. Ilparpa Swamp is also the sight of some of the few records of Tawny Grassbird Megalurus timoriensis, that were observed earlier this year.

A flock of Glossy Ibis wheels over Ilparpa Swamp and at least one birder wonders what else could be lurking among all those reeds.

White-necked and White-faced Herons have been fairly regular here in recent weeks and when there are egrets in town you're a good chance of finding them here as well. Australian, Baillon's and Spotless Crake are all recorded here when the water levels are suitable, as are Buff-banded Rail, Brown Quail, and there are a few records of Stubble Quail here as well.

Hmmm, poke around looking for birds or sit at the computer?... decisions, decisions...

For the raptor fans, there has been a Peregrine Falcon here most afternoons harrassing the ducks and stilts and the Black Falcon that is sometimes seen at the poo ponds is often found perched in the dead trees that dot the swamp. Spotted and Swamp Harriers have been seen here and Nankeen Kestrels and Black-shouldered Kites can also be seen plucking rodents from the dry islands of samphire within the swamp.

A Black-shouldered Kite Elanus axillaris.

So that's why I've been neglecting the blog a bit. Ilparpa Swamp is just too tempting at the moment. Get down and have a look before it has its own coffee shop and visitor centre.

White-necked Heron - I'm outta here.

CBW

Princess Parrots, Scarlet-chested Parrots, and Striated Grasswrens - The Great Victoria Desert

2011-11-14T22:18:00.000+09:30

NT/WA border - onwards!

My latest effort to extend the Centralian year list has been to head down to the south-west corner. There are a couple of birds that are an extremely unlikely outside chance of being seen inside the borders of the NT here. Mallefowl, not seen in the NT since the 1960s and Grey Currawong, reported much more recently but there is still no reliable population that I am aware of within the NT. You won't be surprised to hear then that I failed to find either of these species on this trip. That doesn't mean I've given up, but they'll have to wait for a more dedicated search.

Desert Grass Trees Xanthorrhoea thorntonii, instantly make the WA side of the border a bit more decorative.

The real reason I was passing through this bit of the country was that my employer had snagged some work in the country around Neale Junction, WA. This was a trip of spectacular birds and extraorinary meteorological phenomena. Most readers will be aware that Neale Junction Nature Reserve is a prominent area of overlap in the ranges of two of our most elusive parrots, Scarlet-chested Neophema splendida, and Princess Polytelis alexandrae. Recent reports had both species in very good numbers around Neale Junction, the intersection of the Connie Sue and Anne Beadell Highway. These are roads laid down by famous outback surveyor and road-builder Len Beadell in the late fifties and early sixties. Len and his Gunbarrel Road Construction Party built a network of remote roads running across most of the areas of Australia's interior that still remained more or less blank on the map in those days. A few of his roads have been maintained and improved and now form arterial links to remote towns throughout Australia's arid heart. A few have even been slated for development into all-weather roads and eventual sealing over coming years, but the majority are still little-travelled and not much more than a single set of wheel ruts traversing colossal expanses of pristine desert. The Connie Sue and the Anne Beadell Highways fall into this latter category.

The Connie Sue Highway, and this is not even one of the worse bits. Cool-headed driving is the order of the day. If you're stuck here, you're properly stuck. We didn't see a single other vehicle in the 2 and a half days and 900km round trip from Warburton to Lake Yeo and back.

Once clear of the NT and into WA, the game changed from finding lifers for the Centralian list into finding lifers. This is not as easy as it sounds. Almost any of the species that inhabit the arid interior of WA are regularly found in Central Australia as well. Apart from the two parrots there was little chance of finding anything new for the list, but all the same, there was a tangible sense of discovery as we turned off the Great Central Road south of Warburton and headed down the Connie Sue. Recent rains had left sizeable stretches of water where the road should have been but fortunately most of these were fairly shallow and had solid bottoms. All the same we got out and checked every single one. The road is very slow going and the ~300kms from Warburton to Neale Junction took most of the day - starting early and finishing after dark. If you decide to come down this way my one bit of advice is to leave yourself much more time than you think for travelling. As a result of our underestimation of travelling time we had much less time on-ground than we anticipated. In addition, we had some large storms and heavy rain while we were down around Lake Yeo making many of the roads borderline impassable. The journey back up the Connie Sue to the Great Central Road was much more challenging after a couple of days of storms passing through. There were a few spots that the vehicle only got through with some careful planning and level-headed driving. Even with all the satellite communications gear in the world, if you get stuck out here it might be many days until recovery can be arranged - not the place for gung-ho four-wheel driving.

One of Len Beadell's road markers at Parrot Central - Neale Junction.

Anyway, to cut a very long story short, we saw the parrots. These are surely some stunningly beautiful birds, but to be honest they are beautiful in direct proportion to their surrounds. The lime green shoulders of the Princess Parrots are in the new growth of all the mallees; the pastel pink is in the tree bark and dune tops, and the blue is the clear desert sky (when it's clear anyway). Even the apparently garish plumage of the male Scarlet-chested Parrot blends in perfectly well with the tones of the Great Victoria Desert.

Just your average GVD campsite sunrise. The Marble Gum in this picture has Striated Grasswrens in the lower branches - not a joke. I couldn't believe it but I had the best views I have ever had of this species, not darting about amongst spinifex clumps but singing from the lower branches of a gum tree.

Sometimes we had a fleeting glimpse of small flocks as they flushed from ground feeding beside or on the road. At other times we got decent views as they flew along parallel to the road. The Princess Parrots seemed much less inclined to fly to a perch and allow views than did the more abundant Scarlet-chested Parrots. I was travelling with non-birders, but they were interested (sympathetic?) enough to pull over from time to time and indulge my searching for a better look at these elusive species. All the same, it was a work trip and we had left ourselves very short of travelling time. This meant that the camera rarely even came out of the bag I'm afraid so no pretty bird pics, but it has inspired me to head back down on my own time and spend a bit longer in this area.

The landscape pictures will have to suffice, but I hope they give enough of a taste of the atmosphere of this great bit of the country. Consulting my notes it seems that all up we saw around 15 Princess Parrots over two days, although my best views were of a pair and a separate flock of four - none of the swirling flocks of hundreds reported around Mereenie last year. The Scarlet-chested Parrots were more plentiful and I suspect that we saw many more than I noted as their smaller size means they can be misidentified as Mulga Parrots at distance. Even allowing for this we saw more than 20 birds over the two days that we were in "prime" habitat around Neale Junction including a few good close encounters. Also, I saw a single bird closer to the NT border along the Great Central Road between Warburton and Warakurna.

Other birding highlights of the trip were the phenomenal number of White-fronted Honeyeaters, Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens calling and showing well almost anywhere we pulled over along the GCR, Pied and Black Honeyeaters, giant flocks of 5000+ budgies around flooded borrow pits on the GCR, Cockatiels in decent flocks, lekking Australian Bustards and Striated Grasswrens as campsite birds, many close encounters with Spotted Nightjars (day and night), and Redthroat as common as sparrows in a city park.

Bird of the trip? Perhaps surprisingly for a trip where we managed good views of two notoriously difficult species (the parrots), the bird of the trip was a relative chicken... Little Button-quail. These little buggers were everywhere. From start to finish these tiny birds were a constant presence and have obviously bred very well in the arid grasslands after the run of good rains.

Sand dunes and mile after mile of mallee and Marble Gum - what more could you ask for?

If you're ever planning a trip to Neale Junction, prepare well. All the usual requirements for remote area travel apply - extra food and water, multiple forms of reliable communications, a recently serviced and capable vehicle, and plenty of off road driving experience. Most people come from Perth through Kalgoorlie which will remove the need for a long drive down the Connie Sue Highway. However, approaching the area from Alice Springs had its own advantages. The Connie Sue was a real adventure and passes through stunning country. The GCR from the NT border to Warburton is a very well maintained unsealed highway and also passes some interesting spots like the Giles Meteorology Station and the Schwern-Mural Crescent (a mountain range), and of course offers great birding right along its length. Although Princess and Scarlet-chested Parrots are fairly reliably found at Neale Junction, suitable habitat occurs sporadically along the GCR and both species have been reported infrequently at a number of places along its length.

You will need to arrange several different permits for crossing aboriginal land (from separate bodies in the NT and WA) for the trip described here and I would strongly advise allowing several weeks for these to come through. And lastly, keep your eyes on the skies - unsealed roads in this part of the country are often closed for days at a time following even fairly light rain. Heavy penalties apply for travelling on closed roads and you will be causing untold damage to road surfaces by doing so. Be prepared to suck it up and sit it out - camping a few extra days if required or even postponing your trip until you are more certain of the forecast.

CBW

Flashback to Darwin

2011-10-31T22:55:00.000+09:30

Just for a change from the Red Centre birds, let's talk Top End for a minute. It's taken me this long to sift through my pictures and notes from a recent trip to Darwin. It was primarily a work trip, but I also managed to get my NT list up closer to a respectable total for someone who has been living here for so long. In reality this wasn't too tricky as the bulk of my birding is, of course, done down here in the dusty south. Darwin was alive with birds and the weather was mild so I had a very enjoyable four days. Armed with a few tips from Top End mate Bob Gosford and advice from a few others at the NT Field Naturalists Club I had a few good ideas about potential hotspots. It's also worthy of mention, that the trip wouldn't have been half the success it was without Niven McCrie and James Watson's essential guide, "Finding Birds in Darwin, Kakadu & The Top End". This is a well-tested, still current, highly-portable, and user-friendly book. I can't recommend it highly enough. It was very handy to have kicking around in the hire car.

There were a few confusing birds during this trip, but none more so than this one:

I've always called this a Pied Imperial-pigeon Ducula bicolor, and this is what my edition of Pizzey & Knight calls it but the consensus on Eremaea Birds seems to be Torresian Imperial-pigeon Ducula spilorrhoa.

What do you call it? Pied Imperial-pigeon comes up on Eremaea Birds as not on the regional list but it doesn't seem to have a problem with the Torresian Imperial-pigeon. It seems the taxonomy, as usual, is uncertain and subject to change. Whatever it is, it is much more common around Darwin than I remember it being a few years back. Lovely big pigeon.

Greater Sand Plover Charadrius leschenaultii, Lee Point.

The biggest thing I was missing on my NT list was waders. There is limited scope for wader-watching in Alice Springs. Having said this, if you hang about long enough, we tend to get most of the waders through at one time or another. But Darwin with its wonderful coastline and proximity to Asia has waders aplenty. First cabs off the rank were a Grey Plover and a few dozen Greater and Lessser Sand Plovers. Mixed in among these were a liberal sprinkling of Sanderling and Ruddy Turnstones. All of these species were in various stages of moult and are the sort of birds that might cause a minor stampede if they showed up in Alice. We've had Grey Plovers and we've had the occasional Ruddy Turnstone, but they would be considered highly unusual.

Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres. A long distance champ that gets birdos dancing down in Alice but is just one of the crowd at Lee Point. The pale birds in the middle distance left and right are first year immature Sanderling Calidris alba.

Further along the beach there were some decent flocks of Great Knot with a few Red Knot, Eastern Curlews, Black-tailed Godwits and a few Bar-tailed Godwits. A few different terns were roosting on the beach or flying along the shoreline including Greater and Lesser Crested, Caspian and Little Terns. Once I'd had my fill of the waders (it took a while) I shuffled a bit further along to Buffalo Creek. This is a famed area for Chestnut Rail. On the mornings I was there I didn't hear a peep from a rail. This is not so disappointing as this is a good bird to save for later on. If they were that easy to see, they wouldn't be quite as exciting!

Yellow Oriole Oriolus flavocinctus. The highlight of the trudge back to the car park.

The way back through the car park was full of Yellow Orioles, Long-tailed Finches, and Golden-headed Cisticolas. None of these are particularly uncommon birds but it was so nice to be seeing something other than Australian Ringnecks and feral Spotted Doves!

Golden-headed Cisticola Cisticola exilis, appearing around Alice Springs at this time of year as well.

Any birding trip will have a target list, however casually it may be put together. I had my targets for this trip and dipped spectacularly on most of them. Rather than dwell on these, I always try to focus on the birds I do manage to find - an infinitely more positive approach! So I dipped on Great-billed Heron, Beach Stone-curlew, Chestnut Rail, Zitting Cisticola, King Quail, and Rufous Owl...but..

Barking Owl Ninox connivens. Darwin Botanical Gardens.

...I saw Barking Owls! They seem to be everywhere around Darwin at the moment. There was a pair being very vocal at the top of the stairs to the Deckchair Cinema along the Darwin Esplanade in the early morning and then I found another three at the Darwin Botanical Gardens. This is a species I have seen heaps of times before, but I never tire of finding owls at their daytime roosts. It always seems like a distinct privilege - like a secret that you've been let in on. People were whizzing past on bicycles oblivious to the extraordinary creature allowing such intimate views only a few feet above the footpath.

Barking Owl Ninox connivens.

One of the better short walks near the city of Darwin would have to be the walk from the hospital, down through woodlands and mangroves to the beach at Casuarina. This covers a good variety of habitats and is full of interesting birdlife. Dollarbirds were pretty common as were some stunning Pheasant Coucals in breeding plumage.

Pheasant Coucal Centropus phasianinus, Casuarina, Darwin.

Down along the beach we found Rose-crowned Fruit-doves were plentiful among the casuarinas and the edge of the mangroves were full of small birds, including Emerald Doves, Large-billed Gerygone, and Northern Fantails. Red-headed Honeyeaters darted about and Forest Kingfishers sat quietly on exposed perches over the footpath.

Forest Kingfisher Todiramphus macleayii.

So the northern trip was a smashing success in my book, despite missing the bulk of my targets. The Top End, like The Centre, is seeing the benefits of a few good seasons in a row and this is evident in the birdlife. The place is jumping.

As I write this back in Alice, it is drizzling and freezing cold. Work has kindly intervened with some work in the vicinity of Neale Junction, WA, where Princess Parrots are reported to be breeding again and are being seen by the dozen on most days - Scarlet-chested Parrots are also being seen fairly regularly in the area. This is all very good, but the rain has closed many of the roads in the area, so I am biting my nails and awaiting the word to go.

This could be the first time ever that I am hoping for no clouds!

CBW

Sunbird in The Alice and the best bird of all...

2011-10-25T06:09:00.000+09:30

Perentie Varanus giganteus.

Wow, has it been that long? No doubt you've been enjoying a nice break from my hopeless mangling of language that I manage to pass off as English. Well, the break is over and I'm back to pollute the bird-blogosphere once again. Unfortunately, the forecast is for continuing posts for the foreseeable future. I've been swanning around in the Top End enjoying some of the beautiful build-up weather and some world class wader watching.

Since returning back south, I've been birding my pants off. The latest trip was with a group from UK-based tour company, SUNBIRD. I have learnt to impose a very strict no camera rule on myself when I am guiding professionally, lest I get lost in photographic reverie and not give my guests my full attention - hard to believe, but it can happen! So no pictures of my latest jaunts I'm afraid, but I had a bit of a replay of one encounter from the tour this afternoon.

Increasingly, the bird tours that I meet are arriving not just with bird lists but butterfly lists, herp (reptile/amphibian) lists, mammal lists, dragonfly lists, and all manner of other invertebrate lists. People are just going tick crazy - I will not be surprised the first time someone in a group I'm leading declares a Cattle Tick to be a life tick.

After a day when we had crippling views of Painted Finches, Dusky Grasswrens almost landing on members of the group, Spinifex Pigeons dancing around our ankles and Spinifexbirds tending a nest before our very eyes, I was intrigued to hear what the group would vote as "bird of the day" during the after dinner bird list.

The telegraph station seems to be the place to go to tick off this, "bird".

"Perentie", came the unanimous reply. We had encountered one of these giant monitors during thornbill hunting in the afternoon. Everyone had very close views and a few folks got a bit close for comfort after getting a little bold in their photography approaches. So this is how a lizard became the best bird.

Not having a camera with me of course I was a bit cheesed off at having missed an opportunity - they are simply not that common to run into. So I was beside myself when I found two of the buggers this afternoon on a late afternoon walk out the back of the Telegraph Station. A large and apparently gravid female, and a second, similarly bulky lizard further down the track.

It's a great start to the herping season.

CBW

Red Centre Birdweek,Twitchathon, Tweetathon, and a Scarlet-chested Parrot

2011-10-11T17:53:00.000+09:30

Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo Chalcites basalis, Kunoth Bore NT.

Birdweek has been a blast this year with more events and more participants than previous years. Alice Springs Desert Park again organised and hosted the event, but recognition should go to many local birders who volunteered their time and knowledge to make the event a success. Some of the highlights, bird sightings-wise, were a pair of Royal Spoonbills at the poo ponds, great views of Little Eagle out at Owen Springs, a Nankeen Night-heron at the Telegraph Station, an Australian Pelican also at the poo ponds, and Black-eared Cuckoo, Australian Bustard, Brown Quail, and Pied Cormorant all recorded during the twitchathon. A member of one team reported a Scarlet-chested Parrot on Owen Springs that was too fast for the rest of the team to identify and so had to remain, heartbreakingly, off the official list.

Spinifex Pigeon Geophaps plumifera, the default avian mascot of Central Australia and an undeniably stunning species.

There were guided events throughout the week at some well known birding sites and a few less well known ones as well. One of the non-birding highlights for me was the talk delivered by Dick Kimber, which was well attended at Centralian College. Dick, a keen birdwatcher himself among his many other credentials, gave us a fascinating insight to his experiences with Pintubi and Warlpiri people of the western desert. The talk focused specifically on western desert knowledge and representations of birdlife. To have access to someone with Dick's experiences, and the ability to relate those experiences with such clarity, was a privilege and a high point of the whole week for me.

But, of course, the Twitchathon looms large in the program also. This year we had ten teams which is another improvement on last year's field of seven competitors. The eventual winners were The Buff Budgies (Melopsittacus magnanimous), consisting of Richard Waring (Team Captain and chauffeur), and his two sons Banjo and Moses. The trio turned in a stunning list of 91 species with a few stand out birds like Pied Cormorant and Australian Bustard. My own team, The Gibberbirders, staggered across the finish line with a paltry 89 species, down from 90 after our scribe mysteriously decided to record Pacific Black Duck and Black Duck as separate species - aaaahhh!!! [No scribes were injured - much] These list tallies are an interesting measure of the season as well. Last year most of the leading teams were clearing the ton, and I think the winners ended up with 107 birds. This year the leaderboard was scattered from the high 50s up to the winning list of 91. Will we go boom or bust next year? Either way, it'll be interesting.

Mark Carter from Desertlife volunteered his services as adjudicator, effectively removing himself from the running this year but providing an interesting side spectacle by completing the first Carbon-neutral Red Centre Twitchathon. Mark and Gareth mounted their bicycles and completed the 24 hour event in stunning form, astonishingly, equalling the score of the winning team! On a ride which totalled more than 70kms, the pedalling pair ticked off some great species such as Black-eared Cuckoo, Spinifex Pigeon, Dusky Grasswren and Redthroat. The idea has been proven now, so expect some more action in the carbon-neutral category next year!

The other new development was the use of Twitter for some of the teams to broadcast their ticks live from the field. A big thank you here is due to Simon Mustoe and the crew at Bird-o who set up a live Twitter feed on their website which was crucial to the success of the inaugural Tweetathon. This enabled folks from near and far (I've received feedback from New York City, Paisley in Scotland, New Zealand, and Thailand as well as many interstate followers within Australia) to follow the competitors, offer encouragement, and spread the word about the buzzing, birding heart of Australia. This is another addition that I hope we can build on next year. I found it added an extra element of excitement to be able to keep up with the competition and the blockers they might have been adding to their list.

So that was the week that was, but the birding certainly isn't slowing down at all. There are still a few international birding tour groups headed this way which always have a habit of turning up some interesting birds. I'm off to Darwin this week, so I'll be out of your hair until at least Sunday. Then I'll be off to the arid interior of WA to, hopefully, bring some news of Scarlet-chested and Princess Parrots - talk about a kid in a candy store...

CBW

Australian Pelican at the Poo Ponds Just in Time for the Twitchathon

2011-10-06T23:19:00.000+09:30

Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus, on final approach.

It was a very exciting last minute, pre-twitchathon check of the poo ponds this afternoon. We were looking for Richard Waring's Royal Spoonbills to no avail. We did find a Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis, which is always a good one for the 24 hour list.

The big ticket item arrived just as we had abandoned the spoonbill hunt and headed for home. This magnificent Australian Pelican glided in over our heads and circled several times. He eventually settled on EP10 sending all of the ducks into quite a flap - the landing strip was anything but clear.

A lot of very surprised ducks.

Now, everyone cross your fingers that he doesn't figure out that there are no fish until after the Twitchathon starts tomorrow...

CBW

Brown Falcon and Thorny Devil - A Study of Predator and Prey

2011-10-04T00:38:00.002+09:30

Brown Falcon Falco berigora, always on the look out for the next meal. This seems to be an adult male bird with strong, bright, yellow pigmentation in the cere and orbital ring.

NB; A big thank you to Paul McDonald and Stephen Debus. Paul's 2003 paper, which I was previously unaware of, shows that plumage and bare part colour variations in the Brown Falcon previously attributed to different "morphs" are most likely indicators of age and sex.

The Brown Falcon may be the most common raptor encountered around central Australia; it is certainly the most common of the Falco species. It has been the cause of many mis-identifications due to the broad range of plumage colours that the species appears in, dependent on age and sex. The bird in these pictures, taken on Owen Springs Reserve near Alice Springs, is toward the paler end of the spectrum which likely indicates that this is an adult male. The plumage appears darker in younger birds and may be so dark as to be mistaken for black in certain light conditions. The adult birds, with their very pale underside might be mistaken for the rare Grey Falcon Falco hypoleucos, and the younger, darker birds are prime candidates for confusion with the Black Falcon Falco subniger. One of the easiest field marks to look for in both cases are the feathered legs. Both the Black and Grey Falcons have fully feathered legs, whereas the Brown Falcon has completely bare, and considerably longer, legs - all the better for chasing terrestrial prey.The Grey Falcon is also distinctive for its bright yellow feet and the Black Falcon for its noticeably longer tail.

A common way to find the Brown Falcon - perched in an emergent dead tree, scouring the landscape for a sign of movement.

The Black and Grey Falcons are specialised bird hunters with a preference for taking their prey in mid-air. The Brown Falcon however, while it will also hunt and kill birds, is beautifully adapted for taking advantage of a plentiful food source in arid Australia - reptiles. Small lizards in particular are a staple of its diet.

Thorny Devil Moloch horridus, in classic defensive posture.

...and around central Australia one of the commonest small lizards is this bloke. This is a famous Centralian resident, surprisingly common, but often missed due its highly effective camouflage. Both the colouring and texture of its skin make this animal exceedingly difficult to find among the sandy scrub of its home. The animal here, also on Owen Springs Reserve, is in its defensive posture. By adopting this pose, with the head tucked down as low as possible exposing the "false head" on the back of his neck, he hopes that a marauding Brown Falcon will attack this fatty, expendable decoy, rather than his real noggin. If that gives him time to scarper into the undergrowth, he will be very difficult to find indeed. Once these critters move from the open road into any sort of vegetative cover... they vanish. It's an impressive party trick.

I don't care what anyone thinks - this is one of the most beautiful faces in the land.

Up close, you'll notice an intricate network of grooves and channels running around and even across the scales. The characteristic spikes have longitudinal grooves converging toward the tip. These scales can collect dew on misty mornings, as can the feet when they are in contact with wet ground, and channel this moisture across the reticulated grooves by capillary action where it can be absorbed through the skin. The mouth is tiny and the Thorny Devil is (as far as I am aware) incapable of biting. The diet consists entirely of small black ants of the genera Pheidole and Campanotus.

All of these things combine to make the Thorny Devil one of my all time favourites. An animal that looks absolutely terrifying, but is more or less harmless (unless you're an ant), and almost defenceless. It wasn't looked on quite so kindly by early naturalists. It still has to carry that awful specific name horridus, and the generic name Moloch. This is a name with diabolical literary associations stretching from the days of the old testament, to John Milton's Paradise Lost, and even more recent pulp fiction. Moloch, in scripture and Milton's masterpiece, was first among the demons in Pandaemonium and a great warrior in Satan's army. Dan Brown (yes, he of The Da Vinci Code) gave a nod to Moloch by naming the main villain in his latest book The Lost Code, Mal'akh. Anyway, the bibical Moloch was supposedly known for his fondness of gobbling down Canaanite children like jelly-beans. When naturalists, apparently well up on their scripture, first observed a Thorny Devil poised above a line of ants sucking them into its mouth, one after another, it must have rung a bell.

Striking a bolder pose.

The best way to find one is to cruise slowly along a quiet road that passes through sand country and stay alert. These little lizards are often basking on, or making their way excrutiatingly slowly across, the road when the weather is warm enough. Even in the middle of the road they are so small, well concealed, and unexpected that the majority of them end up being squashed. This is a great tragedy as this animal is one of the real postcard characters of inland Australia and something that all visitors hope to see during their stay. Many is the time I've heard a tourist wondering aloud where all these famous Thorny Devils are, when the chances are that they will have driven past at least a dozen of them between Alice Springs and Uluru, and probably twice as many squashed ones; on one drive I counted 22 between the Lasseter Highway and the King's Canyon Resort 170kms away. So in good weather, at the right time of day (mid-morning and late afternoon), you can expect one perhaps every 10kms! This is a great reason to slow down, sharpen your eyes, and try to lessen our Thorny Devil road toll.

If this wasn't enough they have one more trick up their spiky sleeve. Thorny Devils have what amounts to a thumbprint.. of sorts. All Thorny Devils can be identified to individual level by the subtle differences in the patterns on their bellies, much like the fluke patterns of Humpback Whales.

So there you go. The next time you see a Brown Falcon loitering about some sand country, it is very likely a Thorny Devil that is on the menu. Happy hunting!

CBW

Peregrine Falcon and the Poo Ponds Day List Record Tumbles

2011-09-30T22:46:00.000+09:30

Death from above - the Peregrine Falcon at its perch.

It has been a big week of preparations for a huge week ahead. Red Centre Bird Week is finally upon us and the birding around Alice Springs has been suitably electric. This Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus, has been a regular fixture of my visits to the poo ponds all this week.

Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus macrotarsa.

This is the most widespread and perhaps best-known bird of prey on earth. Peregrines can be found on every continent of the planet except Antarctica. The Peregrine Falcon is the Chuck Norris of the avian world - the only reason they aren't found in Antarctica is because they don't want to go there. The reason penguins lost the power of flight and took to the water is that they heard the Peregrine Falcon was thinking of coming to Antarctica. The Peregrine Falcon can kill two stones with one bird. The neutrino that recently travelled faster than the speed of light at CERN in Switzerland was being chased by a Peregrine Falcon.

Effortlessly, powerfully fast.

Yep, they're an impressive bird. It's nice to know that they are still around as I haven't seen them in Heavitree Gap for a few weeks, but I suspect this is the same bird that I was seeing there. But I had to shake myself from awestruck reverie and continue around the ponds in pursuit of a record. I was having a very good run with the bushbirds and honeyeaters in the small patch of woodland up in the north-west corner of the ponds and I was a chance to break my day list record for this site.

Banded Lapwing - it's easy to be likeable when you always hang around with Masked Lapwings.

The waders have been off the boil recently as the water levels have just been too high for good wader roosting habitat. The one new wader for the year was a single Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis, that was hanging around in pond A6. Three Banded Lapwings Vanellus tricolor, were hanging around among the Masked Lapwings and made another good addition to the list.

Rainbow Bee-eater Merops ornatus.

There were no unusual ducks floating about so I was relying on something cool to turn up as I headed along the northern fenceline. Red-capped Robin Petroica goodenovii, was a handy addition and I quickly got all three species of local fairy-wren. Rainbow Bee-eaters Merops ornatus, are very common at the moment and I had a good few minutes watching them picking bees out of the mallee blooms. A single Inland Thornbill Acanthiza apicalis, was feeding amongst the Weebills Smicrornis brevirostris. Diamond Dove Geopelia cuneata, and Peaceful Dove Geopelia striata were both good to get and then the honeyeaters arrived. Within a few minutes in a flowering stand of Hakea divaricata and Acacia victoriae I saw Singing, White-plumed, Brown, Spiny-cheeked, and White-fronted Honeyeaters and Yellow-throated Miners.

A Nankeen Kestrel Falco cenchroides flew overhead and, along with the Peregrine Falcon, that put me over the record. 63 species is now my new number to beat.

Roll on Twitchathon!

Australian Bustard, Flock Bronzewing - A Practice Run at Owen Springs for Birdweek

2011-09-27T23:44:00.000+09:30

The ever cryptic Australian Bustard Ardeotis australis.

Central Australia is still burning, and today the fires came very close to residential areas and our beloved Desert Park. The entire Mt. Gillen Range has gone up in smoke this evening, burning right up to the edge of the Alice Springs Desert Park and Larapinta Valley Town Camp. The Desert Park was evacuated and closed for the day, but this was just a precaution and it seems it will be business as usual tomorrow and there has been no damage to the park that I know of. The fires burnt up and over the top of the range and the latest word from Mark Carter is that the nest of Wedge-tailed Eagles he has been keeping an eye on over the last few weeks has been burnt out. The eaglet Mark has been watching may have been within days of fledging but we don't know at this stage if it has escaped unscathed. You can follow Mark @desertlifeaus on Twitter to keep up with his latest.

There are some very large patches of burnt habitat like this on Owen Springs Reserve, but each time we stopped, these areas were full of birds; Splendid Fairy-wrens, Hooded Robins, Southern Whiteface, Yellow-rumped Thornbills, Crested Bellbird, Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, Australasian Pipit, Zebra Finches, Masked Woodswallows, Brown Falcons, Nankeen Kestrels, Grey-crowned Babblers, Rainbow Bee-eaters... just some of the birds we found.

As this drama unfolded in town, I headed out to Owen Springs Conservation Reserve to have a poke around in preparation for the kick off to Red Centre Bird Week 2011 which will be the tag-a-long tour through this great bit of habitat. The recce proved to be an excellent idea, and I amassed a very nice list of birds as I puddled around some of the back tracks.

There are still plenty of patches of vegetation left and the wild fowers are coming back with a vengeance.

This reserve has also been heavily affected by fires over the last few weeks, and some of the country we passed through was still smoking. This sounds awful, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn't affect the joy of birding. As I rounded a bend in the road near the entrance to the reserve, and witnessed sweeping plains of scorched earth spreading out in every direction I despaired. But, as I pulled over near the gate, some movement caught my eye by the roadside. As if to shake me from my pessimism, an Australian Bustard Ardeotis australis, stood nonchalantly in the open glaring at me with its facing eye.

Rare enough at the best of times, to see one at such close quarters was an instant thrill. He eyed me suspiciously for a few long moments. Very suddenly he decided I was not to be trusted and, with a mighty grunt he took to the air.

A laboured take-off if ever I saw one.

The great wings pumped him up off the earth scattering clouds of fine ash from the ground like a shuttle launch. He hefted himself skyward and, once he had some forward momentum, he almost seemed at home in the sky. Being among the heaviest flying birds in the world, bustards never look quite like they belong in flight, but it was aviation of a masterful fashion nonetheless; my ham-fisted photography does it no justice.

We continued along a few dithering tracks and checked in at a couple of dams. Common Bronzewings Phaps chalcoptera were living up to their name but among them we spied two Flock Bronzewings Phaps histrionica, at one of the bores - fingers crossed they will hang around until Saturday. The Hugh River was still holding water in a few different spots and we found Little Pied and little Black Cormorants and a White-faced Heron.

Is this Jupiter setting over the western skies?

The sunset was characteristically bewildering - at this time of the year the atmosphere produces some great effects. As we watched the sunset from a small knoll, it took on the appearance of a mysterious planet from a distant galaxy.

It was a beautiful end to the recce, and we headed home very satisfied that Saturday should be a big success. The drive home proved to be quite spectacular in its own right. The ranges were still ablaze and a long line of flame spread from Heavitree Gap all the way along the ridge to Mt. Gillen. It was sad to think of the wanton destruction caused in this instance, but it was undeniably beautiful all the same. The northern face of the range was peppered with tiny spot fires and burning logs which, now in the dark of night, looked like the twinkling lights of a great city overlooking Alice Springs.

Strange days indeed.

CBW

Dusky Moorhen, Desert Death Adder, and Nankeen Night-herons Galore - Glen Helen Resort

2011-09-27T00:05:00.000+09:30

Dusky Moorhen Gallinula tenbrosa, is a bird I have been trying to track down for the year list. I've never seen this bird anywhere in central Australia except for the reed beds opposite the pub out at Glen Helen Resort. This year I was hoping I might track one down elsewhere, but the pages are flying off the calendar now and I just had to tick one off. The Glen Helen population were ever reliable and I had only been looking for a couple of minutes when out from the reeds popped a plump adult. There are plenty of Purple Swamphens Porphyrio porphyrio about at the moment too, but the moorhen stood out from the crowd with the bright orange and yellow bill. Unfortunately, the moorhen was always too sneaky to allow me a decent picture - the same wasn't true for the swamphens.

The T. rex of the Gallinule world - Porphyrio porphyrio.

How can anyone watch a Purple Swamphen going about its business and not think of T. rex? We now know that all birds are probably descended from the terrible lizards of 64mya+ but it is never more obvious than when watching a bruiser like a swamphen. The bird in this picture was scavenging dead fish from along the shore, but he would be equally happy eating small mammals or even dining out on the contents of another swamphen's nest.

Nankeen Night-heron Nycticorax caledonicus, two of the adult birds.

Glen Helen delivered on another front as well. After the excitement of the young Nankeen Night-heron Nycticorax caledonicus, found at the Chifley Resort last week, another resort is now hosting a flock of the buggers. Colin, the publican and birdo extraordinaire, pointed out a few birds hanging about in a River Red Gum across the river from the pub. I spotted an adult bird straight away but the deeper I looked into the foliage the more birds appeared. My final count was ten birds roosting in the one tree, including two birds in juvenile plumage.

One of the juvenile birds.

So I left Glen Helen very satisfied with my year tick and a bunch of other interesting sightings along the river. Apart from the night-herons there was a flock of about forty Little Black Cormorants Phalacrocorax sulcirostris, an Australasian Darter Anhinga novaehollandiae, a lonely Hardhead Aythya australis, two Intermediate Egrets Mesophoyx intermedia, and two Little Pied Cormorants Microcarbo melanoleucos. Unfortunately the drive home began with roadkill...

Desert Death Adder Acanthopis pyrrhus.

The car in front of us clipped a small snake which reared up. This made it very easy to spot and we pulled over to check if it was alright. To my astonishment it was a stunning Desert Death Adder, one of the trickiest snakes to find. In all my years poking around the bush in every different part of Australia I have never been able to find any of the death adder species, dead or alive. There was still plenty of fight in this specimen but unfortunately he was too badly injured to leave. This is arguably the most beautiful snake in Australia when you have the privilege of seeing it up close like this. In amongst the rocks by the side of the road you would never even see this animal. It is just so perfectly matched to its surrounds.

A bit of a bummer to finish the trip on, but at least it is nice to know that they are out there somewhere.

Emus, White-fronted Honeyeater, and Yabbies near Alice Springs - Surprising Finds at Conlon's Lagoon

2011-09-26T23:06:00.000+09:30

Inescapable evidence.

A few weeks back, many Centralian birders were quite surprised when the review of the NT Threatened Species List proposed downgrading the status of Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae. For many birders around these parts, and certainly in my own experience, this is not a species we see very often at all in central Australia. Imagine my surprise then, when we found these tracks during an outing with the Alice Springs Field Naturalists Club last Thursday.

Conlon's Lagoon on another smoky day for Alice Springs.

We were at Conlon's Lagoon, probably within 10kms of the centre of town. The lagoon is a large area of claypans and ephemeral coolibah swamp which is fully protected by a conservation covenant. It almost doesn't need protection as the entire area lies beneath the danger funnel for the Alice Springs Shooting Club. We only managed to arrange access on a non-shooting day and even then, only because we had connections through the Field Nats. The reserve contains a lot of interesting, uncommon and rare flora including the only Swamp Canegrass Eragrostis australasicus in the Alice Springs district.

The Emu tracks were very exciting to find this close to town. The fact that the claypan here was wet until at least March of this year suggests that these tracks could be less than 5 months old. We later found the tracks of three young Emus and a feather. These all raise the tantalising possibility that there is a family of Emus living in splendid isolation, undisturbed in this "hidden valley". Anecdotal evidence also backs this up with members of the shooting club saying that shooting has had to be suspended on the ranges on more than one occasion due to an Emu wandering in to the firing line. Interesting stuff....

I reckon this bloke must have died trying to swim through the drying mud.

Other interesting features of the area include a thick stand of Fork-leaved Corkwood Hakea divaricata and Acacia victoriae on the southern shore of the claypan. These plants were flowering heavily and had attracted large groups of White-fronted Honeyeaters Purnella albifrons. This is a bird which we often have to travel out of Alice for a while to see normally. It's always great to see that there is a population here near town. They were giving pretty good views but were being harrassed by Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters Acanthagenys rufogularis, and Singing Honeyeaters Lichenostomus virescens so they didn't sit still for long.

Yabby Cherax destructor. Just one of many sets of remains found out on the claypan.

A bit of a surprise was the number of Yabby Cherax destructor remains on the claypan surface. I discovered later, reading from a 2005 study of wetlands in the Arid NT by Angus Duguid et al, that this species has been introduced to several Centralian watercourses and are not native to the area. They seem to have adapted quite well to life here because there were plenty of them, and they were found here by the 1894 Horn Expedition. It seems they were probably introduced by workers on the Overland Telegraph Line in the 1870s.

So there you go; Conlon's Lagoon is probably not a place that any of us is going to be able to visit with any regularity, but perhaps we will be able to arrange further visits next time we get some rain... and there is lighting and thunder outside the window as I type...

CBW

Nankeen Night-heron, Black Falcon, Australian Crake, Black-winged Stilts, a Crazy Sun, and a bit of Henry.

2011-09-21T09:21:00.001+09:30

Nankeen Night-heron Nycticorax caledonicus, Nigel to his mates.

The fires have flared up again around The Centre. The northern Simpson Desert is ablaze and much of the country that I passed through less than a fortnight ago on the way to Andado has burnt. Fires are still burning on Angas Downs to the south of town and on Yambah to the north of town. The result of all this has been one of the smokiest days in recent memory, and considering the fires of the last few months that is really saying something. But these are interesting times...

He was initially reluctant to leave the dark and quiet of his cage...

A young Nankeen Night-heron Nycticorax caledonicus, was reported hanging around down at the Chifley Resort in the middle of town. It wasn't paying for its drinks and it was engaging in unspecified anti-social behaviour and disturbing the guests so the folks at the Parks and Wildlife Division (or whatever it is that they are called now - I can't keep up) were called to come and take him into custody.

...but it didn't take him long to get amongst it.

After a couple of days of expert TLC and a few bags of baitfish, he was ready for release and, as I had a key to the poo ponds, I was requested to do the honours. I didn't need to be asked twice as this bird is something of a rarity around Alice Springs. After reporting for duty I whisked him down to the ponds which are just perfect for this species at the moment as the water levels are on the rise and the really thick vegetation is starting to flood.

The night-heron disappearing act.

This was a very quiet bird and after I set his cage down with the door open he took a couple of long moments to smell the freedom before slowly making his way out. Nigel, as I had come to know him, made his way into a nice thicket of amaranthus and did what night-herons do best - freeze and merge into their habitat. He seemed secure, calm, and unstressed, so I left him to become acquainted with his new surrounds in peace.

Making himself at home.

After work I popped back down to see how he was doing. Before I made it over to EP7a, I bumped into Richard Waring and then we were both halted mid-conversation by our local Black Falcon Falco subniger in a spectacular fly past. This bird has been very regular lately, and I saw it again later in the evening just as Mark Carter and I were marvelling at the solar spectacle on display through the natural filter of the thick smoke on the horizon.

Hunting around like he owns the place.

I needn't have been concerned about Nigel. He was busy on my arrival, stalking and probing, vigorously hunting along the fringes of the scrub. This should be a happy home for him until he decides to move on; big trees nearby for roosting and a big area of thick swampy scrub for foraging.

Australian Crake Porzana fluminea. Out to welcome the new neighbour.

Before I said my goodbyes to Nigel, a bold little Australian Crake Porzana fluminea, strode out from the scrub and presented a great photo opportunity.

Making my way back through the murky evening light the Black-winged Stilts Himantopus himantopus, were posing like tidy little butlers on a dancefloor of liquid gold parquetry. The sun has been putting on some spectacular displays of late. The smoke was so heavy today that I could comfortably stare at the sun, even through the binoculars, and pick out little dark patches on its surface. [disclaimer: I know it is a very bad idea to look at the sun even with the naked eye, and it certainly shouldn't be suggested that people look at the sun through binoculars. These were exceptional circumstances with very thick smoke and there was absolutely no danger in doing this as the sun was heavily filtered. Don't look at the sun, especially through your binoculars.]

The camera picked up the disc of the sun very easily at 1/8000th of a second.

In one of my photos the sun even took on the spitting image of one of my all time favourite film characters...

"I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

As an interesting aside, I was listening to all-round Lord of Language Roly Sussex on the wireless this afternoon and he mentioned that the naming of said film character may have been a bit of a dig at a certain PC manufacturer that would rise to prominence many years after the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
If you take the name HAL and shift each letter one position further along the alphabet you end up with IBM. Perhaps this is a well-known bit of film trivia but it was a first for me.

So the sun set on another amazing day of birds and other natural wonders in the other capital city of the Northern Territory. I think today, the last word should go to the most venerated of the old bush poets, the inimitable Henry Lawson. My Dad has passed on an enduring love of the man's works and brought this little morsel to my attention just the other day. I'll get out of your way now.

CBW

"And the sun sank again on the grand Australian bush - the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird, and of much that is different from things in other lands."

from the short story The Bush Undertaker, by Henry Lawson.

Wood Sandpiper Sneers...

2011-09-20T23:37:00.000+09:30

In other news, a Wood Sandpiper sneered today at the pathetic wader identification skills of annoying local bird know-it-all, Chris Watson. The self-proclaimed bird "expert" was unable to be reached for comment.

"...sniff..."

Orange Chats and a Bushfire Sunset with "our" Pacific Golden Plover

2011-09-19T22:55:00.000+09:30

Orange Chat Epthianura aurifrons, a male bird.

Another beautiful spring day in the Alice today. The temperatures are getting up over the thirty degree mark and the winds are getting gusty. Today saw more fires in a lot of different areas meaning the the Centre was fairly covered with a blanket of smoke again. The Orange Chats certainly didn't seem to mind and the smoke created some spectacular atmospheric effects for sunset over the water.

Pacific Golden Plover Pluvialis fulva, showing a great deal of its remaining breeding plumage.

The Pacific Golden Plover is still hanging around and I had some fantastic views of him today, along with the Red Knots that were reported last week.

PGP - Chocks away!

Later on I spent some time hunting around for a Grey-tailed Tattler that had been reported. While I drew a blank on the tattler, I did see some thick-set waders hanging around the edges of A6 that would never let me close enough for a decent view. I never really got a satisfactory look at them but thought they might have been something a bit unusual. Alas, after consultation with the authorities it seems I just had a scruffy bunch of scaredy-cat Sharpies.

A lone Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus, that just had to get in the picture.

Not to worry. The Orange Chats were in great numbers and the bushfire sunset had some crazy colours and was well worth the price of admission.

The multi-coloured orb just before it disappeared behind a curtain of smoke.

CBW

Caspian Terns & Pacific Golden Plover - Another Perfect Afternoon with the Birds

2011-09-18T00:07:00.001+09:30

Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia. Another Centralian lifer!

I get the feeling that some of the waterholes out there in the desert must be drying out. The poo ponds in Alice Springs seem to be getting a sudden influx of water birds that I haven't seen in a while. The best among this afternoon's haul was two stunning and massive Caspian Terns. These goliaths of the tern world are known to lurk around the inland regions from time to time, and there have been recent reports from up at Lake Woods. Almost as soon as I was through the gate this afternoon I picked out these two birds; they're just huge, and also quite noisy compared to the tiny and unobtrusive Whiskered Terns. There was a Gull-billed Tern as well this afternoon but the Caspians clearly stole the show.

Pacific Golden Plover Pluvialis fulva. Still a few remnants of the breeding plumage on the underside.

After calming myself down, I bumped into Will Cormack who kindly pointed out a Pacific Golden Plover he had discovered down the southern end of A6. I have only seen this bird once here in Alice so this was another great addition to the year list.

Pacific Golden Plover on the move.

There were a few other interesting sightings around the ponds apart from these crackers. The single Banded Lapwing is still hanging about with the Masked Lapwings and the Red Knots reported earlier in the week were still present and still favouring A6. There were 6 Australasian Darters heaps of Orange Chats, a couple of Buff-banded Rails and the big surprise, 12 Purple Swamphens. This species has been a bit elusive in the last few months despite having bred at the ponds last season. They retreated into Ilparpa Swamp and, as I suspect the swamp is getting pretty dry now, they have decided to come back and make their presence felt.

Anyway, a cracking way to finish of a beautiful spring day in Alice. What next?

CBW

Red Knots in The Alice - one with a leg flag

2011-09-13T23:36:00.000+09:30

Red Knots Calidris canutus at the Alice Springs Sewage Ponds today. These are adult birds just transitioning from breeding to non-breeding plumage.

Picked up another Centralian life tick today with a couple of Red Knots showing up at the poo ponds. They had me in a fankle for a while as I'm not familiar with this species so I was unsure of the ID but the third umpire (birding-aus) has given me the nod.

What do you make of the leg flag? MK? Can anyone tell me where this originates from?

One of the birds had a flag attached to its right leg. I'm told that someone who spotted these birds earlier in the week is making an official report to the shorebird authorities, so it will be fascinating to find out where this bird has come from.

Red-necked Stint Calidris ruficollis. Where are your mates little bloke?

Also at the ponds this arvo; a Banded Lapwing is still hanging around in amongst the Masked Lapwings and a Red-necked Stint was loitering in EP7.

Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens - How has the "Tyre in the Pole" Site Fared in the Recent Bushfires?

2011-09-13T23:22:00.000+09:30

Well... if a picture tells a thousand words, all of those words would be pretty bleak. The site which has been a happy hunting ground for locals and visitors over the years is scorched earth. Where there was once chest high spinifex hummocks, now there is just ash and a few exposed rabbit warrens. What a tragedy. Such a reliable and accessible spot for one of our "big tick" birds in The Centre... all gone in one night of uncontrolled fire. But hang on...

This will be hard to believe, but as I took that first picture there were three Dusky Grasswrens calling at me from the roadside. I went for a wander through the blackened countryside and was rewarded, in only a few minutes, with some of the best views of Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens that you could ever ask for. The little blighters persisted in any available tuft of vegetation and called from every remaining stem as if to defy the precariousness of their situation.

The silver lining; looking back across Deep Well Road from within the burnt country. The fires were kept to the northern side of Deep Well Rd so the country south is still in good nick and will continue to provide great habitat until it also gets burnt.

The fires were certainly very serious but there is still plenty of good habitat in the area. Unfortunately the fires have destroyed massive chunks of country to the north of the road. Standing by the "Tyre in the Pole" the view north is of rolling black hills that extend at least 10 kilometres into the distance.

So the Emu-wrens are still around, and I'm sure when I get time for a proper look, there will still be some Spinifexbirds and Painted Finches in the area.

Now just keep your fingers crossed that the lightning doesn't take out the other side of the road.

CBW

Flock Bronzewings, Orange Chat, Cinnamon Quail-thrush, Eyrean Grasswren, Banded Whiteface - A Weekend at Andado

2011-09-13T22:52:00.000+09:30

Eyrean Grasswren habitat - pristine red sand dunes topped with cane grass.

If you want to see Eyrean Grasswren Amytornis goyderi in the Northern Territory you've pretty much got to go to Andado at some point. While you're down there, it is about your best chance to find Gibberbird Ashbyia lovensis and Inland Dotterel Charadrius australis, north of the border as well. This is not a trip to be taken lightly; 300+kms of sharp stones, deep sand, bull dust, potholes, and jarring corrugations lie between you and your destination. Once you get beyond Alice Springs Airport there is so more sealed road for the whole distance. But, if you're well prepared, this is one of the better trips in The Red Centre.

A lonely Spotted Harrier Circus assimilis quarters territory along a dune top. These birds were very common through the sand country. Surfing over the crests of the dunes I couldn't help likening it to the way the Pterodroma petrels soar in their great arcs over more fluid wave forms out in the ocean.

This weekend I did the trip with a couple of mates. We drove down on the Saturday, camped for one night and drove back on the Sunday but there is more than enough in the region to stretch this out to a week long camping trip. This is the closest to Alice Springs that you can get to experience a bit of what the Simpson Desert is all about. Long parallel dunes of red sand and sprawling interdunal regions of gibber plain with diverse wildflowers and grass communities.

Brown Falcons Falco berigora, were probably the most common raptor throughout the journey.

On the way down you will be able to stop in at one of Australia's more remote botanical reserves. Mac Clark (Acacia peuce) Conservation Reserve protects one of the last decent stands of the amazing Waddywood. These majestic trees stand resolute on a barren gibber plain and are known, in the right seasons, for hosting another rare denizen of the deserts, the Letter-winged Kite Elanus scriptus. Unfortunately, this was to be a trip of some notable dips and there were no Letter-winged Kites in the area just hordes of the very similar Black-shouldered Kite Elanus axillaris.

Mac Clark Reserve - stark. Who would believe that this is a botanical reserve of national significance?

Waddywood Acacia peuce, one of the rarest trees in Australia.

Just past the Old Andado Homestead, the ephemeral Indinda Swamp has been filled with the rains of the last couple of good seasons. There is just no way to adequately describe the astonishment you will feel, even when you are expecting it, of driving over a sand dune in the desert to find a veritable lake on the other side. The water has subsided a little in the last few weeks but the lake is still a good couple of kilometres across and covered with ducks, ibis, herons, stilts and other waterbirds. Around the homestead and the shores of the swamp the most common bird, by far, was the highly sought-after Flock Bronzewing Phaps histrionica. These birds roosted near our camp site and woke us at dawn with the clattering of their wings. All day they were flying around in flocks of 30 to 150 coming in for low passes and settling by the roadside to forage among the green stubble.

Flock Bronzewing. Around Old Andado these birds were everywhere.

Mammal tracks on the dunes around the camp site in the morning attest to the amount of overnight activity.

The extraordinary panorama of Indinda Swamp, 2 dunes from Old Andado Homestead.

The swamp from ground level. Black-winged Stilts and Masked Lapwings were the order of the day.

Other birding highlights included plentiful Cinnamon Quail-thrush Cinclosoma cinnamomeum, Orange Chats Epthianura aurifrons, Banded Whiteface Aphelocephala nigricincta, and a few fleeting views of the big drawcard for this area, Eyrean Grasswren. You really need to spend some quality time by yourself being very still and quiet on a sand dune to get more than the briefest glimpses of these rascals. They were very vocal during my visit and we heard them on almost every dune we visited, including about 30m from my swag. Hearing was one thing but seeing them was an order of magnitude more difficult. I did manage a few good views but I'm already itching to go back for a better look.

Left to right; Jesse, Ange and Himself.

Also on the drive out were good numbers of Chiming Wedgebill Psophodes occidentalis, plenty of Budgerigars Melopsittacus undulatus, and an interesting mixed flock made up of Australian Ringnecks Barnardius zonarius, Mulga Parrots Psephotus varius, and at least three Bourke's Parrots Neopsephotus bourkii.

Alas, no Gibberbird, no Inland Dotterel, and no Plains Wanderer (I can dream can't I?)

There's always next time.

CBW

Princess Parrot in Alice Springs - Lost Jailbird or The Real Deal?

2011-09-05T20:37:00.000+09:30

No doubt about it folks. As I was driving home this evening a single Princess Parrot Polytelis alexandrae, was sitting on the power lines beside the Stuart Highway, about 200m north of the intersection with Head Street on the north side of town. I spotted the bird from a long way off and immediately thought of Princess Parrot owing to the ridiculous length of the tail. It was sitting with a few Australian Ringnecks Barnardius zonarius, and as I got closer my impulsive first ID was confirmed as the distinctive pink flush around the throat was beautifully illuminated with the bird facing toward the setting sun. I ended up having some very good close views as the bird didn't flush as I passed but remained perched with the ringnecks.

The tough thing about this sighting, is that I'm about 99% certain that this bird has to be an aviary escapee. I know of one aviarist who keeps Princess Parrots in Babbage Street just a couple of streets away, and there are a couple of other aviarists in this corner of town all within a few streets of where I saw this bird. Princess Parrots are kept by many other folks around town, any of whom may have lost this bird.

So there you go - the most bittersweet sighting of the year? I'll put some feelers out over the next few days and try to confirm that someone has indeed lost a bird recently. Of course, the tantalising thing about being in Alice Springs is that this is one of very few towns in the country where a Princess Parrot sighting may be a fair dinkum wild bird just passing through. Just about anywhere else you could be 100% certain that it was an escapee, but around here.... well, you just never know.

CBW

Happy Birthday Mum! - Curlew Sandpiper at Alice Springs Sewage Ponds

2011-09-04T15:13:00.001+09:30

Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea. This is the best shot I could manage I'm afraid. Still, we can clearly see the remnants of breeding plumage on the back and across the breast.

For the first time in many years, Mum's birthday has fallen on the same day as Father's Day. Not being with family to celebrate such occasions, I decided the only decent thing to do would be to head down to the poo ponds and see if there were any new waders to add to the year list.

Luckily for me, Barb Gilfedder had beat me down to the ponds and had already zeroed in on a small wader which stood out from the flock. In the south-eastern corner of EP7 a small wader was in amongst the Sharp-tailed Sandpipers Calidris acuminata, but the odd bird out had a much longer bill. Barb had the scope on it but the sun was slightly in front of us and the bird was ducking in and out of the logs and stumps making a clear view tricky. We shifted around to the date palm side of EP7 and got the views we needed with the sun on the proper side. After some initial bamboozlement we finally realised that we had a Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea. This is one of the more common migratory waders in Australia, but not so commonly seen here in Alice, so a great turn up for the year list.

Barb headed off for lunch, but I was determined to try and get a provenance picture for the records. This was going to be tricky as I am still without my DSLR which is still away being repaired. (If I haven't told you already, and I'm telling all who will listen, don't buy a Canon! Their service is great, but it has to be because the bloody thing is always malfunctioning.) So I was left with the trusty old Panasonic point-and-shoot. This is a very good camera as far as it goes, but it's no DSLR.

Anyway, I began creeping around trying to stay low enough to get to a position for a reasonable photo. This is not easy at Alice Spring Sewage Ponds as we don't really have a lot of cover. We have one antediluvian bird hide and zero screening vegetation to shield a birder's approach. Happily, a community project to remedy this situation is rapidly gaining momentum and I hope to soon have news about renovation to the old hide and perhaps even some new hides situated around the poo ponds and swamp edge... stay tuned.

Curlew Sandpiper with Sharp-tailed Sandpiper in the foreground.

A Whistling Kite put up many of the waders from EP7 but they only flew a short distance around the date palm and settled further along the shore of EP7. From here I managed to slowly work myself into a spot where the angle of the sun was acceptable and I was close enough for a half-decent shot. The Curlew Sandpiper was very cooperative, even standing beside a Sharpie to provide a ready size comparison. On closer inspection the Curlew Sandpiper appeared to still have a few remnants of the rusty red breeding plumage down its breast and a few dark feathers still left down the back. The long bill is a giveaway identification feature even from a great distance but it was nice to get some prolonged, close views and a few average photos.

So there you go a new bird for the list! Happy birthday Mum and happy father's day pop. Wish you were here xxoo.

CBW

Threat Status of Emu and Bustard Downgraded - Review of the NT Threatened Species List

2011-08-31T00:50:00.000+09:30

An adult male Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae. This bird, is in the Flinders Ranges, SA, and had 7 sub-adults in his care - my advice if you'd like to see this species in the wild, is to head for the Flinders where they are plentiful. You could spend a long time looking in the NT and never find one.

The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae, is a tricky bird to track down in the Northern Territory. During my years as a Central Australian tour guide, I would drive the full length of the Lasseter and Luritja Highways, right through the heart of Central Australia, two or three times a week. As a keen birdwatcher, I was always ticking birds off as I travelled, and became an adept highway birder. I always knew where to expect Major Mitchell's Cockatoos to appear, and could spot a Wedgie perched in a dead tree hundreds of metres from the road well before anyone else had noticed it. In my spare time, I would often be off on long drives in the Cruiser along less-travelled roads, in search of interesting wildlife.

The youngsters.

Despite my enthusiasm and constant vigilance, between 2006 and the present I have seen Emus 4 times in the Northern Territory; one sighting of a pair of birds near Banka Banka Station on the Barkly Tablelands, one sighting of a single bird on the Luritja Road, and a couple of times I have seen up to three birds on the large plain immediately south of the Giles Road junction with the Stuart Highway. For a die-hard birdo who spent the bulk of his time between 2006 and 2010 constantly driving around the NT, this seems like a pretty poor strike rate for a large and fairly visible species like an Emu. My strike rate on Australian Bustards Ardeotis australis, is only slightly better; 12 separate sightings in the NT within the same period, but 6 of those sightings were this year during helicopter fauna surveys in the utterly unpopulated Wakaya Desert.

An Australian Bustard Ardeotis australis - but I saw this one in WA.

So why then, have both these species just had their status on the NT Threatened Species List downgraded? That's right, the Emu from Vulnerable to Near Threatened and the Bustard from Vulnerable to Least Concern. Granted, the sightings above are just a representation of one person's experiences, but there are no other birders of my acquaintance who have had considerably more luck with these species.

Last week I was privileged to attend a seminar given by Dr. Simon Ward on the review of the NT Threatened Species List. The downgrading of the two species is justified within the review on the grounds that there were differences in survey techniques between the two bird atlases making these species less visible in the second atlas and resulting in a diminished reporting rate; this pushed both species up into the Vulnerable category. It was a great presentation. The review is a magnificent project and a thoroughly worthwhile expenditure of public funds. Everyone involved with this review are consummate and respected experts in their fields.

My question should not be seen as a slight on those people or the project as a whole. I guess there must be populations out there that I am unaware of or simply don't have access to. Despite this, I think I am going to make a submission questioning the downgrading of these two species based on my own experiences. If you have an opinion, I would urge you to make one as well.

The review is open for public comment until the 9th of September so you'd better not muck around.

All the information you need to make a submission, including the entire review with justifications for all proposed changes in classification, is available at the following link;

http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/wildlife/animals/threatened/index.html

...and the PDF dealing with the two species mentioned is available here;

http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/wildlife/animals/threatened/pdf/2011/proposed_changes/Birds%20other%20CT.pdf

I'd love to here peoples' thoughts on this subject, so feel free to get in touch and let me know what you reckon.

birdscentral@gmail.com

CBW

Twitter - Strictly for the Birds?

2011-08-24T21:53:00.000+09:30

Willie Wagtail - worth a tweet?.. oh, go on then.

The more technologically adept among you may have heard of this little thing called Twitter. I've been vaguely aware of it for a while now, but always thought it wasn't for me. I'm not such a troglodyte that I couldn't see its potential, but I had always seen it as a form of jumped up SMS.

The only person of any worth, that I knew of, who used it was Stephen Fry, the self-professed king of the 140 character short form. But then, I thought, one of the many things I enjoy about Stephen Fry is his glorious prolixity. As he wrote himself, "If something can be said in 10 words I can be relied upon to take 100", and such is his command of language that the 100 pass like 10 anyway. But, Stephen Fry aside, I imagined Twitter to be populated by awful, self-obsessed, hopelessly tawdry persons like Paris Hilton, Jordan, and Oprah Winfrey. But I just had to look a little harder.

Now, along with the lavishly verbose Mr. Fry, you can follow the tweets and postings of a legion of worthy luminaries, as opposed to the dross of washed up glamour models and tired talk show hosts.

...and another thing; having just joined Twitter at the urging of a few birders, I now realise that I've missed the point all along. Twitter could have been made for birders. In just a short while of fiddling with this new (to me) application, its value to the art of birdwatching is overwhelmingly apparent. If you judiciously select the right people to follow, and those people are like-minded birders out in the field in your neighbourhood, then it is dead easy for them to tell anyone who might be interested about anything out of the ordinary that they come across - instantly.

So there you go; the short version of the story is - I'm on twitter. You'll be able to follow me if you wish @Birds_central if you also have an account. I can't guarantee that it will be 100% Central Australian bird sightings, but apart from the occasional brain fart, I'll try to limit my messages to whatever birds fly our way here in Alice Springs. For visiting birders I guess it will be about the fastest way to keep in touch with the blog and you'll know about any rarities or hotspots almost as soon as I do.

And @Birds_central is the very least of all the possible Twitter accounts you could follow. If you're visiting, or at all interested in Central Australia and the Northern Territory you should be following all-round desert wildlife gun Mark Carter @DesertlifeAus and journeyman raconteur and doyenne of the NT journalistic set Bob Gosford @bgosford, who is based in Darwin but with one foot planted firmly in the red sand country. These two gents will keep you up to date with all of the very best in wildlife, culture, science, arts, music, media, and Territory life in general.

While you're at it, you should probably be following Stephen Fry as well.

CBW

Black Falcon, Intermediate Egret, Nankeen Night-heron, and a Common Greenshank.

2011-08-23T22:04:00.001+09:30

It's been an interesting couple of days to kick off the week. With the migrants coming through thick and fast, I have been endeavouring to get down to the sewage ponds every day, however quickly, to try and get a good record of the birds passing through this season. So far I have seen Common, Wood, and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, and yesterday there was a single Common Greenshank. Red-necked Stints have also been reported but I haven't managed to pick any up yet.

White-necked Herons Ardea pacifica, just after sunset.

A recent highlight was a passing view of a young Nankeen Night-heron Nycticorax caledonicus, that was foraging in the swamp overflow into St. Mary's Creek on Monday. This species has been reported out at 2 Mile Waterhole near Glen Helen recently but this is the first one I have seen near town for a while.

A beautiful, big Black Falcon Falco subniger was circling over the horse paddocks at Blatherskite Park as I arrived for a quick scoot around the ponds today. After I entered it circled over EP7 for a while but was getting higher, and eventually disappeared over towards the Todd River. This bird has been reported a few times in the last couple of weeks so afternoon visits might be becoming a regular trick - fingers crossed.

Intermediate Egret Mesophoyx intermedia. Sometimes tricky to separate from another recent visitor, Eastern Great Egret Ardea alba. This bird was standing near a White-faced Heron Ardea novaehollandiae providing a ready size comparison. It is much too small for Eastern Great Egret and the bare skin of the gape doesn't extend back past the eye. The domed head, shorter bill, and more extensively plumed "chin" all point to Intermediate Egret - an uncommon visitor down this way.

An Intermediate Egret Mesophoyx intermedia was a pleasant surprise this afternoon at the ponds. A lone White-faced Heron Ardea novaehollandiae and a pair of White-necked Herons Ardea pacifica were also present, and I got a low fly past from a Little Black Cormorant Phalacrocorax sulcirostris.

Lastly, I flushed a Gallinago-type snipe from just near the bird hide. I didn't get anything like the sort of views that I would need for a positive ID, but knowing they're around, perhaps someone will get a good enough look. It flew directly over EP7 (without calling) and across into Blatherskite Park.

If anyone has the time, the poo ponds are well worth a visit at any time of day. All sorts of things are passing through at the moment and we seem to be getting our share of waterbirds as well. Have fun!

CBW

Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, Orange Chats, Gull-billed Tern and Whiskered Terns at the poo ponds

2011-08-21T22:32:00.000+09:30

Just popped down for a quick scuffle around the sewage ponds to bring the week to a nice close. I'm very glad I did, as the first Sharp-tailed Sandpipers have arrived. A very smart little wader this one and usually present in reasonable numbers throughout the summer.

Also around were a reasonable number of Whiskered Tern (I counted 8 but I think there were a few more) which I haven't seen much this season. A lone Gull-billed Tern was hanging out among the Red-necked Avocets out in the middle of EP7.

Plenty of Orange Chats were still around and these were a lifer for perhaps the youngest birder in Central Australia, Moses Waring; there with dad Richard doing much the same as I - snooping for birds.

Just before I left I had some great views of an adult Black-tailed Native Hen with 4 little balls of black fluff following it around. So it seems we have a few new waterfowl around the place.

Good to see!

CBW

Australian Pelicans - a couple of stragglers at the poo ponds

2011-08-19T16:51:00.000+09:30

Australian Pelicans at the Alice Springs Sewage Ponds this afternoon.

It seems that Jesse and I weren't seeing things! Luckily, Richard Waring also had a great view of the main flock yesterday as they circled over town. After yesterday's exciting encounter with a flock of Australian Pelicans Pelecanus conspicillatus, I was hoping a few stragglers might have decided to stay over at our poo ponds before heading out in search of fish.

The big bombers turn and glide their way onward to fishier bodies of water to the west.

I hustled down to the ponds straight after work, and I wasn't disappointed. After only a couple of minutes, 2 of the big bombers lifted off and circled over EP10 a few times. They lingered long enough for a few quick snaps as they came down for a low pass and then circled up and over in the direction of Mt. Gillen and out of sight. The little camera was only just up to the task of producing these rather noisy images in the harsh afternoon sun.

My fingers are crossed that these majestic desert wanderers will linger somewhere in the Western Macs for a little while.

CBW

Pelicans in The Alice!

2011-08-18T22:36:00.000+09:30

The smoke has cleared today, but the exciting times continue in Alice Springs. Having only written about the Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus, in the Advocate last week, you could have knocked me over with a feather today as a friend and I watched a flock from the very centre of town.

At about 5.40pm, from the carpark at Woolies, beside the Commonwealth Bank, we saw a flock of birds off to the west just beyond the Coles complex. Luckily the binoculars were close at hand and I quickly started counting. We instantly picked them as something special and as they wheeled around to the west and assembled into the familiar pelican "V"-shaped flying formation my heart skipped a beat. I counted them a couple of times and settled on 52 birds; the biggest flock I have ever seen in Central Australia. I'm certain that someone out at the Alice Springs Desert Park must've seen these birds as they flew over.

They headed west and, eventually, out of sight. I have contacted Shelagh out at the Glen Helen Resort to be on the alert for the incoming squadron as it is likely they will head to any of the prominent bodies of water out in the Western Macs that are still loaded with fish. There is also a fair chance that one or two of them might end up at the poo ponds. I'd love to hear from anyone else who got a look at these birds as they passed through town this afternoon. Jesse and I can't have been the only two people to notice them.

Decent flocks of Australian Pelicans have been seen up at Lake Woods recently but I am not sure if any have been reported closer than that lately. Has anyone else heard reports of pelicans floating around Central Australia lately?

CBW

Big Fires Around Alice Springs

2011-08-17T23:37:00.000+09:30

Ever since I first read the books of local legend Peter Latz, I knew that fire figured prominently in the natural history of Central Australia. Later, in characteristically frank conversation with Peter Severin Senior down on Curtin Springs station, I asked what seems now to be a foolish and naive question - what did he think of the weather? (it had been an unusually wet week down that way). The answer came back without hesitation, "flood, fire, drought." Sparse words with decades of experience behind them. The rains will come, the desert will bloom, and as sure as anything the desert will burn.

A quick check of the North Australian Fire Information website will confirm for you that Central Australia is seeing one of its worst fire seasons, possibly in decades and it has only just begun. Large swathes of habitat to the south of Alice Springs have been scorched in the last two days and, in the last couple of weeks the country in all directions has been going up in smoke.

The latest image from NAFI at the time of writing. I have placed a large pink spot over the well-known population of Emu-wrens on the road to Santa Theresa. They appear to be safe for now. You can click this image for a full size version or visit the NAFI website (linked in the previous paragraph) for updated information.

Regular fire crews have been working 30 hour shifts and longer. Parks & Wildlife staff, regular and volunteer staff from Bushfires NT, staff from NT Airports, station folk, CLC Rangers, and many community volunteers have all donated many long nights. They've been out on the country burning in containment lines in an effort to protect nature reserves, stock, private residences, and public property. They are all to be congratulated on a job well done. The latest fires seem, for now, to be under control. Due to their hard work, good management, and a modicum of good luck, there have been no casualties from the fires yet and no reported damage to residential property.

Fighting fire with fire - the fire front approaches at the top of the image. The grader has put in a line of bare earth at the bottom of the picture and fire-fighters trudge kilometres through the night lighting the windward edge of the break. This fire draws in the fire front to the area with no fuel left. A simple concept, but it can only be employed with careful planning, lots of hands on deck, and the complete cooperation of the winds.

From the point of view of visiting bird watchers these dramatic events could be a mixed bag. The country along stretches of the Tanami Road has been thoroughly burnt, including lots of great habitat in the vicinity of Hamilton Downs and Kunoth Bore - Grey Honeyeater in this part of The Centre may have become considerably less likely as a result. Further north, around Barrow Creek and Murray Downs, huge tracts of habitat known to be home for Striated Grasswrens has been torched. Out through the Western MacDonnell Range there have been several patch fires that have gone through formerly productive honeyeater habitat. Areas that I know have Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens on the Ross Highway have already been burnt out by fires around the fringes of Undoolya Station. The famous area for Emu-wrens on the road to Santa Theresa Rd is very close to fires that are still burning, but under control. At time of writing this population appears to be safe.

During these times, you need to look for the silver lining. Sure enough, the fire season has only just begun. We should expect many more fires and property owners should be taking all appropriate measures to protect themselves. But don't forget also, the famously rapid regenerative ability of the Australian bush. Almost as soon as the embers have cooled, there will be green shoots breaking the surface. (Unfortunately, in many areas these may well be the shoots of introduced Buffel Grass, but there'll be natives amongst it too.)

The fires themselves bring raptors by the dozen, and the scorched earth left behind is often a smorgasbord for ground feeders. A quick walk through country that was burnt just a couple of weeks ago near Ilparpa Swamp produced a long list of busy birds scratching around in the ash for flame-grilled morsels of invertebrate and popcorn spinifex seed. Crested Bellbird, Painted Finch, Zebra Finch, Hooded Robin, Red-capped Robin, Splendid Fairy-wren, Mulga Parrots and Yellow-rumped Thornbills are already reclaiming this ground so it can't be all that bad.

Crested Bellbird Oreoica gutteralis, love nothing better than a bit of open ground to forage across.

If you're arriving in Alice over the next few days, don't despair. You'll get some spectacular atmospheric effects during sunrise and sunset and the change in the landscape has all the wildlife on the move. If nothing else, it is going to be a really interesting time.

Ducks on a lake of fire? A magnificent bushfire sunset over the poo ponds.

Feel free to email me for updates if you have any concerns or questions about the safety of visiting any bird watching sites during your visit.

CBW
birdscentral@gmail.com

Wood Sandpipers, Red-necked Stints, and locals on eggs

2011-08-14T22:51:00.000+09:30

Diamond Dove Geopelia cuneata, found on nests wherever there is space.

Another big week in The Centre has seen some huge fires lay waste to great swathes of formerly prime habitat. There has been scant damage to any human habitation but this is little consolation to those of us who value the outstanding bush bird habitat right on our doorstep.

Fire crews have been working through the night to protect as much country as possible.

Not to worry, it has been another interesting week around the traps here in Alice. The growing mob of visiting birders have been sending in a bumper crop of reports and interesting sightings. The Rainbow Bee-eaters are well and truly back in town and just about everything else has either hatched some young ones or is sitting on eggs.

Copulating Collared Sparrowhawks out on eastside suggests that some more of these aerial speedsters will be keeping the honeyeaters on their toes in the coming weeks. Diamond Doves seem to be nesting in every available tree, and the wedgies up on Mt Gillen are proud parents yet again. A few Pallid Cuckoos have been sighted around town so this will, no doubt, have a few parents working extra hard for their gaping youngsters.

At the poo ponds, the arrival of the migrants is picking up pace with a few more birds reported through the week. Wood Sandpipers are still leading the charge; I counted 22 this afternoon. Red-necked Stints have also been reported in smaller numbers and I spied a solitary Common Sandpiper this afternoon as well.

Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola, well represented at the poo ponds now.

The crakes seem to have gone off the boil; I couldn't find any this afternoon, but there were still several Buff-banded Rail scuttling about in the reeds.

CBW

Baillon's Crakes, Freckled Ducks, Great Egret, and more migrant arrivals!

2011-08-08T00:10:00.000+09:30

Popped down to the poo ponds this arvo, to blow out the cobwebs of a weekend spent studying. I couldn't have asked for a nicer afternoon; there was barely a breath of wind, the sun was shining, and the lower water levels in some of the ponds have created some interesting variations in the distribution of the birds.

Eastern Great Egret Ardea alba, an uncommon visitor.

The first surprise came as I approached the north-west corner of EP10 from the north - this was a late afternoon visit around 4pm. A huge white bird was stalking the far shore of EP10. I managed to get closer as I edged around the pond and confirmed that it was an Eastern Great Egret Ardea alba. While these are a dime-a-dozen up in the top of The Territory, they are a fairly infrequent visitor down in these parts and a welcome addition to the year list. This bird was probing about in the muck with 4 White-faced Heron Ardea novaehollandiae. The Great Egret eventually flew off and landed in the prominent dead tree near the Date Palm in EP7. So I turned my attention to the ducks...

Freckled Ducks Stictonetta naevosa, had been reported in the visitors book by Mark Carter and Will Cormack, so the hunt was on. I had worked my way around to a position on the shore of EP10 where a thick wall of saltbush meant I wasn't breaking the skyline and the sun was directly behind me as I scanned the multitudes of ducks out on the water. The usual suspects here in Alice Springs are Grey Teal Anas gracilis, Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa, Hardhead Aythya australis, Australian Wood Duck Chenonetta jubata, and Pink-eared Duck Malacorhynchos membranaceus; anything other than these duck species is probably a bit unusual and pretty exciting. It didn't take long to zero in on the gigantic head of a Freckled Duck. The male of this species is easy to pick as it has prominent red around the base of the bill but even the drab females are distinctive. Both sexes have an obviously peaked head which ends up looking slightly wedge-shaped in profile. I had a great look at one bird as she swam by. The low water level in EP10 at the moment means that the ducks are in a nicely concentrated flotilla, and a bit closer to the shore than is usual. I continued to scan the other ducks and a second and then a third Freckled Duck hove into view - all females. This is a species which has a fairly reliable history of showing up here in Alice Springs a few times a year, but it is always good to see them. The most recorded at one time, as far as I can find in the records at my disposal, is 6 birds back in 1984. More commonly they show up singly or in pairs.

Moving down past the "bird hide", the north-east corner of EP10 is almost completely drained leaving a large area of freshly exposed mud flats. This was covered in Masked Lapwings Vanellus miles, but right out in the middle was a single Banded Lapwing Vanellus tricolor.

My next destination was the thickly overgrown area of pond EP7A. In recent weeks there has been plenty of crake action around the saltmarsh behind EP10. As the ponds vent out into Ilparpa Swamp, as they are doing presently, this saltmarsh sometime becomes too turbulent or too deep for good crake sightings and it is better to rely on EP7A and the adjacent areas.

The Date Palm provides a nice bit of cover from which to scan the area at a distance. Over to the south in EP7 there are many old snags and tree stumps providing cover for all manner of wading birds. This being the right time of year I propped for a good look here. I wasn't disappointed with 5 Wood Sandpipers Tringa glareola, duly materialising from behind a stump. Around them were dozens of Red-capped Plovers Charadrius ruficapillus, and well over a hundred Black-fronted Dotterels Elseyornis melanops. I didn't find any other "serious" waders, but it is exciting to finally see these tiny long distance champs back again for the summer. It really fires me up to think about the challenges and adventures that these impressive little birds face in the course of their lives. To think what a complicated organisational, not to mention expensive, undertaking it would be for me to make a visit to their northern breeding grounds makes it all the more impressive that they do it all under their own steam. Of course, it is expensive for the birds as well, in their own terms. They temporarily sacrifice an unbelievable percentage of their vital organs to make space for hugely bulked-up muscles and fat reserves. Some species' digestive organs shrink down to almost vestigial proportions as they simply aren't needed for the duration of the transglobal flight. Fantastic stuff to think about - welcome back little fellas!

Baillon's Crake Porzana pusilla, a mediocre photo but a first class year tick!

A Buff-banded Rail Gallirallus philippensis darted along the edge of the amaranthus growth, and I took this as my cue to slowly approach the bench seat overlooking EP7A. I sat down and prepared for a long wait. It was from this bench that I scored a Centralian lifer a few weeks back when a Spotless Crake Porzana tabuensis, obligingly darted in and out of the vegetation along the water's edge. It wasn't too long this time before an Australian Crake Porzana fluminea, popped out and started scuffling around in the muddy edges of the pool. For a few minutes I thought this was all I was going to get in the crake show. I entertained myself by watching the Orange Chats Epthianura aurifrons and Little Grassbirds Megalurus gramineus, flitting about in preparation for the evening ahead. The bins settled on a Little Grassbird preening itself down by the waterline and a bird beside it almost escaped my attention. I was so busy watching the grassbird that I almost didn't realise that right beside him was an adult Baillon's Crake Porzana pusilla in full sunlight. This was a great moment. This species shows up from time to time but never seems to be as reliable as the Australian Crake. I was preparing for it to be another scratching from the year list so I was very glad to finally have it aboard. It put on a great show and didn't seem very nervous at all eventually making its way right up to my end of the pool where another Baillon's popped out of the vegetation where it had been sitting quietly all along. Both adult birds puddled around in the open for a good 15 minutes until I decided it was time to call it a day.

The sun sets on a typically beautiful spring day in Central Australia posing the question - what new waders will the morning bring?

Back on the bike for the ride home after a solid session picking up two ticks for the Centralian year list. Anyone interested can view my full list for the day on Eremaea Birds here. Thanks to all in the local birding community who have been kindly putting noteworthy sightings in the visitors book.

CBW

PS: My apologies for the quality of the pics in this post; I am operating with my point-and-shoot at the moment. The SLR is still in getting a recurring fault repaired - this is the third time in 5 months. Think very seriously before buying a Canon.

Grey Honeyeater at work!

2011-08-02T21:24:00.001+09:30

Grey Honeyeater, Conopophila whitei, was rapidly becoming a year list bogey bird for me. I was hoping to have all of the local species ticked off by now to free me up for chasing anything that might show up farther afield. It was with great relief therefore, that that magical, non-descript little honeyeater showed up at lunchtime during my stroll around the garden at work.

I've picked up some great species for the office list on my lunchtime dawdles lately; Varied Sittella, Brown Goshawk, Southern Whiteface. This has to top the lot though. I've been rushing around the bush for the last few weekends trying to find one of these buggers and people have been reporting them everywhere; up at their fabled haunt on Hamilton Downs (I missed them there), out on Deep Well Rd (I've never seen them there), and along the Larapinta Trail. I had no luck at any of these spots, and was starting to think it might be a scratching from the year list altogether. I wasn't keen on putting out a Central Australian year list without this bird on it - it just seemed wrong.

Anyway, on my walk today I was ticking off all the usual customers, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Weebill, Inland Thornbill (nesting), Splendid Fairy-wren, Crested Pigeon, and then something caught my eye in a very thick old hakea. Just a shadow flitting in thick foliage out of the corner of my eye, but all birders will know the feeling of knowing when a flitting shadow is just something different. Then I heard the call and the blood really started pumping. In due course the most magnificently drab bird in Australia showed itself and continued foraging between the hakea and a nearby witchetty bush for another 20 minutes. I sat and had the best views I've ever had of the species. I coaxed three other folks out of the office who, not really hardcore birdos, were clearly underwhelmed by the experience.

I was barely present for the conversation as they wondered what I was so excited about and as they drifted back to the office I remained and watched as long as my arms would support the optics. While it is obviously the rareness of the bird that bestows such mystical appeal upon it, it has an unusual honesty about it too. In a country of Singing Honeyeaters that don't sing and Black Kites which are always brown, the Grey Honeyeater is a paragon of greyness. It eventually became clear that there were two birds. They rarely foraged in the open together and kept darting into the dark depths of the hakea.

This is all on private land so no hope of public ticking I'm afraid, but as I said earlier - they have been seen this week at their usual haunt around the 3km mark on the Hamilton Downs Youth Camp Road and I've been getting a steady trickle of Grey Honeyeater reports for the last few weeks now. The warmer weather has made a bit of a comeback so perhaps these reports are a good sign of things to come.

It'd be great to see Grey Honeyeaters all over the shop this summer but then again, their scarcity is all part of their charm. I have a favourite quotation when visitors to Alice, lucky enough to stumble on Grey Honeyeater, complain about its drabness. I can't remember who said it originally, and I'm sure a kind reader will remind me, but some wise soul once said, "praise, like diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity." Long may it be so for the Grey Honeyeater - a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, within conundrum, enfolded in smooth grey plumage.

Now where have I heard that before?

CBW

Bourke's Parrot and Cinnamon Quail-thrush

2011-08-01T15:13:00.000+09:30

An eerie sunrise over a silent landscape.

It was a smoky sunrise that welcomed the dawn over the Henbury Meteorite Craters this morning. An extraordinary pink-red hue haloed the sun and it was quite safe to look directly at the disc until it was well above the horizon. Some big fires around The Centre have seen the country shrouded in smoke for the last few days. I took an early morning drive down to Henbury to chase up a report of Banded Whiteface and see if I could add Cinnamon Quail-thrush, Cinclosoma cinnamomeum, to the Centralian year list. With or without birds, this sunrise made the early morning drive well and truly worthwhile.

The short version of the story is - no Banded Whiteface. Plenty of Southern Whiteface were about but none of their banded mates who seem to have a fondness for mixing together. It was a cool morning with little breeze and the air was staggeringly silent over the craters. The effect of the sunrise was late due to the smoke and the birds seemed confused by the momentarily lengthened night. A pregnant pause hung in the air before one species decided to break the silence and start the chorus. This species was the Yellow-throated Miner, Manorina flavigula, never a shy bird. After the miners took the lead, the rest of the birds followed suit.

A Wedge-tailed Eagle was seen off its overnight roost by a small flock of Australian Magpies; Torresian Crows croaked their welcome to the day; Singing Honeyeaters did everything but actually sing, and a family of Splendid Fairy-wrens chattered exuberantly among themselves. Still no sign of any quail-thrush.

The country around Henbury Meteorite Craters is perfect for Cinnamon Quail-thrush and Banded Whiteface - no luck this morning though.

After a good look around, I headed to the car to go to a more reliable site for quail-thrush along the Hugh River Stock Route but I was stopped in my tracks. Only a few steps in front of me on the path, a flock of six Bourke's Parrots, Neopsephotus bourkii, nibbled at seeds and twittered quietly to each other. In flight, this parrot shows beautiful turqoise and powder blue vent and tail feathers and delicate pinks across the breast. Above though, the bird is a cryptic brown-grey and can blend beautifully with stony ground. Added to the bird's quiet disposition, this can make it tricky to see and I think they are often overlooked.

Bourke's Parrot, Neopsephotus bourkii, one of the sneakier parrots.

These birds were quite happy to let me approach very close before fluttering just a few feet away. After the sudden flurry of colour, they settled back down to browsing and became almost invisible again. Bourke's Parrot has caused confusion in the past with another famously cryptic parrot - the Night Parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis. Many older folks of the outback regions refer to Bourke's Parrot as a "night parrot" owing to its tendency to come in quite late after sunset to drink at waterholes.

Bourke's Parrot showing how beautifully it can blend with this stony habitat.

It was great to see these birds, but it was not a species I needed for the year list - time to move on. In the past, the Hugh River Stock Route has been a reliable area to find Cinnamon Quail-thrush so it was there that I headed next. Driving along the stock route I had only gone 3 kilometres from the Stuart Highway turn off and already quail-thrush were scooting across the road in front of the car in their characteristic low flight. I jumped out for a closer look at some of these birds and had some stunning views of three birds, all calling and enjoying the early morning sun. I drove another 8 kilometres farther along the road and saw more quail-thrush all the way along. Another species well and truly ticked for the year list and time to head home for a well-earned breakfast.

CBW

Long-billed Corella still hanging on in Alice Springs

2011-07-31T22:16:00.000+09:30

4 Little Corellas, Cacatua sanguinea, with a single Long-billed Corella, Cacatua tenuirostris, on the far right.

The local (tiny) population of Long-billed Corella, Cacatua tenuirostris, is fairly well known in birding circles. I believe we even get a little blue dot on some of the distribution maps. I first noticed them back in 2006, but they may have been here before that. Local lore has it that these are escaped birds which have managed to thrive outside of captivity. The most I have ever seen together at once is three birds, and that may be the extent of the escapee population.

The population of Little Corella, Cacatua sanguinea, in Alice Springs is usually pretty small and patchy anyway so the two species can often be found together. They are easy to tell apart without getting a good look at the bill. The Long-billed Corella has much more obvious red/orange patches between the eye and bill and around the front of the throat.

There seems to be one main mob of corellas which can usually be found by checking one of the following locations; The Poo Ponds, the lawns in front of the casino, the land fill, the paddocks behind the racecourse on Heath Rd, and I have often found them working their way up the casuarinas on the Stuart Highway between Heavitree Gap and Larapinta Drive. You may find stragglers and smaller flocks scattered about town.

Worst Survey Ever...

2011-07-26T21:44:00.000+09:30

Sandhill Desert Fuschia, Eremophila willsii.

On the weekend I thought I'd get out and notch up a few bird surveys in different areas that hadn't been looked at in a while. I'm very interested in the collection and sharing of bird survey data and a lot of Central Australia remains to be covered. I contribute my observations through Eremaea Birds, as I find the interface very quick and easy to use and the results are uploaded into the Birds Australia Atlas.

To cut a long story short, I headed about 40kms south of town to the start of the red sandhill country across Orange Creek. The sides of the highway here are fenced and haven't been grazed for a while, and apart from the occasional driver having to stop and answer the call of nature, there is no pedestrian traffic at all. The sandhills here are covered in a variety of wattles and sennas and most of them are in bloom at the moment. Honeyeater central thought I!

I thought wrong. After a full 45 minutes of creeping around among the spinifex, I had found a single specimen of a single species - Singing Honeyeater, Lichenostomus virescens. This is one of the most common sand country species in The Centre. He sat in a dead tree and then followed me around as if to taunt me.

Is this some sort of record? I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had a less successful birdwatching outing - especially in such ideal circumstances. 1 species in a full 45 minute survey. I was in splendid isolation, in apparently pristine country, it was a sunny, mild and still day. As if to testify to the rampant health of the habitat, a Short-beaked Echidna, Tachyglossus aculeatus, scuffled past as nonchalantly as you like. I've been trying to see one of these in Central Australia for over 5 years! I've seen dead ones by the side of the road but this was my first encounter with a living one in the wild in Central Australia and I barely noticed him. I was paralysed with incredulity at the lack of birdlife. My ears strained and heard nothing but yawning silence punctuated by the distinctly unsong-like stylings of the "Singing" Honeyeater.

Not to worry, the lack of survey results is still useful data - I suppose. It was a good day out in the desert anyway. The place really is alive, if not exactly jumping with birds at this exact location. The attractive Sandhill Desert Fuschia was in bloom all over the place, and I'm sure once the birds find it, this will become a real haven for honeyeater species.

CBW

Controlled Burns at Ilparpa

2011-07-26T21:12:00.000+09:30

Where there's smoke, there's fire - and Black Kites aplenty.

Sometimes I miss the ocean. Alice Springs has other things to compensate though. Beautiful ranges running right through the centre of town for example. Highly sought after bird species within a short drive or walk. Reptile life that is the toast of herpetologists around the world and spectacular outback scenes that simply couldn't occur anywhere else. I was lucky enough to stumble on one of these on the weekend. Controlled burns out near Ilparpa Swamp.

Heavitree Gap shimmers through the flames.

The swamp is dry at the moment and Bushfires NT are frantically trying to burn in as many firebreaks as they can before the lightning arrives in November. Combined with the immense fuel load on the country at the moment, just a few lightning strikes could wreak havoc.

Then The Gap was quickly obscured as the fire got going.

There are some thickly overgrown areas between Ilparpa Swamp and the residential zone of Ilparpa, and this was the target of the burning on Sunday. I wasn't volunteering this time; I just turned up to gawk at the birds as they arrived from miles around to hawk lazily at insects thrown up by the blaze.

Before long the fire had burnt itself out.

The usual suspects were all in attendance - Black Kites leading the charge, a lone Whistling Kite, a couple of Nankeen Kestrels, and a swag of Black-faced Woodswallows.

Green shoots will appear across this ground any day now. I was back in this area today and there was a multitude of small bush birds picking through the burnt debris left behind - Crested Bellbirds, Willie Wagtails, Red-capped and Hooded Robins and the odd Mulga Parrot or two.

CBW

Ornithology at the pointy end - bird monitoring and dispersal at Alice Springs Airport

2011-07-24T11:55:00.001+09:30

Black Kite, Milvus migrans. One of my all-time favourite birds but a common customer for dispersal during the summer season around Alice Springs Airport.

As Reporting Officer for Alice Springs Airport, Harry Stubbins is a man with a very big job. More than three and a half thousand hectares of land passes under his watchful eye during his patrols each morning. He has many responsibilities; checking runways for cracks and debris that could cause aircraft damage, counting birds and monitoring their movements and employing dispersal measures when required, security checks of fencing, and on top of all this, feral animal and plant control.

Harry Stubbins - ever vigilant.

Harry wouldn't describe himself as an ornithologist, but this is almost certainly what he is. When he sees a bird he isn't just noting it down on his clipboard. He thinks about where it has come from, where it is going to, and why. He understands what birds are looking for at different times of day and he thinks about what they might need next. Among his many jobs, Harry conducts a full bird survey each morning and the information from these surveys is later put in a central database. I was fortunate enough to be invited along to join him for a familiarisation tour of bird safety measures at the airport. What I came away with was an impression of a man with a meticulous eye for detail, who takes pride in his work and understands the importance of the data he collects.

Employing bird dispersal measures around safety instrumentation - a key responsibility of Harry's role.

We did about a three hour tour - four laps up and down the main runway and around the "airside" perimeter. To be on this side of the wire you need either a full security clearance or a boarding pass - no exceptions. These restrictions, of course, do not apply to our feathered friends. Harry also turns out to be an excellent tour guide. He pointed out flight safety systems with the familiarity of a pilot. We checked for congregating birds at the heritage listed pre-war end of the facility at the old "7-mile" airstrip and I got a crash course in the history of this little-visited precinct. Orange Chats, Harry tells me, have been seen in increasing numbers up this end of the airside property.

When we started our patrol just before dawn, it was a brisk -1, but still and clear . At this time of year the threat of bird strikes is somewhat diminished but still present. In the warmer months, when part-migratory raptor species are more common, there is more call for energetic dispersal of birds. For this purpose Harry has various pyrotechnic devices and sirens. Most research, and Harry's almost 30 years of experience, suggest that these are the most practical and effective solutions. Used judiciously, avoiding overuse which might acclimate birds to their harmlessness, they will disperse all species of birds within a couple of minutes. At Alice Springs Airport, without the constant heavy flow of air traffic seen at larger airports, this is more than sufficient.

Alice Springs Airport - the view from airside.

Bird dispersal around airports, like so many subjects, is a more complex and technical field of study than you might think at first. Once you scratch the surface, you realise that entire academic careers have been devoted to discovering the best ways of moving birds along or preventing them from arriving in the first place. Early investigations into bird-strike proofing aircraft showed that, while this was certainly possible, it was not economical for passenger transport. Therefore, efforts have been focused ever since on studies of birds.

Many will be aware of some airports, even major international airports like La Guardia and JFK in the US, that have dabbled in the employment of practitioners of the ancient art of falconry. Indeed, this still occurs in some places, although it is as much an exercise in PR for aviation authorities and is never the sole method of bird dispersal. However, it must be said that studies have shown falconry to be effective at moving birds along and modifying their behaviour to habitually avoid areas where falconry is practised.

Other studies have investigated the use of chemical repellents. Remember eating grape flavoured bubblegum when you were a kid? Then you will recall the taste of methyl anthranilate (among all the other chemicals). Curiously, this is the same chemical which is responsible for the hideous sweetness in the smell of rotting flesh and the anal glands of many mammal species... bubblegum anyone? Methyl anthranilate has been used as a bird repellent for both crops and airports with varying rates of success (usually dependent on species) but it isn't used at Alice Springs.

We got an interesting little list of species in our travels around airside. A Spotted Harrier had been successful on the hunt and was picking apart a small rodent in the middle of one of the back access roads during our perimeter check. The only other raptor we saw was an Australian Hobby stooping on Yellow-throated Miners back at the terminal. Common birds were Australasian Pipits and Black-faced Woodswallows.

So next time you're taxiing along the apron at Alice Springs, spare a thought for Harry Stubbins. You may see him off in the distance - a distinguished figure with a clipboard emerging from a white ute to investigate a rabbit warren, pull out some Mexican Poppy, or shoo off some pigeons. Rest assured he knows every bird by name, and the entire surface of the tarmac like the back of his hand.

Poo Ponds Update - Maintenance works, swan eggs, Orange Chats, and waders already...

2011-07-21T20:58:00.000+09:30

The water levels at the poo ponds are undergoing some changes at the moment. I was chatting with Malcolm from Power and Water and he says that the damage visible on many of the access roads around the facility is due to be fixed. So birders should expect a little bit of plant equipment to be moving around over the next few weeks and some of the water levels to be a bit unusual.

Wader heaven - sure to be a good spot to keep an eye out as migrants arrive this season.

The first of these is pond A6. It is being pumped into EP7 and from there into EP10 and off into the swamp. This is to enable the rebuilding of the roads in the area around the Date Palm and A6. Already the water level is lower than I have ever seen it in A6 and it has exposed a little ridge running up the middle. This has created the perfect habitat for waders to congregate and sun themselves in the afternoon with a few acres of newly exposed mudflats either side of them. Many of the waders have already established a clear preference for this area at the moment.

Barb Gilfedder has already sighted the first migrant arrival of the season with a Common Sandpiper at the weekend. This means the really exciting part of the season has begun. What unsual and challenging migrants are going to turn up this year?

This draining means that the entire EP7 complex is getting a good soaking at the moment and as that drains, it too will become prime wader territory. At the moment the water levels are a little bit high for most of the birds and the crakes that have been there the last few weeks were absent today. Present in small flocks though were plenty of Orange Chats flitting about in the amaranthus in amongst the Little Grassbirds and Australian Reed-warblers.

Arnie ponders how to teach swans to lay their eggs on the islands, not on the roads.

The swan that had built its nest on the road between EP1 and EP2 (the other side of A6) has well and truly deserted its eggs. I can only assume this is due to contractor vehicles driving over the nest - not crushing the eggs, but certainly moving any bird along that might be trying to incubate them. It's interesting that the eggs seem completely intact and no corvids or Black Kites have come in to make a meal of them. Luckily the Black Swans have bred very successfully this season so the population will not suffer due to the lack of these seven unhatched eggs.

Apart from quite a few White-backed Swallows getting about the place, there is no other real news to report. Just keep in mind that there will be some works going on over the next few weeks so you might need to be a bit creative with your birding.

CBW

Grey Fantail, Mulga Parrot, Red-capped Robin - Kuyunba Reserve Delivers Again

2011-07-19T22:19:00.000+09:30

Mulga Parrot, Psephotus varius. This is the male bird - in afternoon sun there can be few more dazzling birds in the outback.

Kuyunba Reserve...what a place. Always a delight to visit, as you will almost certainly have it to yourself. This tiny postage stamp of a conservation reserve can be found right out at the end of Hatt Road, just before you get to the, "PROHIBITED ZONE" beyond - Pine Gap.

Red-capped Robin, Petroica goodenovii. Male.

I went for a quick visit after work in the hope of catching up with a species that has become something of a year list bogey bird - Grey Fantail, Rhipidura albiscarpa. Here in Central Australia we get the albicauda sub-species which has all but the two inner retrices in pure white. It makes for a stunning display as it leaps about fanning its tail. It seems everyone I have been speaking to in the last few weeks has been seeing these birds around, but it was still absent from my year list. Well not any more. Deep in the beautiful old mulga growth in this reserve I finally found one, along with a great afternoon of bush birding.

Mulga Parrot, Psephotus varius.

Mulga Parrots were feeding on the path at my feet and I almost stepped on them they were so quiet. This cracking outback parrot is usually a bit timid but these birds might have come from an aviary collection for all the notice they took of me. I could literally have reached out and stroked them and they just kept on feeding. Beautiful, trusting birds.

Squatting by the edge of the track I pished in a brightly coloured Red-capped Robin. Hot on his heels was a family of Splendid Fairy-wrens, Malurus splendens, also attracted by my squeaking. A bird I hadn't expected to respond so well to pishing, was a Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Acanthagenys rufogularis, who flew in and sat beside me piping his characteristic call from a nearby twig.

Mulga Parrots giving a great show. The females are the more drab.

What a way to spend an afternoon! Kuyunba is a short drive from town, nicely secluded, and chock-a-block with great bush birds at the moment. So if you're in town and have access to transport it's only a short drive to an afternoon with the birds.

CBW

Gap to Gap - A Walk along the Heavitree Range

2011-07-17T15:38:00.000+09:30

Grey-headed Honeyeater, Lichenostomus keartlandi. A constant companion along the top of the range and usually in busy families around the many heavily flowering Hakeas.

Having nothing in particular to do last Saturday (a bit of a novelty lately), I decided to head out and do something I've been thinking about for quite a while - walk from Honeymoon Gap to Heavitree Gap, right along the top of the ridgeline. There are many thick groves of old mulga, cypress pine and healthy old spinifex I have been wanting to check out for ages. As best as I can guess, it's between 12 and 15 kilometres of pretty rough going and thick spinifex, but the walk turned out to be an utter joy. This is certainly not a walk for the faint-hearted or ill-prepared and we had plenty of food, water, and communications gear to render the walk safe.

The start of a long day - up the side of Honeymoon Gap.

So I grabbed my friend Arnie and off we headed at around 10 am. We decided to start at Honeymoon Gap, and head to the top of the range from here so that in the afternoon we would be walking with the sun on our backs and not in our eyes.

Looking back towards Honeymoon Gap.

The ranges are beautifully weathered in such a way that even difficult slopes have a natural staircase cut into them. You've just got to find the right path. As soon as we made it up to the top of Honeymoon Gap, I was glad we decided on this walk. Even from early on, the views of Simpson's Gap were stunning, the vegetation was verdant, the quiet was soothing, and the birds were everywhere.

A narrow rock bridge between peaks in the early part of the walk.

Thornbills (mainly Chestnut-rumped and Slaty-backed) were flitting about in the trees, honeyeaters were busy in Acacia and Hakea blooms, Spinifex Pigeons exploded from the undergrowth, and raptors soared overhead. From the start to the finish, there was rarely more than a few minutes at a stretch that we couldn't see or hear Dusky Grasswrens in families as big as 10 birds rushing around on the rocks.

Grey-headed Honeyeater, Lichenostomus keartlandi.

We decided with the amount of distance ahead of us that we had better keep cracking. So the bulk of the birding effort was saved for the end of the day when the light was better for photography as well. This didn't stop us from having plenty of incidental birding moments along the way. The Dusky Grasswrens kept us company and Spinifex Pigeons kept us on our toes. The latter species is very easy to see on the King's Canyon Rim Walk where small flocks will puddle around your ankles and feed blithely on the path as hikers mill about them. Not so here. These birds are very wary and would rarely allow approach closer than 20 metres before clattering off on stiff wings.

Spinifex Pigeon, Geophaps plumifera, seconds before darting into the grass.

In this natural setting it is astonishing how well this species blends with the background. The plume on the head effectively imitates a grass stalk and the brindle patterns down the back are good at merging with the rippled surfaces of the red-brown rock. We were encountering flocks as large as 100 birds but we would only see a couple of birds before the whole mob blasted up out of the undergrowth, always surprising us with their numbers. They must have bred well this year as I have never seen them in these quantities on this range.

Pressing on through small gaps and fissures in the range.

The first few kilometres of the walk were quite slow going as the range is more fragmented with more small gaps than later on. This required a bit of nifty footwork at times but nothing requiring ropes or more serious rock-climbing abilities.

Arnie looks back on the walk so far getting a similar view to the Wedge-tailed Eagle that uses this roost.

The views during this part of the walk were superior to further down towards Heavitree as well. This may be just the effect of novelty, having never seen the ranges from this angle before, but the ridge drops sharply away on both sides for the first 4-5 kilometres giving superb 360 views.

Heavitree Gap visible in the distance now.

We stopped for a bit of a break near this part of the walk and once we started up again, we soon hit a fairly solid wall of spinifex. This made the walking quite unpleasant for a kilometre or so with our ankles burning from the thousands of little spike-tips embedded in them. This didn't last - after a while we found our legs to be fairly numb - whether this was our bodies adapting to ignore the nuisance or the effect of some slow-acting botanical neurotoxin that is right now sapping the abilities of this writer to string short sentences together, we will never know.

One of the trickier sections.

We ploughed through the spinifex and slowly made our way towards the summit of Mt Gillen for a spot of late lunch. Little and Black-faced Woodswallows became busy off the cliff edge as the sun started to create a bit more updraft for them to play in.

Black-faced Woodswallows.

Even with the sun beaming down, it was cold enough to warrant the Woodswallows snuggling on the branches for a bit of extra warmth.

Up and over!

Some of the picturesque country just west of Mt. Gillen.

We crested Mt. Gillen, and had a great encounter with the king of the hill, one of the resident Wedge-tailed Eagles that hunt up and down this range. He was perched atop a Cypress Pine and looking calmly down on his domain as Spinifex Pigeons assembled on the rocks below, oblivious to his presence.

An adult male Wedge-tailed Eagle, Aquila audax, scans the country from his mountain top perch.

We couldn't help but atrract his attention as we moved along the ridge. He had been observing us longer than we'd been watching him most likely. He launched nonchalantly into the breeze and played in the wind currents beside us for a while before soaring off in the direction of Mt. Blatherskite.

The Spinifex Pigeons survey the same ground in their own, much less commanding way.

We sat and watched him for a while before we realised that the sun was getting lower and we had better get cracking to make it to Heavitree Gap by sun down.

He didn't stick around long...

We scooted along, getting good views of the free flying bird show going on down below at the Desert Park. The Dusky Grasswrens continued to follow us and we clearly heard Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens about halfway between the Mt. Gillen trig marker and the radio masts on Heavitree Gap. We never saw these birds, but if we had more time I'm sure we could have scouted a few of them out.

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, gorging on rock figs.

I was busily checking every fig tree as we passed for snail shells - to no avail I'm afraid. Perhaps they had already been pilfered by Western Bowerbirds. The one creature that did seem attracted to the fig trees, which are fruiting at the moment, was hordes of Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes, Coracina novaehollandiae. I've never seen these blokes eating these fruits before but I guess everyone's an opportunist in the desert.

The highlight of the walk was saved for last. Just as we reached the radio masts atop Heavitree Gap, an adult Nankeen Kestrel launched off to hawk insects pushed up by a fire along the edge of Todd River below. Left behind was a very cute juvenile bird.

Left behind as mum went to investigate the burning country below.

He allowed me to sit on a nearby rock and snap away with the camera. In the afternoon light he made a very good subject.

What a cutie.

Eventually, he tired of my company and fluttered off to join mum.

Pic of the day! Juvenile Nankeen Kestrel, Falco cenchroides.

We set off again, and the camera was packed away for the scramble down into Heavitree Gap. We scooted around the base of the radio masts and bashed through a bit more spinifex and picked a very careful path down through the cypress pines and into the shady depths of the gap.

The edge of Mt. Gillen silhouetted in a blast of afternoon sun looking back from the radio masts.

An adult female Peregrine Falcon rose from her afternoon perch and shot off to the opposite side of the gap, giving some beautiful, but fleeting views as she went.

Onwards to The Gap!

There was little left to do now but pick our way down and find the parked car that we'd left earlier in the day and get back around to Honeymoon Gap to pick up the first car. This drive really made us appreciate how far we'd walked.

Down the road...

The legs certainly felt it. The thighs were a bit like jelly after the descent into the gap, and we made our way very tenderly across to the car, and a quiet victory dance.

Down the hill..and home.

So there it is - a pretty big day of walking but some absolutely superb birdwatching along the way. If you're a local or a visitor, the ranges are calling. Get out and enjoy this beautiful cool weather we're enjoying at the moment and you never know what you'll find. I'm sure you won't regret it.

CBW

Thailand in May

2011-07-17T13:56:00.000+09:30

Sam Hopley's excellent picture of Abbott's Babbler, Malacocincla abbotti, in thick jungle at Sri Phang-nga.

It's taken me this long to sort it out, but here is my rough run down on the trip to Thailand that I did back in May. I was accompanied on the trip by my friends Col Fink and Sam Hopley (Moppers). We managed to procure the services of Ike Suriwong as our guide for the day. Ike is a well known guide and birder in southern Thailand and we were lucky to have him along. Ike managed to find something in the order of 78 species for us on a day that was intermittently rainy and not really ideal for birding. Regardless of the weather, we all agreed that it was an outstanding day and this was entirely due to Ike's superb guiding and company. If you are going to Thailand you should certainly get in touch with Ike and he'll sort you out. Ike's report of the day is much more comprehensive and knowledgeable than mine. His report of our day out can be found on his well-maintained website, along with all of his contact details, here;

PHUKET BIRDWATCHING

The day started well with Hooded Pitta, Pitta sordida, and Black and Yellow Broadbill, Eurylaimus ochromalus. We birded right through a rainy morning picking up a bunch of birds in between rain showers, including Great Hornbill, Buceros bicornis, which was amazingly sneaky for such a massive bird. Further down the jungle trail we came upon a family of Abbott's Babblers, Malacocincla abbotti, which Ike was very excited about. Apparently these birds can be very tricky to pin down, and Thailand has many babbler species which are very similar and are most easily identified by call. In the low light on the jungle floor it was tricky to get good views of this bird but we all managed a decent look eventually and Moppers even got a decent photo (above).

Blue Rock Thrush, Monticola solitarius. Picture by Sam Hopley.

After the jungle we moved on to some limestone karst habitat and managed to pick up Blue Rock Thrush, Monticola solitarius, and Blue Whistling Thrush, Myophonus caeruleus, Coppersmith Barbet, Megalaima haemacephala, and Pink-necked Green Pigeon, Treron vernans, among a host of swiftlets and swallow species flying fast overhead.

Jungle Myna, Acridotheres fuscus.

Among the more common species that I encountered daily around urbanised areas of Thailand were; Oriental Magpie Robin, Copsychus saularis, Yellow-vented Bulbul, Pycnonotus goiavier, Chinese Pond Heron, Ardeola bacchus, Asian Palm Swift, Cypsiurus balasiensis, and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Passer montanus.

The complete bird list for the time I spent in Thailand can be viewed on Eremaea Birds here;

CBW Thailand Life List

This brief introduction to birding in Thailand was a real eye-opener. Far from being dead easy to rack up a huge list of lifers merely by being in an exotic location, the birding was a real challenge at times and all the more enjoyable for it. With a bird list approaching 1000 species there are plenty of reasons for repeat visits to Thailand. Despite the many conservation concerns facing this remarkable country there are still some huge tracts of untouched jungle running up through the borders with Burma and Cambodia. Tigers, panthers, elephants, gibbons and a host of other animlas can still be found in these forests and Thailand is still one of the most reliable places to visit to see the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Calidris pygmeus, at the right time of year.

The Bird Conservation Society of Thailand is doing plenty of work to help the birds and other wildlife of the region, including organising a roster of birders like Ike, to check the infamous Bangkok markets each week for trading in contraband wildlife. In the north of Thailand there are also captive breeding and re-introduction programs for formerly common birds like Slender-billed Vulture, Gyps tenuirostris, and Cinereous Vulture, Aegypius monachus, and these birds may again become easier to see soaring above the northern highlands.

I'll let Ike have the last word on this report. The video here is from an appearance he made on Thai television. In it, he goes through the basics of birding in southern Thailand, but it gives you a fairly good account of Ike's open personality and sense of humour.

To Ike Suriwong - you're a king among birders. Thanks again mate, all the best to your family, and may the leeches forever find your blood distasteful!

CBW

Varied Sitella on the AZRI block

2011-07-15T22:07:00.000+09:30

Went for a little saunter around the garden at work at lunchtime. It's been very grey drizzly weather for the last few days in Alice. It brightened my day no end to find 6 Varied Sitella, Daphoenositta chrysoptera, methodically working the old corkwoods in the area. They moved steadily from tree to tree picking things out from the thickly textured bark and I had a great chance to view their stunning markings from close range.

These birds appeared to be of the pileata race or "Black-capped Sitella". The White-plumed Honeyeaters and Yellow-throated Miners certainly weren't fond of their intrusion into the yard and set about harrassing the Sitellas as soon as they noticed them.

This is a species which is not too common to bump into in Central Australia so this was a great addition to the office list. This sighting was along the eastern boundary of the AZRI block where it runs parallel to Heffernan Road. Perhaps this is a decent place to look for these birds as there are a lot of old corkwoods and ironwoods around.

CBW

Tawny Grassbird at Cassia Hill

2011-07-13T23:09:00.001+09:30

Cassia Hill is a short (1.8km) walk on the road into Simpson's Gap. Usually this is a great area for thornbills, robins, and other small bush birds. Due to recent drizzle and some small patch fires in the area it is now paradise.

I'd only walked about 100m from the car and I had seen Hooded Robin, Red-capped Robin, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Chestnut-rumped Thornbill, Southern Whiteface, Willie Wagtail and Splendid Fairy-wren. All these birds were happily singing away and working the scorched earth in mixed flocks. Crested Bellbirds were also around, along with Grey Shrike-thrush and the odd Mulga Parrot.

Also in the area were quite a few Major Mitchell's Cockatoos and a few Red-tailed Black Cockatoos could be heard somewhere in the distance. The biggest surprise came just as I was returning to the car...

In the traffic island between the carpark and the road the buffel grass was rustling. So I sat patiently and waited for the occupant to reveal itself. In due course I had fantastic views of a Tawny Grassbird tumbling around in the buffel. This species has been reported intermittently this year, usually from Ilparpa Swamp but there have also been reports from Simpson's Gap.

According to most of the published literature, Tawny Grassbirds being in Alice Springs constitutes quite a large range extension. Perhaps they have often been here, but been overlooked in the past. Perhaps they are regular visitors in the rare periods of very wet weather, so they're usually elsewhere.

Whatever the answer, it is another tick for the Centralian list, 207 and counting!

CBW

Possible Yellow-tinted Honeyeater at Tnorala (Gosse Bluff)

2011-07-06T22:05:00.000+09:30

The other day, while out chasing a possible albino Brown Falcon I received one of those phone calls that all birders love to get... had I seen any Yellow-tinted Honeyeaters in The Centre?

It was Shelagh from Glen Helen - a friend and frequent informant on anything unusual around the back blocks of the western end of the West Macs. Shelagh and her husband Colin are experienced birdos and know the fauna of the area very well.

Around the picnic ground at Tnorala, the spectacular impact crater visible from the Mereenie Loop, Shelagh believes she has seen some honeyeaters of a much more yellow plumage than our normal White-plumed Honeyeaters and lacking the eponymous white plume. These birds just have the black. Yellow-tinted Honeyeater, Lichenostomus flavescens, is a species Shelagh has seen before in her travels to more northerly parts of the NT.

In The Territory, this species is not usually found far south of Daly Waters, although it has been reported on the odd occasion at locations such as Glen Helen Resort and Gemtree Roadhouse. So...

..a new species for the Centralian year list beckons. It'll be a few days at least before I can get out to try and confirm this report for myself so if anyone is passing through the area, check those White-plumed Honeyeaters extra carefully.

Thanks again for the tip off Shelagh!

CBW

An invitation to join Morgan, Joey and The Ghost - an overnight camping trip at Old Hamilton Downs

2011-07-05T22:10:00.000+09:30

Red-tailed Black Cockatoos give a low pass during a magnificent Hamilton Downs sunset - all this could be yours.

The inimitable Groucho Marx was once quoted as saying that he wouldn't want to join any club that would have someone like him as a member. While this saying has a certain dark poignancy to it, nothing could be further from the truth if the club in question was the Alice Springs Field Naturalists. This is a group of people with centuries worth of accumulated knowledge and experience of the natural history of Central Australia. There isn't a thing that crawls, a fish that swims, a plant that blooms or a bird that sings that has escaped the attention of these folks. If you're a local with any sort of interest in nature, then you owe it to yourself to pop along to a meeting, soak up the enthusiasm, join up and prepare to get energised. Meetings are on the second Wednesday of every month, 7pm at the Charles Darwin University, Higher Education Building lecture theatre - all welcome!

This brief introduction is by way of extending an invitation to an up-coming Field Nats outing to join Morgan, surely our most infectiously enthusiastic member, for an overnight camping trip to his old stomping ground at beautiful Hamilton Downs, about a 50 minute drive to the north-west of Alice. It's a magnificent place, with a breathtaking bird list so, of course, I will be there. The details are as follows;

- Arrive about 3pm Saturday 16th, then take a walk to the top of the small range behind the old homestead. From there the view of the top of the Chewings Ranges, looking down to Brinkley's Bluff, is wonderful, and is a great spot to view the sunset.
- It is $25 overnight for camping or accommodation
- Sunday the 17th of July, there is the option to walk up the creek and around the back of the homestead via the stand of cycads and the petroglyphs.
- Day trippers are welcome (the first walk will start at 10am) if you don't want to camp over on the Saturday night but a day fee of $15 will be charged, which is more of a donation to a worthy cause really.
- There's a sound system so bring your favourite CD or we'll have to listen to Morgan's opera all weekend
- Cec Sutton is looking for a lift on Saturday, so anyone that has a spare seat please contact Morgan to make arrangements
- Forewarned - Morgan assures me that the camp is haunted... make of that what you will

This is a message on behalf of Morgan and the ASFNC so don't respond to me with queries, questions, doubts and dramas - get in touch with Morgan;

Land line - 8953 2286
Sky line - 0437 422 494

See you there!

CBW

Dark Spotted Turtle-dove

2011-06-25T19:30:00.000+09:30

Down at Olive Pink Botanical Gardens today I came across this bloke wandering about...

Spotted Turtle-dove, Streptopelia chinensis. A visibly darker bird than the standard colour.

OK - not the most earth shattering sighting, a feral dove at the 'tanics, but I get excited by colour morphs. If you compare this bird to the more normal colour scheme around Alice...

The more normal colouring with the pale pinks and browns

..the top bird is decidedly darker over much of its plumage.

The only other sighting of any real note at the gardens this morning was an unidentified raptor which flew over at a fair height. The vocalisations were immediately reminiscent of Peregrine Falcon but, being naked without the bins, I didn't get a good enough look. Might be worth keeping an eye out for.

CBW

The Centralian year list hits halfway

2011-06-23T08:49:00.001+09:30

Just another day in the office...

The sun has now well and truly set on the halfway mark for both the Frederick Andrews Cup competition and my energetic pursuit of a respectable Centralian year list.

The list is coming along well on 161. Of course, the FA Cup isn't open to me but it's going to be fun towards the pointy end of the year to see how high I can get a year list in Central Australia. I'm confident of a few more waders before the year is out, but for a few other species I'm putting out a call for any and all advice.

There are still a few local lurkers eluding the list and a couple of more interesting nomadic types which have been reported in the area recently. If anyone has any advice at all on the following species (within the defined Centralian playing area of course) please give me a yell.

Square-tailed Kite
Baillon's Crake
Dusky Moorhen
Wandering Whistling-duck
Eastern Grass Owl
Striated Grasswren
White-browed Treecreeper
Painted Honeyeater
Yellow Chat
Jacky Winter

There are others, but these seem like the birds which might be outside chances.

Our operators are waiting to take your calls.

CBW

Hump day surprises

2011-06-22T22:48:00.000+09:30

Down at the good old sewage ponds again this morning. It was supposed to be a routine morning of water sampling but, as always, the binoculars were close at hand, just in case.

As luck would have it, Mark Carter turned up for a morning session, so it was nice to know that someone would be paying proper attention to the birds while I was up to my elbows in sample jars and paperwork.

The biggest surprise at the poo ponds lately, apart from the fantastic craking, has been the Banded Lapwings. The low water levels in EP10 have exposed all the mud flats and the Banded Lapwings, usually pretty thin on the ground, have been in flocks of 5 or 6 birds among the Masked Lapwings. Getting dive-bombed by these beauties makes a refreshing change!

Other birdies of note were the 8 or so White-backed Swallows that were flying around the border of EP10 and A5. Also of note, just as I was leaving there was a largish (40+) flock of martins huddled on the ground. The Fairy Martins are usually very common at the poo ponds, but I was surprised to discover that all of these birds, except for two, were Tree Martins. It was great to get a close-up, stationary look at these birds with their dapper navy blue sheen. The dark blue goes right up over their head with just a little rusty patch atop their beak.

Mark stole the show again of course; some nifty scoping produced the Spotless Crake that I saw yesterday in EP7A and he also had views of the original bird that he has seen earlier in the week over the back of EP10. Not only this, but he had some good views of a male Peregrine Falcon during a low pass - a pretty uncommon visitor here at the ponds.

CBW

Spotless Crake at the Poo Ponds

2011-06-22T00:39:00.000+09:30

Spotless Crake, Porzana tabuensis, in the centre of the picture on the waterline with his green-legged mate, the Australian Crake, Porzana fluminea.

Spotless Crake has been the talk of the birdo community in Alice this week. I've been dipping on this species left, right, and centre for months. Finally, I've managed to get him on my Centralian list.

Unfortunately the big camera wasn't with me and the little camera doesn't cope so well with low light conditions so this is the best I could manage. Nonetheless, the red legs are clearly visible and the comparison with the Australian Crake is helpful. This bird seems to have a pale throat area which seems to indicate a juvenile bird according to my field guides. If there are any crakesperts out there who'd like to educate me, your feedback would be most welcome.

Although the photos aren't that flash, I had some great views of the bird through the bins. He hung around, out in the open, for a good 20 minutes or so and didn't seem to mind me moving around a bit. This bird was on EP7A, but Mark Carter has seen this species a couple of times this week in the swamp beyond EP10, so it seems there is a small population at the moment.

It's true what they say - there's never a better looking bird than one you're seeing for the first time. He put a spring in my step for the rest of the evening this little bloke.

CBW

Where's Alby?

2011-06-18T00:04:00.000+09:30

Welcome to a game I play almost daily now when I am at the corner of Colonel Rose Drive and Heffernan Road. Alby, the white Crested Pigeon, is still hanging out and always provides a few moments of fun as I try to spot him among his mates.

Found him yet?

The huge flocks of Crested Pigeons in this area are due to a friendly local who puts out regular food for them. I can hear roars of disapproval coming from certain sectors, and I am well aware of the arguments, but I'm not about to lecture a bloke on the pros and cons of providing artificial food sources for wildlife when he clearly gets so much enjoyment from "his" pigeons. It's great to live in a place where people appreciate the wildlife in so many different ways. He's not the only one who appreciates the pigeons either....

Just after I took the photo above, the local Brown Goshawk shot through and scared them all off the wire. He has clearly become accustomed to the pigeon feeding hour as well.

There he goes!

Luckily, Alby made it through this attack and will live to perch another day. Long may it be so.

CBW

Smoke and Raptors

2011-06-17T23:52:00.000+09:30

A Nankeen Kestrel waits vigilantly for the fires to build up some heat.

If you live on westside and have had your laundry besmirched by ash and smoke in the last couple of days, I'm afraid I may be partly to blame. For a couple of days this week I was helping out with some fuel reduction burning out in the Western MacDonnell National Park at Simpson's Gap under the auspices of the rangers there and Bushfires NT. It was a great learning experience and an excellent way to round out the basic wildfire awareness course that I'd completed with some colleagues.

The grass is still quite moist in some areas, resulting in a cool, controlable burn.

Anyone who has been around Alice in the last few months will testify to the huge amount of fuel - an awful lot of it Buffel Grass - resulting from the bumper season of rain. Firefighters are bracing for one of the worst fire seasons in many years and are busily doing protective burns during the cooler afternoons of winter.

The flames really get going when they hit a stand of Acacia victoriae.

The Simpson's Gap burns were great to be involved in, not least because of the scenery out this way. I was the only one on the fire line with binoculars - of course - and made the most of the opportunity to take note of birds flushed by the fire and birds attracted to the fire front by the lure of an easy meal. Of the small birds, a pair of Slaty-backed Thornbills grabbed my attention amongst some Weebills. Singing and White-plumed Honeyeaters, Major Mitchell's Cockatoos, and Hooded Robins all fled in advance of the smoke.

The Acacia doesn't put up much resistance and the flames quickly die down.

As the fires advanced great hordes of katydids and grasshoppers were sent skyward and it didn't take long for Nankeen Kestrels, Black Kites, and Brown Falcons to get in on the action swooping very close to our heads. The biggest surprise was Crested Bellbirds appearing, as soon as the flames had subsided, and poring over the scorched earth for whatever invertebrate life might have perished and still offer a half-decent meal.

A common sight over firefronts in northern Australia - Black Kites swoop through the smoke to pick up insects.

The biggest danger with these deliberate burns is smoke over roads. If you're travelling in Central Australia and there are fires about, deliberately lit or otherwise, always turn on your headlights and hazards, drive slowly, and drive to the conditions until you are clear of any obscuring smoke.

CBW

Crakes and Rails - it's all happening at the poo ponds.

2011-06-17T23:24:00.001+09:30

A morning of crakes and rails. In this picture I managed to get three Australian Crake and two Buff-banded Rails.

It was an interesting morning the other day. I've already mentioned the cold so I won't go on about it.

The crakes and rails seemed to be enjoying the lower water levels in EP7C and Australian Crake and Buff-banded Rails were being very bold out in the early morning sun. The ponds have been discharged into the swamps again so the birding should be improving over that way soon as well.

Shortly after this Mark Carter found Spotless Crake over the back of EP10 - this is a species which still eludes my Centralian list so expect to see a cold figure whimpering to himself in the saltbush over the coming days.

A chilly family of Black Swans cut graceful figures on the misty waters.

CBW

Camping South of Town for the Finke Desert Race

2011-06-15T22:08:00.001+09:30

Black-faced Woodswallows, Artamus cinereus, huddling together for warmth in the late afternoon.

The Finke Desert Race is one of the biggest events on the Australian offroad racing calendar. I'm not a motorsport fan, but I have friends that are, so I always go camping in the beautiful red sand dunes to the south of town for this long weekend.

The motorsport is actually only a tiny piece of the day - the cars and bikes whizz past in a matter of minutes and then there is the rest of the day to fill. This area of the Red Centre is a favourite of mine as I suspect it is slightly "underbirded", and is therefore always a chance to turn up a few surprises. Better still, is the chance to camp in the one spot for a few days and really soak up the rhythms of the desert.

After the first day I was utterly familiar with the routine of the resident Black-faced Woodswallows and Southern Whitefaces whose turf we had unceremoniously gatecrashed. There was a flock of about 50 woodswallows living in the Desert Oaks by our camp and they had a favourite branch for sunning themselves each afternoon. The whitefaces would be flitting around in the Ruby Saltbush at the base of the Desert Oaks.

Black-faced Woodswallows on their favourite perch.

Also common out here were Orange Chats, Mulga Parrots, Major Mitchell's Cockatoos, Brown Falcons, Black-shouldered Kites, Grey-crowned Babblers, and White-winged Trillers.

Every year I am warned to avoid this "petrol-head" camp out, but every year I go, I'm impressed by the birding and the cleanliness of the campsites that people leave behind. There will always be a few unsavoury elements in any large gathering of people, but the sense of community in the Finke Desert Race camp out will keep me going back.

Just as so many people only read Playboy magazine for the articles, so I only go to the Finke Desert Race for the birding.

CBW

The Poo Ponds - Sub Zero...

2011-06-15T21:39:00.000+09:30

On my usual rounds of the poo ponds this morning it got down to -3.4 degrees. As I was there to conduct water sampling, I was not looking forward to spending a morning dipping my hands in the frigid water.

My concern was short-lived as the bird life soon grabbed my attention. Due to recent overcast weather, the settling ponds have been discharged out into the swamp creating some great mudflat country in EP10 and forcing a lot of the ducks to settle on EP7.

The saltbush areas alongside EP7 and EP10 are full of White-winged Fairy-wren and Orange Chat at the moment. EP7C had Australian Crake wandering around in the open in broad daylight as late as 9.30am and there are still plenty of Buff-banded Rail as well. Richard Waring has reported a Dusky Moorhen in the area, a great Alice Springs rarity, but I didn't manage to locate it this morning - plenty of Purple Swamphen though.

The terns are back as well. I counted many Whiskered Terns and among them were three Gull-billed Terns in non-breeding plumage. I had a fly past by a single Straw-necked Ibis and a White-necked Heron and the White-backed Swallows are still hanging about at the intersection of the road between EP10 and EP7 and the southern perimeter. Magpie-larks were in bigger flocks (150+) than I have seen for a while and the Fairy Martins are in big flocks over most of the ponds.

There wasn't much time to scan the ducks but at a glance it seems that the Hardheads are really increasing in number. After a perfunctory squizz I couldn't locate either the Blue-billed Duck or Chestnut Teal that have been here in recent weeks.

CBW

A change is as good as a holiday...

2011-06-09T22:15:00.000+09:30

Just a bit of housekeeping folks. You will have noticed the fancy new banner at the top announcing that the weekly bird bulletin from the local paper, now has its own page. You can click the banner or the normal page tab and it will take you there. This just means that the photographs are better presented and the articles are archived properly.

Of course, this means that the "Twitch" banner has gone. The show will go on - every Tuesday morning with Tatjana Clancy on 783 AM ABC local Alice Springs - but the podcasts, I'm afraid will not. It's been a bit tricky getting the ABC to keep up with the posts on their website so it was essentially a dead link. So you'll need to be in Alice Springs for the broadcast, listen on shortwave, or tune in online.

Not to worry! I'll keep working on them and if I can get them to keep posting the Mp3 files for interstate and international listeners then I will put up another link.

CBW

Bustard, Koel, and Poo Ponds update

2011-06-08T17:45:00.000+09:30

Just a quick one folks. I was down at the poo ponds for most of the morning and it was cold, wet, and windy. Luckily, I love this sort of weather, so I wasn't put off. I couldn't find the Chestnut Teal, so I am assuming he has moved on, and the Blue-billed Duck was nowhere to be found. I have had several emails from southern birders in the last few weeks, amazed at my persistence in reporting ducks which, to them, fall under the category of "chicken", ie; common. The important distinction of course is that, up here, they're anything but.

I've only been able to confirm 5 credible reports of Blue-billed Duck in Alice Springs since 2000. A reporting rate like that, takes it from the chicken category and places it firmly amongst the rarities.The Chestnut Teal is reported a little more frequently than the Blue-billed Duck but still infrequently enough to get excited about. He's a long way from where the book says he should be and we all know how exciting that is.

The other exciting news of late, was Matt Le Feuvre's sighting of an Australian Bustard out on Colonel Rose Drive. More Bustard news this week with Uwe Path reporting a pair of Bustards on two mornings so far this week, around the end of Heath Road.

Also of interest, Uwe is 90% sure he has had a Koel lurking around. This bird has eluded the camera so far, but this is the second report of a Koel in Alice Springs this year, so it might be worth keeping an eye out.

CBW

Pictorella Mannikin on the Tablelands!

2011-06-04T17:56:00.001+09:30

Pictorella Mannikin, Heteromunia pectoralis. This is a male bird and the photograph was kindly supplied by ecologist, Holger Woyt.

The birding is really beginning to heat up at the moment just as The Red Centre is getting decidedly chilly - more negative temperatures forecast for the end of the week. To escape the frigid conditions settling upon Alice Springs, some work colleagues of mine headed north up the Tablelands Highway last week. Despite not really being die-hard birdos, they had some extraordinary birding to report on their return.

The inland is almost starting to dry out and a few birds are beginning to concentrate on water sources. This is nothing like what I am anticipating for later in the year but it is building. My hope is, that with the great rains of the last 12 - 18 months, many species will have experienced some breeding success and as the country dries out we'll see some spectacular flocks assembling around the usual water sources.

The Tablelands Highway is perfect for this. Despite zipping right up the middle of prime Flock Bronzewing, Phaps histrionica, territory, the highway passes numerous bores and turkey's nest dams which are perfect for attracting thirsty birds around sunset.

My friends were stopping at as many of the bores as possible, hoping to track down some Yellow Chats, Epthianura crocea. Nothing to report on that front unfortunately, but the Yellow Chat could be the only bird they didn't see. The birding in this part of the country sounds spectacular at the moment. I would consider it completely worthwhile, if you're heading up to Darwin, to detour the few hundred kilometres and take the Tablelands Highway and then pop back through to the Stuart Highway along the Carpentaria Highway from the Heartbreak Hotel.

This is a rough list that I've compiled just from flicking through their photos;

Plumed Whistling-duck
Grey Teal
Hoary-headed Grebe
Black-necked Stork
Australian Pelican (some in breeding plumage/colour)
White-necked Heron
White-faced Heron
Intermediate Egret
Great Egret
Glossy Ibis
Straw-necked Ibis
Australian White Ibis
Royal Spoonbill
Yellow-billed Spoonbill
Black Kite
Whistling Kite
White-bellied Sea-eagle
Spotted Harrier
Brolga
Australian Bustard
Black-winged Stilt
Masked Lapwing
Australian Pratincole (many thousands seen along the road)
Whiskered Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Common Bronzewing
Flock Bronzewing (small flocks around the bores)...

...and of course the beautiful Pictorella Mannikin in the photo above.

The team went right up as far as Bing Bong on the Gulf of Carpentaria and eventually saw good numbers of Purple-crowned Fairy-wren, Malurus coronatus, of the eastern sub-species macgillivrayi.

Of course, none of this is within the playing area for The Frederick Andrews Cup... but who really cares about that when there is birding like this to be had? Get up the Tablelands if you can folks. It's all happening at the moment.

Most of the species listed above were seen around the turkey's nest at 17 degrees 38' 15.25" S, 135 degrees 40' 01.62" E - except for the obviously more coastal species which were seen up closer to Bing Bong.

Thanks very much to Bill, Holger, and Ange for the report and the many great photos.

CBW