Hi all,
Returning from our week on Norfolk I flew to Townsville last Saturday for a few days to stay with Ian. I wanted to see Rufous Owl, Pale-vented Bush-hen and Zitting Cisticola, three quick and easy birds (smile). I had done my homework and had some contacts so I was ready to start on Sunday. The rain started on Saturday as we flew in so on Sunday I drove down to Giru and after 2 or 3 hours some Zitting Cisticola started doing display flights and calling so I finally saw them, rather than just hearing them out in the tall grass.
By now it was 1500 and the road was very wet with an inch or two of water over the bitumen in one place. When I arrived I could also get about 500 beyond a windmill, but when I left the road up as far as the windmill was under water. On Monday the Town Common was closed due to flooding. On Monday night a storm wrecked part of Townsville and Giru was isolated with all roads in closed. On Tuesday the Palmetum was closed by storm damage.The golf course was under water and the bunker at the 18th was full to the brim. The average rain fall while I was there was 200 mm per day and some areas got close to 400 in a day. Suffice to say I did not see either the owl or the bush-hen.
I flew out Wednesday morning BUT, the visit was still a real success. I have never experienced a wet season storm in Australia – nearly a metre of rain in 4 days! Melbourne maybe wet, but not like that. I will put it down as one more experience of extreme birding.
Cheers
Jen ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
