I recommend this is read on our blog with associated photos ( http://fortheloveof-birds.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/western-whattlebird.html ), but I am pasting the text report here for the archives, which were very helpful in planning this trip! Lifers are in capital letters.
Max turned 18 on the 14th of April. When asked by his mum whether he would like to go get drunk with his friends, he replied something along the lines of “nah, I’d prefer to go looking for birds (the feathered kind of course)”. Good choice!
Max subsequently asked if I would like to join him and his mum Sarah on a 7 day whirlwind trip to South-West Western Australia. The planning done, and the first set of Year 12 exams over, we found ourselves landing at Perth airport. Taxi to the hire car place, and we picked up our car. It had a slogan written on the side doors:
“No birds…”
Bad omen? We’ll see. Off we went to find a supermarket to stock up. We got lost, and Sarah pulled over so we could get out the GPS. In a shrub right next to the car was a pair of LAUGHING DOVES. Excellent start!
We headed off to Dryandra Woodlands, attentively watching the roadsides en route hoping to get a few early ticks. Max called out Black Cockies! whilst we were traversing the Perth hills – luckily they were Red-tailed Blacks as they didn’t land and ID would have been impossible otherwise! While passing through Wandering only a few kms out of Dryandra, Max yelled out STOP! Right next to the road in a dead tree were 14 CARNABY BLACK COCKATOOS! The first endemic had fallen.
We arrived at Dryandra Village to be greeted by John, whom on learning that we were birders, handed us a map complete with annotations on every species we asked about – these annotations proved to be almost 100% accurate and helped us a lot. In the birdbath next to reception, we had WESTERN ROSELLA, many Brown and New Holland Honeyeaters. The trees held both pardalotes and a number of thornbill species (not Western), Brown-headed Honeyeaters, etc. After a quick unpack, we headed straight to Old Mill dam where we had been guaranteed dead cert RUFOUS TREECREEPER. We were not disappointed! Also WESTERN THORNBILL, Western Gerygone, and a Kings Skink. We drove up the road about a km, and stopped because I had accidentally turned a dead stump into a Numbat… however, it was a good mistake to make, as the surrounding area was fantastic, with Jacky Winter, Scarlet and Red-capped Robins, SWAN RIVER HONEYEATERS, Yellow-plumped Honeyeaters and the beautiful spotted White-browed Scrubwren (why is this not a full species?!) We continued on to the start of the Ochre Trail where we had been told to look for Shrike Tit. When we stopped, there were no birds, and the habitat looked pretty terrible. We decided to walk up the road a bit and realised we had stopped in the wrong place! We got to the Ochre Trail parking area, and the birds fell quickly – a party of BLUE-BREASTED FAIRY WREN (no breeding males unfortunately), Elegant Parrots flying over (which was a tick for me but I refused to tick them from that view), Tawny-crowned Honeyeater, Dusky Woodswallow, a group of the supposedly rare White-browed Babbler, and best of all, an obliging female “WESTERN” CRESTED SHRIKE TIT. The rest of the afternoon was fairly unproductive. After dinner, we headed off spotlighting. We could not get close to the Bush Stone Curlews and unfortunately missed seeing them. A pair of Barn Owls were heard (I did try to turn them into Masked originally, but Max put me in my place), an Owlet Nightjar was heard, a Tawny Frogmouth seen briefly and a few Brushtail Possums. Unfortunately no Bilby or Wyolie or anything else of particular interest. A Southern Boobook was heard later that night.
The next morning we attempted to find those curlews again. The best bird to be seen up behind the village was WESTERN YELLOW ROBIN! Bird #499 for me – what would be #500? By this stage, we had seen every bird we had hoped for in Dryandra minus some unpredictable parrots, Western Spinebill, and Western Wattlebird. We decided to try up at Lol Gray, which was meant to be good for the two honeyeaters. On arrival, there wasn’t much about. We had a walk around, a few more Western Thornbills, a few honeyeaters (neither of the two we wanted), and then we saw two parrots fly into a tree. And they weren’t 28-Parrots! We slowly approached the tree and the two parrots flew out to landed in a bush. Juvenile RED-CAPPED PARROTS – #500! Wohoo! High-fives were exchanged, and I marvelled at how these juveniles were actually surprisingly colourful – we weren’t to see an adult male for 4 more days. We drove back through Dryandra to the south-western exit. Just before getting onto the highway where stopping would be impossible, Max spotted some parrots, and we jumped out to get Max his tick, a pair of REGENT PARROTS. The biggest dip here was… Well… We saw all the birds we needed to get here plus more. The biggest dip was probably Numbat! So far, the slogan on the car door had proven completely incorrect.
On to that little, yet well-known patch of heath known as Cheynes Beach. We were handed the birding folder on arrival complete with maps and annotations from various people over the last 3 years. We decided to head straight to the “Scrubbird Loop”, ticking off a lovely male WESTERN SPINEBILL on the way. On arrival we heard one scrubbird calling. Literally 1m from the road where we were standing. Did we see it? Nope! In frustration, we headed further up the road and walked around the rocky shoreline. Osprey and Pacific Gull were nice finds. Back near the beach, a white bird flew onto a branch – WHITE-BREASTED ROBIN!
It was approaching dusk, so we headed back to the scrubbird loop (not before again trying to see the bird calling from right next to the road) and sat down looking toward the boat ramp. We waited. Suddenly a Noisy-Scrubbird-Like-Dark-Shape ran across the road. Max and I looked at each other quizzically. Well that was sh!t. It was calling again, so we walked down and again got within 1m of it. Then it must have crossed the road without us noticing because it started calling from the other side! We gave up and went for dinner.
The next morning we got up early and walked back down and sat in the same spot. As we sat down, we could hear the scrubbird calling from only a metre in from the dirt track. We waited. It called. We waited. It called some more. We waited some more. It stopped calling. We tensed, binoculars pre-focused at the correct distance. Movement. The NOISY SCRUBBIRD hopped out of the bush, looked at us, ran back in. Came out, ran back in. Came out. Stopped. Ran across the road. Stopped. Ran into the scrub. The highest of fives were given.
Our spirits high, we walked up past the caravan park to the track leading east. We heard a Western Whipbird calling from right next to the track. We were 10m away when a bristlebird started calling from 5m behind us. Dilemma. We chose the bristlebird, and within a few minutes had fantastic views of a WESTERN BRISTLEBIRD calling right in front of us on a low bush before running away like a mouse into the scrub. The Whipbird had stopped calling, and not a single whipbird would call in an accessible location again for the next 3 days. Heading further along the track whilst trying to relocate a possible heathwren, we heard the mournful whistle of a firetail. Max whistled back, and soon two RED-EARED FIRETAILS flew in and landed on a dead tree. We walked all the way to the beach and back seeing almost nothing else. We did hear one whipbird, but after walking through 100m of heath it had stopped calling… Honeyeaters were in abundance, but we couldn’t find any Western Wattlebirds, only Red… After breakfast, we walked up the beach to try and find a lagoon mentioned in a few of the bird notes. We found it, and there was not a single bird there except for a Caspian Tern roosting with the gulls at the lagoons’ mouth. We headed back towards the caravan park and decided to bird the beach scrub. We finally found a flock of RED-WINGED FAIRY-WRENS, which was very exciting as unlike the Blue-breasts at Dryandra, this flock contained two breeding males!
During the middle of the day, we headed over to the Waychinicup NP camping area, which was a fantastic place. Not many more birds except a Peregrine Falcon, but the scenery and large numbers of King’s Skink was satisfying enough!
The afternoon was spent traversing large areas of heath in search of Whipbirds. Just before dinner, I chose instead to head out for spotlighting. Back down near the scrubbird loop, I spotted a Quokka feeding right next to the road. As I was walking back to the caravan park, I passed the scrubbird road, and realised there was a bird calling a little off to the right. I sat down and waited. It ran across. I waited a bit more. A female ran across. Not as good as the views from the morning, but still an impressive(ly difficult) bird.
Day 3 was dedicated to whipbird hunting. The previous day we had walked at least 12kms after that bristlebird and had not pinned down a single whipbird. On day 3 after successfully re-staking out the Noisy Scrubbird, we walked all morning and didn’t even hear a single peep out of anything remotely similar to a Whipbird. Max’s mum was heading to Albany, and we decided to join her out of sheer frustration, and hoping to see a Western Wattlebird which we were still missing! Over the day, we added a number of birds the trip list and saw the SW Purple Swamphen – much more vibrant than their eastern counterparts. When we returned to Cheynes, the wind had picked up. In Albany, Max had re-read Grants trip report from 2010, and we decided to try his route up the hill which he so bitterly despised. By the end of it, we also bitterly despised that hill.
Max skipped spotlighting again, and I headed out in search of Honey Possum. An hour later, I learnt that Sod’s law also applies when looking for mammals. I was 50m from walking back into the caravan park when I heard a rustling in a bush just off the track. I stood at the side of the track and waited. I could see the bushes moving, and the creature zig-zagged through the scrub for a few seconds and then ran straight towards my foot where it stopped. A lovely Honey Possum. It crawled around in the vegetation next to me then moved a metre away. I decided pishing would be a good idea, and surprisingly it was – the Honey Possum ran right back up to my foot and sniffed it, then stopped. I took a step back, and it stayed put. I got the camera out and took two photos with it just sitting there. I then poked my finger at it, which it sniffed, then after a few seconds turned around and headed back into the heath. That for me made up for the lack of whipbird!
Day 4 – the wind had picked up even more overnight. We trekked up the hill. There was nothing. We came back down and left Cheynes Beach (not without checking out a few more Whipbird spots on the road out to no avail). Our Cheynes bird list stood at 60 species – on the bottom of our bird notes to be added to the birding folder, we wrote a note. “If only Western Wattlebird were as easy as Noisy Scrubbird”. We still hadn’t found one.
On the drive to Stirling Ranges, we spotted some ELEGANT PARROTS on the side of the road which I was able to tick. We got to Mt Trio. It was windy. We heard a whipbird 200m away. We left. We got to Salt River Road. It was windy. We heard a possible fieldwren. We left. Fairly annoying. We did have a good look at a shingleback though.
The afternoon was spent relaxing at Stirling Range Retreat, which had some excellent birds, but nothing new (Max and I both had our best ever views of Elegant Parrot). The wind eventually died down in the evening. The next morning, we packed up and left for Mt Trio. The wind had stopped! But as we pulled into the road to Mt Trio, we realised that at this high elevation, the wind was actually stronger than it had been yesterday!!! Despite our despair, we forced ourselves to go looking for Western Fieldwren and Western Whipbird. While attempting to tape out a Whipbird, we heard a chattering trill right behind us. We turned around, played the fieldwren call, and a wren-like bird ran across the road. The bird was calling, but we couldn’t see it. I eventually said to Max “I’m going to try and get eyes on it”, so I stood up from our crouched position and right in front of us was the WESTERN FIELDWREN sitting on top of a bush singing its heart out! Soon after, we gave up on the Whipbird front and accepted our first dip for the trip. We finally found a male Red-capped Parrot drinking from a puddle on the drive out.
We headed west, where we eventually reached Rocky Gully. Just outside of town, I spotted a huge flock of white birds on the side of the road – WESTERN CORELLAS. Funny to think that we pretty much saw the whole southern “Muirs” subspecies on one flock! Max and I decided that they were probably just about the most endangered birds that either of us had seen.
We headed further west and eventually reached Augusta (after a rather depressing lunch when we realised that we left our whole bag of tuna in a cupboard at Stirling). Whilst Sarah was checking into the hotel, Max and I spotted a flock of black cockatoos land in a tree just across the road. We headed over, and yes indeed they did have very long bills! BAUDIN’S BLACK COCKATOO! We were very happy with this, as this flock was only the 4th in the whole trip which we had had the opportunity to scrutinise. Now could spend the rest of the trip not worrying about the SWWA endemics…
Oh wait.
I turned to Max – “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“We’ve seen ever endemic except Western Wattlebird”
We had consistently failed to find this damn bird and we were starting to get worried.
Over to the lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin we headed, but on Rock Parrot we were to dip, despite spending the better half of the afternoon checking out the waterwheel and lighthouse grounds. Apparently the grass had just been mown, and hence the Rock Parrots didn’t really have anything to feed on. Back to Augusta where we decided to check out the beach after some fish and chips at “The Last Eathouse Before Antarctica”. There were a number of people and dogs on the beach, so we weren’t really expecting much, until we realised that the beach contained the most Red-capped Plovers either of us had ever seen in our life! Every 10 metres there were another 3 plovers! While walking along, I spotted a different bird. “Double-banded Plover over there Max”. We had a look, then Max commented “wait, isn’t that a rare bird over here?” When we got back to the hotel, we checked, and found out that only one other Double-banded Plover has ever been reported to the atlas west of the Eyre Bird Observatory! We had just found a WA vagrant on par with birds such as Hudsonian Godwit or Little Stint, but it wasn’t even a lifer for us – haha! Also on the beach were 28 Sanderling, an Aus tick for Max (and my first sandpiper for the year, before Red-necked Stint!).
The next morning, we tried again in vain for Rock Parrots at the lighthouse and in the dunes behind the beach. This was to be dip number two after Western Whipbird. We headed north towards Perth, windows down in case we heard a Wattlebird…. En-route we stopped at the northern end of Lake Clifton to see if we could find the Grey Plover reported a few days ago. Max and I were impressed when we got out of the car that we had accidentally found the viewing platform for a colony of Stromatolites – the most prehistoric organisms in existence which we had been learning about in biology for months. No Grey (or Hooded) Plovers unfortunately.
Eremaea had told us one of the best sites in WA for Western Wattlebird was the nearby Marina Bay Drive. This was where we headed next. It seemed promising, and the suburb was excellent for birds including Red-capped Parrot, Night Heron, Yellow-billed Spoonbill… and mosquitoes. I have never hated a birding site so much in my life. The whole back of my neck was one big itchy lump. No Wattlebird. Now we were very worried. The words on the side of the car door mocked us.
Point Peron was next, just in case there were any late Bridled or Roseate Terns. Nothing was seen here. There was now only a few hours of daylight left, and it was starting to really look like we would not see Western Wattlebird. We headed to Herdsman Lake, which we guess should be a good site for this damn bird, and we might even re-find a Purple Heron in the process! We found neither, but we did find fellow birder Sean, who told us to try a spot 10 minutes up the road for the wattlebird – Lake Gwelup. We thanked him and hopped back into the car. The sun was setting and we were getting every red light… We arrived at Lake Gwelup and found the flowering Banksias Sean had mentioned.
Wattlebirds everywhere. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Western? Nope, Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.
Max: “I’m getting seriously close to using callback”
But if we used callback for a wattlebird we’d never hear the end of it, so we kept looking.
Then. Finally.
WESTERN WATTLEBIRD!!! Two birds feeding in a Banksia. Yessss! We took a victory photo of ourselves and headed back to the car. It was at that point getting very dark.
And so, the next morning we found ourselves returning the hire car. Its slogan couldn’t taunt us anymore! Honestly, this trip could hardly have gone better. We saw every main target except Western Whipbird and Rock Parrot (which aren’t endemic anyway), and a few random subspecies which we had been hoping for. To have an idea of how well we went, here is our target list with the birds we saw highlighted green (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nOZekhMgV44/UXjHtcj4W0I/AAAAAAAAA4k/-FTtO7rS8kU/s1600/targets.png) Oh, and of course we missed my damn bogey bird – Square-tailed Kite.
Anyway, Happy 18th to Max, and thank you immensely to Sarah for letting me come along and doing all the driving and birding stops and cooking! Also to Sean for the wattlebird site, and all the birders on the WA mailing list who replied to our RFI! Time to get back to the HSC…
PS: We have since learned from the BirdsWA mailing list that Western Wattlebird can be a difficult species as it is generally quite site specific unlike its eastern counterpart. Make sure to have backup sites planned if you’re heading over this way in case you’re at Cheynes Beach during the time of year when the wattlebirds are not ! 😉
Bird List: 145 species
Emu
Brown Quail
Maned Duck
Blue-billed Duck
Musk Duck
Black Swan
Australian Shelduck
Hardhead
Pacific Black Duck
Grey Teal
Chestnut Teal
Great-crested Grebe
Hoary-headed Grebe
Australasian Grebe
Flesh-footed Shearwater
Australasian Gannet
Australasian Darter
Great Cormorant
Little-Black Cormorant
Pied Cormorant
Little-Pied Cormorant
Australian Pelican
White-necked Heron
White-faced Heron
Little Egret
Great Egret
Nankeen Night-Heron
Glossy Ibis
Straw-necked Ibis
Australian White Ibis
Yellow-billed Spoonbill
Black-shouldered Kite
Whistling Kite
Brown Goshawk
Osprey
White-bellied Sea Eagle
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Swamp Harrier
Brown Falcon
Nankeen Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Buff-banded Rail
Dusky Moorhen
Purple Swamphen
Eurasian Coot
Bush Stone-Curlew
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Red-necked Stint
Australian Pied Oystercatcher
Sooty Oystercatcher
Sooty Oystercatcher
Black-winged Stilt
Red-capped Plover
Double-banded Plover
Pacific Gull
Silver Gull
Caspian Tern
Crested Tern
Spotted Turtle-Dove
Laughing Dove
Feral Pigeon
Common Bronzewing
Brush Bronzewing
Crested Pigeon
Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo
Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo
Baudin’s Black-Cockatoo
Galah
Long-billed Corella
Western Corella
Little Corella
Rainbow Lorikeet
Purple-crowned Lorikeet
Regent Parrot
Western Rosella
Red-capped Parrot
Australian Ringneck
Mulga Parrot
Elegant Parrot
Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Southern Boobook
Eastern Barn Owl
Tawny Frogmouth
Australian Owlet-Nightjar
Laughing Kookaburra
Sacred Kingfisher
Noisy Scrub-Bird
Rufous Treecreeper
Splendid Fairy-Wren
Blue-breasted Fairy-Wren
Red-winged Fairy-Wren
Southern Emu-Wren
Spotted Pardalote
Striated Pardalote
Western Bristlebird
White-browed Scrubwren
Western Fieldwren
Western Gerygone
Inland Thornbill
Western Thornbill
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
Weebill
Western Wattlebird
Red Wattlebird
Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater
Yellow-throated Miner
Singing Honeyeater
Yellow-plumed Honeyeater
Brown-headed Honeyeater
Swan River Honeyeater
New Holland Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
Western Spinebill
Brown Honeyeater
White-fronted Chat
Jacky Winter
Scarlet Robin
Red-capped Robin
Western Yellow Robin
White-breasted Robin
White-browed Babbler
Western Whipbird
Crested Shrike-Tit
Golden Whistler
Rufous Whistler
Grey Shrike-Thrush
Restless Flycatcher
Willie Wagtail
Grey Fantail
Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike
Dusky Woodswallow
Grey Butcherbird
Pied Butcherbird
Magpie-Lark
Australian Magpie
Grey Currawong
Australian Raven
Australasian Pipit
Red-eared Firetail
Mistletoebird
Welcome Swallow
Tree Martin
Australian Reed Warbler
Little Grassbird
Silvereye
Cheers, Joshua Bergmark (and Max Breckenridge) ===============================
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