Newhaven is very green at the moment

G’day

My friend Lionel is walking the Larapinta Trail at the moment and needed some help setting up his food drops (and leaving his car in Alice Springs for him to collect at the end of the walk). I had a week of leave up my sleeve, so the Friday before last we left Brisbane after an early breakfast and arrived at Newhaven on the afternoon of the fourth day.

Newhaven is managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy – www.australianwildlife.org/sanctuaries/newhaven-sanctuary.aspx . Most people would access it via the Tanami Rd from Alice Springs (now sealed all the way to the turnoff – 20 km past the Tilmouth Roadhouse. Newhaven has a well maintained ~130 km access road.

Newhaven has a large amount of topographical and ecological variation, and is a very interesting place to visit, particularly after good rain. With ~ 200 mm of rain in June, Newhaven was a mass of green, with plenty of water in the lakes and lots of plants in flower. Newhaven has a good internal road network with good signposting. It has an excellent campground with hot showers. It costs $10 per person per night to camp there.

The AWC has written up 6 “tours” which take you through the property and cover many ecosystem types. We did 5 of the circuits in the 3 full days we had there (it is easy to combine the dune & lakes circuits, and the gorge & home range circuits). Mt Gurner is a bit more of bushwalk for off track walkers.

On the birding front, there were heaps of Bustards, Brown Falcons, Budgies, Zebra Finches, Pink-eared Ducks, Aus Teal, Grey and Hoary-headed Grebes, Black-fronted Dotterels, Fairy Martins, Pallid Cuckoos, Rufous Songlarks, Hooded Robins, Masked Woodswallows, Black, Pied and Grey-headed and Singing Honeyeaters. There were also Black-breasted Buzzards, Little Eagles, Stubble Quail, Little Button-quail, Spinifex Pigeons, Orange and Crimson Chats, White-browed Babblers, White-fronted Honeyeaters, Inland Thornbills, Red-capped Robins, Crested Bellbirds, Painted Finch and Mistletoebirds etc. Sadly there were no Princess Parrots at the time.

The songlarks, woodswallows and honeyeaters were very vocal. Many times I heard the sparrow-like call of the woodswallows while photographing flowers on the dunes (at one stage there were over 50 circling overhead). Photographic highlights included a trio of partly fledged songlarks on the ground and a Little Button-quail walking through a field of Mulla Mullas.

Actually, I was wandering through a hectare of Mulla Mullas (as you do) with the landscape camera. I noticed that some lazy sod had driven a vehicle through the flowers and was muttering words to that effect when I flushed a Button-quail (it had a two syllable call) and noticed another one of the ground in open ankle-high grass nearby. It was very frustrating being on top of a BQ with a camera that was useless for photographing birds. I remember that it did a funny sort of nervous walk at one stage. After I lost sight of it, I went back to the car, retrieved the bird camera, made my way back to the tyre marks, and would you believe it, refound the Little BQ and got a respectable photo.

Overall I had a great time and found the AWC staff and volunteers very friendly and helpful. Right now is a great time to be in Central Australia …

Regards, Laurie.