We took advantage of a moderation in the temperature in Perth (50 odd days above 30 degrees) and a Labour Day long weekend to try and check out what has been happening ornithologically up north and strapped on our heavy non-leica bins and non-leica scope and headed up the Great Northern highway with hope in our by heart, mostly brought about by the BOM 3 month rainfall maps which show 100 mm rain contour lines spaced about 100 km apart. A thrown fan belt had us limping into Dallwalineu late Fri night, a bit short of our intended target. The car died in the car park of the hotel. With the help of half a dozen locals we managed to get going at about 10:30, a good 6 hours later than planned. Anyway country looked promising as we approached Paynes Find – we arranged overnoght accomodation at Ningham Station – with increasing greenery in the bush, standing water becoming more obvious. The normal dry-country Redthroats, Crested Bellbirds, Slaty-backed Thornbills were in song so things were looking good. Then the second hicup – Paynes Find Roadhouse had been so thrashed by a recent storm it was out of action with no bowsers working. This is almost exactly half way bewteen Wubin and Mt Magnet, leaving a 300 km gap in the fiuel supply chain which we had not counted on. Anyway, we had to backtrack to Wubin to fill up on enough fuel (high octane to stetch it further – first time a tank has cost me over $100 – thanks Ghaddafi, why don’t you retire to the desert?). So somewhat constrained by this we really only had Sunday to do some decent birding. And this is what we saw:
White-faced Herons A few about in the floods. Wedge-tailed Eagles Of course Little Eagle One near Mt Gibson Kesterls Brown Flacon A couple Hobby A few Australian Goshawk One over Warne River Maned Duck Only other waterbird Crested Pigeons Common Common Bronzewings Mostly SE of PF Diamomd Doves Common along Warne River Port-Lincon Rigneck Common Mulga Parrot Common PF to Warne River, also Wubin Major Mitchell’s Pair at Ningham station (lifer for Mark : – ) Red-tailed Black Cocaktoo Flocks at Wubin and SE of PF Little Correl ID’d at Dalwallineu while waiting for car part. Western Correllas Seem to have replaced Littles at Dalwallineu on the way home. Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo A few seen and heard along road to warne river Black-eraed Cuckoo Heard at many stops, seen briefly once Rainbow Bee-eater
