Hi all,
When spring is in the air a young girl’s fancy turns to …… birdwatching. So when Joy rang to say she was taking a week off work and wanted to go birding I instantly said yes. Destination? Gluepot of course. We were off to pay hommage to a parrot.
The thrill of brightly coloured parrots, long sunny days spent wandering in wonderment, evenings spent warming in front of a roaring gas-stove burner, staring at he stars after dinner, long nights spent on a thin sleeping mat in temperatures of 1º or 2º C, ahhh, that’s the life.
Joy and I hopped into her car for a leisurely dash up the Calder Highway. The earliest we could get away was about 1000 on Sunday morning so the drive was a solid slog to get to Renmark. Our only stop along the way was to buy lunch in Wycheproof. As I enjoy trying the meat pies in country towns, where they are usually locally made and very good, I bought one and we sat down outside the historic 19th Century shop to enjoy it. Sadly the pie was one of the two low spots for the whole week.
Monday morning saw us crossing the full-to-the-brim Murray on the ferry at Waikerie, complete with a local eccentric wearing a cat skin (?) trimmed hat and his dogs, and then driving slowly up the access road through Taylorville. The omens were good as a young Spotted Harrier circled over the car as I opened the first gate and large lizards sat on posts and eyed us off as we drove north. Wildflowers are everywhere and the trees are covered in new growth and flowers.
Conveniently we arrived at the Lunette Walk car park just on lunchtime. With sandwiches in hand we discussed our options; do we walk the track or up the road? We decided on the road. The goddess of birdwatching was smiling. The signs of success were everywhere to be seen as previous birders had scratched arrows on the road signalling where, presumably, parrots had been found. About 1.5 kms up the road two men with binoculars were standing talking. Birders, another good sign, especially when it turned out that one of them was Dougald, whom we knew, and his friend Nigel.
We got the latest gen on the parrots, shared a pleasant chat and then they turned back to their car. The goddess had completed her task of putting us in the correct spot at the correct time. Joy and I took three steps, and a male Scarlet-chested Parrot jumped up from beside my left foot and landed in a branch some 3 metres from us. We took pictures; high fives, smiles, giggles of happiness from me, and we walked on looking for a white star post with a white marker. This post was where I was told we would find more parrots. We never found the post but we did find more parrots, but not on that first day.
Just after passing through the Gluepot gate a male Emu walked sedately off the road in front of us, and then we saw the four little striped fluff-balls at his feet. Gluepot is wonderful, and there was so much to look at we finally made it to the campground at about 1600. The next surprise was to have Peter Marsh walk over and introduce himself. It is so nice to put a face to a B-A birder. And we came back to camp one night to find that our neighbouring campers had filled our water containers before they left, birders are such special people.
Monday night turned out to be so cold that I couldn’t even bear to reach my arm out of the sleeping bag to replace the rug that had fallen off my sleeping bag. There was nothing for it but to get up and make a hot cup of tea. And Joy needed a Red-lored Whistler and we wanted to be at the known spot no later than 0700 so we could hear him singing. Sadly we did not find the Whistler but the day was a forerunner of what was to come for the rest of the week. There was no wind, no clouds and the sky was a deep blue. Just perfect.
Back down to the Lunette walk where there was another reported whistler site and the hunt for more parrots. This turned into our routine for the week; in bed by 2100, freeze, up by 0500 to go looking for whistlers, wander around gluepot being awed by birds, wild flowers and the perfect weather, look for parrots, chat to birders, back in camp by 1800, dinner, star gaze, then back to bed.
Highlights of the week, other than the parrots, were the Shy Heathwrens on the Malleefowl walk who came and danced around our toes; then the Black Honeyeaters on the same walk; the huge Pallid Cuckoo that flew past us like a hunting raptor; and of course the grasswrens.
Now, everyone knows about grasswrens. Grasswrens run infuriatingly from triodia to triodia allowing only the briefest glimpses followed by, if one is lucky, a quick burst of song from the top of a twig before they drop back down into the triodia. Not our gluepot birds. Our goddess had lined up one pair who where inquisitive, which meant that the male moved closer and closer to Joy until I thought it was going to jump onto her head and sing.
The second grasswren encounter was almost more unlikely. As we walked along the Lunette Track we could hear one singing yet could not see it – until we looked up. It was sitting on a branch some 3 metres off the ground going through its full repertoire of melodies. We were about 30 metres from it and slowly walked forward. The bird sang on and we continued to walk until we were no more than 5 metres from it as it sang. With head back and whiskers trembling, yes they have whiskers just like a cat, it serenaded us as we started backing respectfully away. Unbelievable!
But the parrots, that is what we went for, and again, it seemed they wanted us to see them. About halfway along the Lunette Walk a female flew up into a tree, made sure we saw her and then flew down and joined her mate who was feeding on the leaves of a succulent. We watched for about ½ an hour as they fed. The next sighting was beside the road and again there was a pair. This time we watched for about 40 minutes as they wandered around feeding near the ground. The male sometimes walked up onto a branch to preen and look at us but the female kept as much out of sight as she could and we only saw here fleetingly between bushes and fallen sticks.
But sadly, even after a total of 10 +/- hours of searching Joy did not find her Red-lored Whistler. This was the second low point for the weekend, after the unfortunate gastronomic encounter with the Wycheproof pie.
Gluepot is so wonderful right now (have I said that already?) that I strongly recommend everyone who can get the chance should go. They even have a great range of things to buy in the information centre. I bought a beenie with a Gluepot bat logo on it to try and keep the cold out. It works wonderfully and will be a real asset on our next big excursion – a Heritage Expeditions trip to Macquarie Island at the end of November, returning to Hobart over the Soella Seamount where Broad-billed Prions sometimes hang out – I have started packing already (smile).
I saw 66 species on Gluepot without actually trying for a high total.
Cheers
Jenny
ps: the parrot photos are on the BOCA site already and the rest will go up this week. ===============================
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