Yesterday Warren Thompson and I travelled up the Old Glen Innes Road from Grafton and returned along the Gwydir Highway via Gibraltar Range National Park. I hadn’t travelled the road for a few years and wanted to check it out as I needed some fresh air after being chained to the computer so much recently. The Old Glen Innes Road, or the Old Grafton Road if you are travelling from Glen Innes, was the main route between Grafton and Glen Innes before the section the Gwydir Highway running up the Gibraltar Range was opened on 9 December 1960. The old road opened in 1873 and is a very scenic route which follows the Boyd and Mann Rivers for many kilometres. The vegetation is mostly dry open forest but there are numerous stands of Dry Rainforest in the gullies. The forests frequently have emerging Hoop Pines Araucaria cunninghamii. Araucarias are relicts from the Gondwanaland past, dating back to the early Mesozoic Age. We drove through the ‘convict tunnel’ at Dalmorton (actually I walked accompanied by three Welcome Swallows) which apparently was not built by convicts but by contractors in 1866-1867. The day was very hot and muggy. For most of the trip very few birds were seen or heard, partly due to the incessant buzzing of Cicadas, and partly due to the hot conditions. We stopped to check out a bird in a rainforest tree which did a disappearing act but while at the site I heard the distinctive call of the Glossy Black-Cockatoo. I then observed three of them feeding in a Forest Oak up a steep embankment. I managed a couple of record shots after climbing the embankment and wrestling with some Blackberry stems and thorns. Another stop at a shady grove of rainforest trees produced a juvenile Spectacled Monarch and a female Scarlet Honeyeater collecting spider webs in a fig tree. An immature White-bellied Sea-Eagle soaring over the campground at the Mann River Nature Reserve was a bonus and the call of the Brush Cuckoo from a riverside tree was also welcome. We were lucky to hear anything above the din of the Cicadas. Raspberry Lookout, in Gibraltar Range National Park, produced Superb Lyrebird, on call, and good views of the Varied Sittella (a threatened species), Golden Whistler, White-naped Honeyeater and Satin Bowerbird. A road-killed Black-shouldered Kite near Jackadgery was unfortunate but we did see two live ones later. We finished with a total of 85 bird species and also saw the Eastern Water Dragon, Eastern Bearded Dragon, Lace Monitor, Garden Sun-skink, Eastern Grey Kangaroos (at a number of locations) and one Swamp Wallaby. There were also two road-killed snakes, a Common Tree Snake and a Red-bellied Black Snake. We were happy with the tally considering the extreme humidity and the fact that we didn’t visit any large wetlands or coastal sites.
The full list is as follows:
Australian Wood Duck Pacific Black Duck Spotted Dove Brown Cuckoo-Dove Crested Pigeon Wonga Pigeon Australasian Darter Little Pied Cormorant White-necked Heron Eastern Great Egret Cattle Egret White-faced Heron Australian White Ibis Straw-necked Ibis Black-shouldered Kite White-bellied Sea-Eagle Wedge-tailed Eagle Purple Swamphen Dusky Moorhen Masked lapwing Glossy Black-Cockatoo Galah Little Corella Rainbow Lorikeet Scaly-breasted Lorikeet Musk Lorikeet Australian King-Parrot Crimson Rosella Eastern Rosella Eastern Koel Fan-tailed Cuckoo Brush Cuckoo Azure Kingfisher Laughing Kookaburra Sacred Kingfisher Rainbow Bee-eater Dollarbird Superb Lyrebird White-throated Treecreeper Satin Bowerbird Superb Fairy-wren Red-backed Fairy-wren White-browed Scrubwren Large-billed Scrubwren Brown Gerygone Striated Thornbill Brown Thornbill Eastern Spinebill Lewin’s Honeyeater Yellow-faced Honeyeater Bell Miner Noisy Miner Scarlet Honeyeater Brown Honeyeater New Holland Honeyeater White-naped Honeyeater Blue-faced Honeyeater Noisy Friarbird Little Friarbird Eastern Whipbird Varied Sittella Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Golden Whistler Rufous Whistler Grey Shrike-thrush Australasian Figbird Olive-backed Oriole White-breasted Woodswallow Pied Butcherbird Australian Magpie Pied Currawong Grey Fantail Willie Wagtail Torresian Crow Leaden Flycatcher Black-faced Monarch Spectacled Monarch Magpie-lark Eastern Yellow Robin Silvereye Welcome Swallow Fairy Martin Tree Martin Red-browed Finch House Sparrow
Mammals – Eastern Grey Kangaroo Swamp Wallaby
Reptiles – Lace Monitor Eastern Water Dragon Eastern Bearded Dragon Garden Sun-skink Common Tree Snake Red-bellied Black Snake
Greg Dr Greg. P. Clancy Ecologist and Birding-wildlife Guide PO Box 63 Coutts Crossing NSW 2460 0266493153 0429601960 ===============================
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