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Thursday, 3 October, 2013

 

After yesterday’s huge day, I was ready to take it a little easier.  Still, I didn’t want to get skunked, and I was a bit worried that there weren’t very many birds left for me to get today in the Capertee Valley for my trip list.  I needed to finish processing my pictures from Wednesday, and I needed to write my report for Wednesday, too.

 

I had gotten to bed at about 9 again last night, and I slept pretty well, without the benefit of any medications.  I was up just after 5, sticking to the early schedule that I hope to remain on.  I had decided to go birding first, as the birds are usually much better early, so I was out of here by 7.  Before I could even leave, though, I saw a cute little Double-barred Finch outside of my kitchen window.  It had a piece of grass or straw in its little beak, so I assume it was nest building.  I got a couple of pictures through the kitchen window, and here is one of them.

 

I went outside to try for a better picture, but the bird flew.  While I was out there, a male Superb Fairy-wren begged to have his picture taken, so I took it.

 

Fairy-wrens are darling little birds, and I hope to see several other species and get pictures to show.

 

So, as I said, I got out of here shortly after 7.  I drove down to where we had seen Plum-headed Finches yesterday, but didn’t see a thing.  We were really lucky yesterday, I think.  I should mention that the weather wasn’t nearly as good today, either.  It was colder and cloudy, and also much windier.  I even had rain for a while this morning, up the valley.

 

My next stop was at the Genowlan Bridge over the Capertee River.  We had tried for Black-chinned Honeyeater there yesterday, and we had heard one, but never saw one.  I tried again today, and again I heard one, but didn’t see any.  I’ll have chances at that honeyeater later in the trip, I think, although maybe not great chances.  While I was there, playing the call of the Black-chinned Honeyeater, I did see a Sacred Kingfisher and got a picture I like.

 

I moved on from there and drove up the valley, away from the direction I had come into the valley the other day.  I had a birding brochure I had downloaded, and I stopped at the various points it suggested.  I missed the first point, and had to turn around and go back to find it.  I missed it again, but this time I saw where it was, so I turned around again.  When I pulled over to turn around, there were a couple of COMMON BRONZEWINGS on the ground next to the road, so I had my first new trip bird of the day.  Too bad they flew before I could try for pictures.  I’ll probably see them again, and I’ll see if I can get a picture.

 

At the actual birding stop in the brochure, I soon saw a Brown Treecreeper, but my pictures came out terrible.  I walked down the road, and a large flock of woodswallows flew over. Some of them landed in trees ahead of me, and there were not only White-browed Woodswallows, which I had seen yesterday, there were also some MASKED WOODSWALLOWS.  So, then I had two for my trip list.  Remember, I use ALL CAPS when a bird is new for my trip list.

 

I drove around the Dunville Loop Road, a loop of about 15 miles, on unpaved roads.  I stopped several places, but none of them were productive at all.  From the car, I added some birds to my Capertee Valley list, though, including Galah and Eastern Rosella.  I also saw a PIED BUTCHERBIRD for my trip list.  Most of the loop was through cattle country, and here is a picture, looking down the valley.

 

You can see that it was a cloudy day, and the rain wasn’t far away at that point.  I got back to the main road, and went north, looking for the Kandos State Forest. I missed it, and it really rained hard for a while.  I fired up my cell phone and used my Australian GPS app to figure out where the forest was, and went back to it.  The entrance was a tiny, rough dirt road, and it was raining, so I skipped it.  There was no sign at all, but I figured that had to be the entrance to the State Forest.

 

So, returning down the valley toward “home”, the rain stopped and it was only cold, cloudy, and windy.  Along the road I saw a couple of parrots fly up, and they landed in a tree.  I went back and got pictures of Red-rumped Parrots.  You can probably guess which is the male and which is the female.

 

 

Here is a picture that shows the male’s red rump.

 

It actually looks more like his back than his rump to me, but what do I know?  When they fly away from you, you see that red easily.

 

It was getting on for eleven o’clock by then, so I headed for my cottage.  I stopped at the Capertee River again, though, and got this picture of it while the sun shone.

 

I got this picture of a Restless Flycatcher there, too.

 

So, I was back to my cottage by about 11, after four hours of driving and birding.  I finished processing my pictures from yesterday, and I wrote yesterday’s report.  Then I went over to the patio of the main house and got online and sent off the report and uploaded it to my web site.  I also answered other emails and checked out some things on the web.  I had my humble lunch at that time, too, a nice fat ham and cheese sandwich, with some German mustard that was here.  I had some potato chips and vegetables, too.

 

I was done with all that by about 3:30, and I headed out again, for more birding.  I had one more place I wanted to visit, down at the bottom end of the valley, beyond Glen Davis.  On the way, there were a couple of WHITE-NECKED HERONS in a field, and I got some pictures later, on the way back.  White-necked Heron.

 

They look like they ought to be a water bird, but they were foraging out in a field.

 

There was also a Brown Falcon sitting on a fence post, right next to the road.  When I stopped, it flew on a short distance, and stopped on another fence post.  I pulled my car across the road, so I could take pictures out of the passenger side window, and I got some good, close pictures of Brown Falcon, much better than the distant ones I got yesterday.

 

I love to get pictures of close, perched raptors.

 

I found my way down to the end of the road, at the Wollemi National Park.  I had to ford the river, but it was an easy crossing for my high clearance car.  I stopped on the other side of the river and listened.  I could hear the calls of the bird I was looking for there, and after I played the call on my cell phone, I had several BELL MINERS foraging and perching in the trees close to me.  Their call sounds very much like a bell.  They live in colonies, and they tend to drive out all the smaller birds.  Many people consider them pests, since they drive out the other birds and make their racket all the time.  Here is a picture of a Bell Miner, which is a member of the honeyeater family.

 

It was getting late by then, so I headed for home again.  By that time it was about 5 PM, and I noticed that the marsupials (mainly kangaroos and wallabies) were starting to come out.  I don’t like driving at that time of day, because the damn things will jump right out in front of your car.  Hitting a kangaroo in a rental car would not be fun at all.  I drove more slowly than I might have at mid-day, and I saw a number of marsupials along the way.  Here is one little guy who stood there and looked at me for a while.

 

During the course of the day, I saw 4 or 5 dead ones, obviously hit by cars just today.  People drive pretty fast in the valley, much faster than I go.  There were three or four dead wombats, too, but they looked like they had been dead longer than a day.

 

I made just one more stop, and it wasn’t planned.  I saw a couple of birds fly up from the road and land at the base of a bush next to the road.  I think they were quail, but I didn’t get a good enough look to count them.  I stopped, though, in the forlorn hope I could flush them again or see them scurrying away across the field.  As I got out of the car, I noticed a couple of little birds on a fence wire, across the road.  I figured they were something common, but I got my binoculars on them, and I was amazed to see they were YELLOW-RUMPED THORNBILLS, a bird I had been looking for this morning.  I was surprised by how bright a yellow their rumps were.  There was no trouble identifying them.  I expect I will see more of them, but it was nice to get them ticked off my list today.  Here is a picture of one of them.  There turned out to be a little flock of them.  None of my pictures that show the yellow rump were in focus, but this shows the front of the bird.

 

So, on that note, I called it a day.  I didn’t even stop at the bridge to try again for the Black-chinned Honeyeater, as it was almost 5:30 by then.  I had a nice stiff drinkie and worked on my photos from today and this report.  I had my dinner, and now I only need to queue up this report to go out, and go over to the main house and get online and send it.  I’ll probably have other email to answer, too.  I hope to get to bed by 9:00 again.

 

My cold was better today, although not that much better than yesterday.  I think yesterday I was motivated by the great birding and the fact that I had Carol to take me around to show me the birds.  My nose is less congested tonight, though, and so far, I’m not coughing much, which is the next stage that my colds usually go into.  Today was day 6 of symptoms.  If I’m lucky, I should only have about four more days of symptoms, as long as it doesn’t develop into the walking pneumonia that I tend to develop after a cold.  Christina is mailing me the antibiotic that will fix me up if I do develop pneumonia, though, so I’m not concerned about it.  My doctor knows me, and he wrote a prescription for what I need.

 

So, after three nights here, I head out tomorrow morning.  Basically, I am taking three days to drive the 10 or 12 hours to my next major birding site, Bowra Station.  It will be a challenge to get at least one new trip bird each day, when I am spending most the day traveling, but there are enough inland, dry country birds that I should be able to do it.  The next three days will mainly be travel days, though.

 

I hit the weather jackpot here, with the great day yesterday, when I did my heaviest birding.  It appears I will lose next week, though.  It is supposed to be about 100 degrees F there next week, and I’m not looking forward to that.  The average is about 90 at this time of year, and I was hoping for lower than average, but it looks like it will come out the other way.  You might remember that I’m meeting three expert Aussie birders there, and it will be interesting to see if they want to bird in the heat of the day, or if we will take it easy in the middle of the day.

 

So, I got 5 more species for my trip list today, bringing me to 149 species total, of which 4 are lifers.  When I left home, my spreadsheet indicated I would see about 300 species total and get about 20 lifers.  So, I’m half way there in terms of total species, but I have a long way to go to get the lifers I was expecting.  I knew that most of the lifers would be found in Queensland, though, and that starts next week.