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Saturday, 5 October, 2013

 

I was up a little later today, at 5:30.  I’m slipping.  I would really like to maintain a 9 PM to 5 AM sleep time.  Earlier is so much better for the birds, but I’m a natural night person, and keeping to an early schedule is hard for me.

 

I had various things to take care of this morning, and I finally hit the road about 8, I think.  I decided not to bird around the caravan park in Nyngan for various reasons, mainly because I wouldn’t have seen anything I won’t see elsewhere in a couple of days.  I only had about 120 miles to travel today, so I had plenty of time.  As I pulled out this morning, I got my first trip bird of the day, BLACK KITE.  Later I saw more of them, and got a picture of one in the air.

 

My first actual stop was at the rest area about halfway to Bourke.  Here is a picture of that rest area, to give you an idea of what the countryside looked like.

 

It was pretty dry, but not as brown as I had expected.  I wandered around the rest area, listening and looking for birds, but there wasn’t anything there that I could hear or see.  Here is the long straight road from Nyngan to Bourke, at that point.

 

At least it was a good quality, paved road, with a speed limit of 110 km/hr (about 66 mph).  There was very little traffic by American standards, but more than I had expected, by Australian standards.

 

My next stop was at a place called Byrock.  There was a pub there, and a caravan park.  I wandered around the caravan park (which had not a single vehicle or person around) and saw a few birds.  One of the first ones I saw was APOSTLEBIRDS.  There were 10 or 12 of them around, and they were pretty approachable, although they never stayed still for long, for pictures.  Here is an Apostlebird.

 

Some say they were named for their drab colors, and others say it was because they tend to hang around in large groups of about 12.  They also chatter constantly, and maybe that is part of it, too.  Later I saw a nest, and here is a picture of an Apostlebird on its mud nest.

 

Notice how the nest is crafted right around the branch, just where the branch forks, to give it more support.  I particularly like that picture, maybe because I worked hard to get it.  There were two Apostlebirds at the nest, and they kept moving around and changing places, and I had to find a path through the bare branches of the tree, so I could focus on the nest itself and not on one of the branches.

 

There was also a small group of Grey-crowned Babblers there.  I had counted them in the Capertee Valley, but today I got much better looks at them.  They keep moving constantly, too, and this was the best I could do for a picture.

 

I spotted another little bird, and this one was one for my trip list.  Here is a picture of a male RED-CAPPED ROBIN.

 

He is a striking looking little guy, isn’t he?  It’s fun to get reacquainted with birds I haven’t seen for several years.  Here is a picture that shows the habitat where I was wandering around at Byrock.

 

After I finished there, I found the Byrock rock pools, which I had read about.  Near there, there was a group of White-winged Choughs.  I had seen them in the Capertee Valley, but I hadn’t gotten any pictures.  Here is the best I could do today.  Not very good, and maybe I can do better later.  I like them, though, and I wanted to show something, at least.

 

You can just see a tiny hint of the white on the bird’s wing, which shows up as a large white patch when they fly.

 

I wandered again, at the rock pools at Byrock.  I saw a little bird that stumped me.  I took a lot of pictures, so I could study it later.  There were actually two of them, and some of the pictures might be of the second one.  I think I have figured out what it was, but I want to show the pictures to my Aussie birding mate that I’m meeting tomorrow, to verify my guess.  Here are several pictures of today’s mystery bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think there are enough clues in those pictures to figure it out, and I’ll be interested to see what Ken says.  I would guess that he will immediately identify it, but it was tough for me.

 

There was a picnic table at the rock pools, so I ate my humble lunch there.  Roast beef and cheese roll ups, veggies, potato chips, and a Diet Coke.  A great rambler lunch.  Here is a picture of one of the pools, from my lunch spot.

 

I did see one more bird for my trip list there, while eating my lunch.  It was foraging down there by the water.  Here is a distant picture of a BLACK-FRONTED DOTTEREL.

 

Moving on up the road, I got this picture of some feral goats.  There are lots of feral animals in Australia, and many of them do a lot of damage.  There are goats, pigs, camels, water buffalo, rabbits, foxes, and cats, at least.  There are probably a lot more as well.  They hunt some of them, and try to control them, but there is no way to get them under control.  Australia has no large predators to control these introduced species that have escaped.  Anyway, here are some goats.

 

I stopped a number of places, both to rest and to look for birds.  At one of the stops, I saw a couple of birds flying away, and I decided they had to be MAJOR MITCHELL’S COCKATOOS.  I want a better look, and I want pictures, but I decided that the look I had was good enough to count them.

 

I had seen some Emus at Byrock, but they seemed to be in a paddock, so I didn’t count them.  I saw others after that, so EMU went onto my trip list.  Here is a mediocre picture.

 

At another stop, I saw a bird fly through, and I thought I recognized it.  I played its song on my phone, and three SINGING HONEYEATERS flew in to check me out.  I even got a picture of one of them, which pleased me inordinately.

 

I stopped at another place that had been mentioned in one of my books.  Here is a picture of an abandoned railway line at that place.

 

I walked up and down the railway line, and heard some birds, but the only one I saw was a male Rufous Whistler.  I was particularly looking for a rare and nomadic bird called a Black Honeyeater.  They like the red flowers of a bush called emu bush.  There was a lot of emu bush at this site, as advertised, but the blossoms seemed well past their peak to me.  They were kind of a dull orange color and looked dried out to me.  Here is a picture of what I think is emu bush.

 

Maybe I’m all wet, and these flowers are what the honeyeater likes, in which case I should have spent longer looking for it.  I decided that these blossoms were well past their use-by date, though, so I moved on.  Looking back on it now, I wish I had played the Black Honeyeater call, just in case they were around, but I was convinced that those blossoms were dried out.

 

About that time, I saw a raptor up ahead, and I piled out of the car to take a look.  I got a fairly good look, and it was one of two species, I thought, either one of which would add to my trip list.  One was a difficult one to get, Black-breasted Buzzard, and the other was easier, and I’ll probably see others of that one on the trip.  I took some distant pictures of it in the air, and tonight in my room I have decided it was the easier species, WHISTLING KITE.  The underwing pattern seems clear, even in my blurry photos.  Still, it was another one for my trip list.

 

I had been wondering where all the Black Kites were, as I had only seen one so far today.  I came upon a carcass in the road that had 8 or 10 or them around it, though.  I tried for pictures of them perched, but they didn’t stick around long enough and the light was wrong.  I finally got one picture of a flying one – the picture I showed at the beginning of this report.  At that same point, there was a White-necked Heron and a Great Egret.  There is another egret here, called the Intermediate Egret, and I had to take pictures and study them later to be sure that what I saw was a Great Egret and not an Intermediate Egret.  I learned some things in studying the pictures, so it will be easier for me to identify an Intermediate Egret, if and when I see one.

 

At that same point, there were some corvids (ravens or crows).  Corvids are an identification problem here in Australia.  There are five species of crows and ravens, and they basically all look the same, with some very small differences that are difficult to see in the field.  The best way to tell them apart is by range – that is some of them live in some places, and others live in other places.  But, their ranges overlap a lot, and in the overlap areas, the best way to tell them apart is by their calls.  I mentioned this the other day, when I counted Little Raven at Dubbo, outside of Woolworths, when I heard one call.

 

Well, as I approached Bourke today, the ranges of Australian Raven (the most common one) and Little Crow overlap.  This afternoon, I heard a corvid call, and it definitely was not the call of the Australian Raven.  I got a picture of the one that called and another bird.

 

Based on the call I heard and the picture, I am calling them LITTLE CROWS.  They seem smaller than what I have been seeing, and the bills are shorter than their heads.  They also look “long-legged”.  Those are the visual criteria for Little Crow, but the clincher is the call I heard.  I’m going with Little Crow, and I hadn’t expected to be able to identify one on this trip, without help.

 

So, by that time it was about 3 PM, and I was ready to call it quits.  The temperature was up to about 92 degrees F, and that made me want to quit, too.  I knew I had a lot of pictures to process, and I had other things to catch up on, too.  I stopped at a supermarket and stocked up a bit and got some beer (Aus $45 for 30 cans – about US $42.  Alcohol is expensive over here, and everything is more expensive where I am now, in the back of beyond).

 

My modest motel here in Bourke is completely adequate.  I have free wi-fi, a microwave and little fridge, and the a/c works great.  All for the sum of only Aus $85, which is about US $79.  No ice machine, of course, but I had ice in my cooler from this morning, so I was able to have my drinkie iced, and there is a little ice compartment in the fridge, so I can make some ice for tomorrow with my own ice trays.  Who could ask for anything more?  Free internet, ice, good a/c.  Jackpot.

 

So, today I got nine more species for my trip list (assuming the mystery bird is one I have already counted earlier in the trip), bringing me to 165, of which 4 are lifers.  I just keep cranking along.

 

Tomorrow I drive the last leg of my journey from the Capertee Valley to Bowra Station.  I am planning on staying at Bowra for four nights, and I expect it to be one of the highlights of the trip.  My Aussie birding mate, Ken, whom I have birded with several times before, is supposed to be meeting me there, along with two of his mates.  I am expecting great things.  There are three potential problems, though.  One, it is supposed to be hotter than average this coming week, up to about 100 F some days.  Two, I don’t really think I’ll be able to get internet access there, unless my scheme to use my cell phone to connect my laptop to the internet over the cell phone network works.  Maybe it will, one can always hope, but I’m not really counting on it.  I might have to drive into town to check email and send my reports, and that would take away from birding time.  The third potential problem is that I am liable to be kept so busy birding with these expert birders that I won’t have any time to process pictures or write reports, anyway.

 

So, I don’t really know what the next 4 or 5 days will bring, but I expect it will be very productive and a whole hell of a lot of fun.