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Thursday, 10 October, 2013

 

Today was a travel day, and the report is a short one.

 

I was up before 5:00 again this morning, and at about 6:20 or so, I headed out to drive around the Homestead loop one more time, looking for the Banded Lapwings that had been seen there.  I stopped and said good-bye to Ken, Steve, and Russ, although I will be seeing Ken again tomorrow night, and Steve is supposed to bird with us this weekend.

 

I saw nothing of much interest on my drive this morning, and certainly nothing like a Banded Lapwing.  It was interesting how many kangaroos and emus were active at 6:30 in the morning.  I had an emu run across in front of me that I came within ten feet of hitting, and then there were a couple of kangaroos that were a lot closer than that.  One of them was so close that I couldn’t even see it over the hood.  It made it, though, and ran away.  I sure wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain to Hertz if I had hit one, especially since I’m not supposed to be driving the car on unpaved roads, let alone station tracks. 

 

I stopped at the water hole on the way back, to see what might be around.  It was the usual suspects, but I got this picture of a couple of Mallee Ringneck parrots, looking very colorful in the morning sun.

 

These two seemed more mottled that most of the ones I had seen, but maybe it was just the morning sun, bringing out all the colors.  As I was leaving, four Major Mitchell’s Cockatoos flew in, but after last night’s show, with 19 of them performing, that didn’t excite me.  A week ago, I would have been really thrilled to see four Major Mitchell’s Cockatoos.  It just goes to show how everything is relative.

 

I left Bowra at about 8 AM.  It was an absolutely wonderful stay.  It was enhanced hugely by the fact that Ken, Steve, and Russ met me out there and let me tag along with them.  I would have never seen most of the special birds without them.  There is no way I would have been bashing through the bush like we did, out of sight of the car for an hour or two at a time.  I wouldn’t have pushed myself so much physically, and I would have been afraid of getting lost or getting hurt, if I had been on my own.  When I planned the trip, I had no idea that they would be there, so it was a huge, huge bonus for me that they came.  It was also a huge bonus to be able to get online to send out my reports each day by email, even though I couldn’t upload them to my web site.  All in all, it was absolutely one of the highlights of my trip.  I think I saw 83 species at Bowra, plus an additional 14 species nearby, on the day we went off-site and today.  In 2008, on my other visit to Bowra, I think I saw 68 species, and I was thrilled with that number.

 

So, today I had about 500 km to drive.  That’s only about 300 miles, but distances over here are a lot more difficult than 300 miles on Interstate Highways in the US.  My biggest problem today was staying awake.  Within a half hour, I was starting to yawn and nod off.  I stopped and had a ten minute power nap, not actually sleeping, of course, but resting with my eyes closed.  That helped for a while, and then I resorted to a Diet Coke.  That helped for another hour, maybe, but again I was getting sleepy, so I stopped in the tiny “town” of Bollon and got a mocha iced coffee drink.  In hindsight, I wish I had just gotten a cup of coffee.  The drink seemed to be more of a coffee flavored chocolate milk drink than actual coffee.  It tasted great, but I don’t think I got the real caffeine effect of a cup of coffee.  Still, it carried me until lunch time.  What’s more, I felt shaky this afternoon, which is the normal after effect of a caffeine overdose for me, so maybe it was adequately loaded with caffeine.  I hope it doesn’t keep me from sleeping tonight.

 

I had made some ham and cheese rollups and some cucumber and broccoli, and I munched on those for almost half an hour while I was driving.  It helped pass the time and eating kept me awake.

 

From the beginning, I didn’t see how I was going to get a trip bird today, unless I got very lucky.  As it turned out, this afternoon three birds flew across the road in front of me, and although I didn’t get very good looks at them, after thinking about all the possibilities, I decided they must have been COCKATIELS, and I counted them for my trip list.  It wasn’t a very satisfactory look, but they were the right size, they looked like parrots, they were slender, and the only colors I picked up on them were white and gray.

 

Then, as it turned out, I actually counted another species later.  I had been watching the corvids (ravens and crows), and I knew I was in a zone where two species overlap, Australian Raven and another one.  I also knew that as I drove east, the second species got more and more likely.  So, as I approached my final destination today, I stopped when I saw three or four corvids by the road.  As it turned out, they called as they flew to the side, and then called again as they flew away.  I have been hearing Australian Ravens calling for a couple of weeks now, and this call was definitely different.  I listened to the call of the second species on my phone, and I decided these had been TORRESIAN CROWS.  I will be soon be seeing just about all Torresian Crows, as I move into their zone of occupation, but I decided to count the species today, based on the calls I heard.

 

I arrived at the bustling junction of two highways called Moonie, and checked into my humble motel.  I am staying at the Moonie Crossroads Roadhouse, in the motel section.  Here is a picture of the establishment.

 

It is in the middle of nowhere, roughly 100 miles from anything, at the junction of two highways.  I was looking for a place to stop between Bowra and Ken’s house on the Sunshine Coast, where I’m spending the weekend, and this was the place I chose.  Ken and his mates went on to Dalby today, which is another hour and a bit down the road, but I just didn’t want to drive that far in one day.  As it was, because I got started early, I was here and was checked in by about 3.  That was great, because I have decent mobile phone coverage there, and I was able to upload my reports for the last several days to my web site.

 

I also had time to update my spreadsheet for the trip.  That is the one I keep referring to, that has a list of all the species I might see, and has a percentage for each species, which represents my estimate at my chance of seeing that species.  When I started the trip, the total number of species indicated by the spreadsheet was just under 300.  I have done so well in this first 17 days, though, that when I updated it today, to reflect what I have already seen (as well as those species that it is now too late to see), it now indicates a total of about 323 species.  That is an amazing increase, and it is due to all the help I have had from local birders and my guide, Carol, in the Capertee Valley.  We’ll see if my luck continues or if it starts to go bad.  I have lots of great places to go still, and lots of great birds to try to see.  I also still have several local birders and another professional guide to help me.

 

So, I found a couple of mistakes when I updated my spreadsheet, but they cancelled each other out as far as totals were concerned, I think, and I now stand at 199 species for the trip, and 11 of those are lifers.

 

I walked over to the restaurant here and got some fish and chips to bring back to my room, and now I am ready to settle down for the night.  Tomorrow I plan to drive to Ken’s house, for a weekend of birding with him, in his own area.