Today was a ‘hot-shocker’, apparently over 40° Celsius after lunch, fortunately Tania (the ‘home-owner’) had realized the consequences and put plenty of ‘bird-baths’ out. At around one PM, I was surprised to hear a Spectacled Monarch calling nearby and observed a nice adult bird arriving to ‘quench’ his thirst.
Spectacled Monarch
Soon more species arrived and I had 3 Little Wattlebirds, Lewin’s and Brown Honeyeaters, Pacific Emerald Dove and a pair of Australasian Figbird.
Spectacled Monarch
Spectacled Monarch
Little Wattlebird
Australasian Figbird
Pacific Emerald Dove
Brown Honeyeater
Unfortunately the species that I wanted to come and have a drink with me, were present in the garden but obviously not thirsty. Five Grey-crowned Babbler seemed to be more interested in ‘chatting-and-foraging’.
Grey-crowned Babbler
All was not lost however when another of our ‘regulars’, an Eastern Whipbird appeared, but it still had to wait a while while a Spangled Drongo refreshed itself.
Spangled Drongo
Eastern Whipbird
Later, the Whipbird found one of the water-points in the back-yard and agreed to be filmed there instead.
Eastern Whipbird
Surprisingly the hot northerly winds changed to the south around 4 pm, it was certainly a ‘relief’ for me, and seemingly for the birds too as they stopped visiting almost immediately. Maybe this might encourage a new birding group on Facebook (Birdbath-Birding?) as I suspect there will be many more forty-degree days before this summer is over, and our wild birds will need all the assistance they can get to survive the heat. Take a look at the Ebird list and see what other species I recorded, also apologies for the poor-quality pics but the available light was very changeable (…and I’m not a ‘photographer’ either 😉 )
For several years I’ve been planning a birding trip to south-west WA and in November I was fortunate to be invited to share some of my friends Dan Mantle and Plaxy Barratt’s rare ‘spare-time’ in Perth and take a hire-car to the Stirling Ranges and Cheyne Beach.
On arrival on an early-November Friday, the weather was clear and ‘cloud-free’ with the possibility of a forty-degree Saturday looming, so picked up a hire-car and made my way to Lake Joondalup where Dan and Plaxy are resident. Dan decided a Saturday early-start was the go, and we made our way to Victoria Dam area, in the hills west of Perth.
It was fairly cool first-up and soon the ‘lifers’ began to flow (….many with ‘Western’ in their common-name ) such as Thornbill, Spinebill, Rosella, Yellow-Robin, Whistler and Wattlebird (…which surprisingly I wouldn’t see for the remainder of the trip) but I also saw Gilbert’s Honeyeater, Red-capped Parrot and Red-winged Fairywren which were new and some ‘not-so-frequently’ seen species such as Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo and Western Gerygone.
Red-winged Fairywren
After a couple of hours the weather began to ‘warm-up’ and we moved down to the Gosnells area, which I was familiar with from my days as a Photogrammetrist when we mapped the various quarry-sites from an office in Brisbane. Dan thought it was a good site to find Red-eared Firetail but we were unlucky with this species, however we did manage an excellent Elegant Parrot (…which was new) and a Budgerigar (…of interesting provenance)
Elegant Parrot
Gosnells
Dan and I spent the Sunday morning at another western woodland area around Flynn Rd, Gorrie. Unfortunately this is also a favourite area for trail-bike riders but the only ones that we encountered seemed fairly well-behaved and didn’t interfere too much with our birding. This area is very interesting but a rather low biodiversity, and soon after parking I saw my first Rufous Treecreeper along with two well-grown young.
Rufous Treecreeper
Whilst walking up a slope thick with grass-trees, we noted an alarm-call which indicated a raptors presence, suddenly a Peregrine appeared close-by with a young Ringneck in it’s talons and landed on the ground very close to us. Fortunately for the juvenile parrot the falcon took-off without it but it still seemed to make chase after one of it’s siblings. A few minutes later we came across a ‘purple-patch’ and found species such as Inland, Western and Yellow-rumped Thornbill plus a couple of possible new species in the Spotted Scrubwren (formerly a western-race of White-browed Scrubwren) and Campbell Robin (formerly a western race of Scarlet Robin)
Western Thornbill
Campbell Robin
On Monday I took a trip to the nearest shopping-centre to get some supplies for the forthcoming drive south to the Stirling Ranges and headed down around nine o’clock. In the afternoon I had started to feel a bit bored (…and tired) driving through the interminable wheat-fields when I was amazed to see a vista of mountains ahead…..the Stirling Ranges!
Stirling Ranges
As I drove towards this spectacular area I noticed a sign for “Mt Trio” and parked near the intersection. On leaving the car I quickly picked up Spotted Pardalote and Blue-breasted Fairywren, Inland Thornbill, White-cheeked and Tawny-crowned Honeyeater and more ‘Spotted’ Scrubwren.
Blue-breasted Fairywren
Spotted Pardalote
Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
‘Buoyed’ by my success I continued on to my accommodation for the next two nights at the Stirling Range Retreat, staying in a small caravan I really appreciated bringing the extra-bedding as it was quite windy and chilly that first evening. Birding around the park was very productive and there were many Elegant and Ringnecked Parrots, Purple-crowned Lorikeets, Restless Flycatcher with young, Dusky Woodswallow, Yellow-plumed, Gilbert’s, Brown and Brown-headed Honeyeater, Grey Currawong, Carnaby’s Cockatoo, Splendid Fairywrens and one of my most ‘sought-after’ WA species the Western (or Crested) Shrike-Tit.
I revisited the Mt Trio area to look for the Western (or Black-throated) Whipbird and although I heard them singing I was unable to see them at all and decided to leave them for Cheynes Beach where I had heard they could be found.
Elegant Parrot
Western Yellow Robin
Brown-headed Honeyeater
Western Ringneck
Stirling Range View
Gilbert’s Honeyeater
Stirling Range view
Western (Crested) Shrike-Tit
During the two days I saw many ‘White-tailed’ and Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos but was confused as to whether there were any Baudin’s (or Long-billed) present amongst these. I took a few images of ‘possibles’ but still haven’t managed to convince myself, maybe a viewer might be able to help?
Baudin’s?
Carnaby’s
From the ‘Retreat’ driving south towards Albany, there is an official camp-ground known as Moingup along a creek with some large trees creating an almost rainforest ‘atmosphere’, the bird-life here was fairly prolific and I was fortunate to see White-breasted Robin, Silvereye, Western Gerygone and Spinebill, Red-capped Parrot, Grey Currawong, Little Eagle and the ubiquitous Red Wattlebird (…amongst others) and I was advised by Dan to stop at a large parking-area further south and check the flat heathland for Western Fieldwren, after a short while I ‘got-lucky’ and found a couple singing at the top of bushes.
Grey Currawong
Little Eagle
Silvereye
Western Spinebill
Western Fieldwren
After a two hour drive through a combination of reserves and wheat-fields I eventually reached Cheynes Beach Caravan Park. What a stunning-view, beautiful silvery grass-trees cover the heathland and beautiful turquoise-blue sea and snow-white sandy beaches.
Cheynes BeachGrass-trees
Shortly after my ‘birding-induction’ with Joanne at the Caravan-Park I took a walk down to the beach where I was recommended to look for Noisy Scrub-bird, and surprisingly I heard one within minutes but (as expected) spent a couple of hours quietly watching…. to no avail. Surely this bird is one of the hardest in the world to get a good look at. Most birders visit the Caravan-Park to see the “Big-three”, Noisy Scrub-bird, Western Bristlebird and Western (or Black-throated) Whipbird, so these were the ‘targets’ for the next couple of days. The ‘key’ to finding all three is to try and learn their calls (….and I managed to audio-record all three with little difficulty) but seeing them is another story. I didn’t get any images of the Scrub-bird.
Noisy Scrub-birdNoisy Scrub-bird
Western BristlebirdWestern BristlebirdWestern Bristlebird
Western (Black-throated) WhipbirdWestern (Black-throated) WhipbirdWestern (Black-throated) Whipbird
Whilst concentrating on searching for the ‘big-three’ I was very impressed with the amount of ‘bio-diversity’ on this heath-land and with the good-weather conditions at the time I saw and photographed many bird and reptile species and am certainly planning to return here in the future. The plant-life is extraordinary and I haven’t seen anything quite like this anywhere in Australia before.
Red-eared Firetail
White-breasted Robin
Brush Bronzewing
Southern Emu-wren
Western Grey Kangaroo
King Skink
Shingleback
Carpet Python
I had originally planned to return to Perth via Dryandra but as the forecast was forty degrees I decided to leave it for another trip. On return to Joondalup I spent some time with Plaxy and Dan and took some easy pics of waterfowl but the biggest surprise was on Sunday morning when we found two of the arriving Oriental Honey-Buzzard which seemed to return to the area annually at the northern end of the lake (Sadly, they were too far for decent images)
All in all a great and productive-trip ..but missed at least one species, so will have to go back (….guess which one?)
Would like to thank Dan and Plaxy, Phil Snow and Wayne Merritt and staff at Stirling Range Retreat and Cheynes Caravan Park who made it so enjoyable.
Australian Shelduck
Blue-billed Duck
Hoary-headed Grebe
Summary of the trip (taken from Ebird)
Date Range Nov 1, 2019 – Nov 30, 2019 Total Number of Species 129 Locations 580 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, Western Australia, AU (-31.731, 115.774) : Cheyne Beach at -34.883, 118.406 : Cheyne Beach–Carpark and BBQ area : Cheynes Beach Caravan Park and Arpenteur Nature Reserve : Flynn Rd at Goods Rd, Gorrie : Gosnells Rd East, Orange Grove : Lake Joondalup–Picnic Cove Park : Lake Joondalup–Scenic Drive Park : Lake Seppings (Albany) : Lower King Bridge (Albany) : North Bannister : Stirling Range National Park–Formby S Rd at Mt Trio Rd : Stirling Range National Park–Moingup Springs Campground : Stirling Range National Park–Southern Wayside Stop : Stirling Range Retreat : The Bluff Knoll Cafe : Victoria Dam–Access road, track and picnic area : Waychinicup National Park–Bald Island Rd : Waychinicup Rd at Waychinicup River Total Number of Checklists 28
Number of Species — 88 97 58 — —
Number of Individuals — 529 741 528 — —
Number of Checklists — 6 18 4 — —
Filmed this Pale-headed Rosella appearing to ‘chum-up’ to his friend the Laughing Kookaburra in Dayboro recently (13/09/2019)…..or could he be asking him politely to ‘Go-away’?
Apologies for the ‘unsteady-footage’, no tripod …..
Male Cinnamon Quail-thrush (Cinclosoma cinnamomeum)
From mid to late-August 2019 four of us travelled to Birdsville as we had been told that conditions were very favourable, rains earlier in the year had passed through the region on it’s way to Lake Eyre. We visited Quilpie, Windorah, Birdsville, Koonchera (SA), Bowra Sanctuary and Bollon.
These are images and clips of some of the species seen.
One of several Cinnamon Quail-thrush seen in the Birdsville area in late August 2019
Hakea
Eremophila
Near Windorah
Wild Flower
Spinifex
Dune near ‘Little Red’
Lake Houdraman
View from Dion’s Lookout
Australian Pratincoles east of Birdsville
Australian Pratincole (Stiltia isabella)
Australian Pratincole
Stiltia isabella
Spinifex Pigeon (Geophaps plumifera)Pelicans and cormorants group-fishing at Birdsville
Orange Chat
Epthianura aurifrons
Splendid Fairywren
Cockatiels at dawnBourke’s Parrots at Coopers CreekCinnamon Quail-thrushAustralian Bustard (Ardeotis australis)Juvenile Pallid Cuckoo with ‘host’ parents calling (Rufous Songlarks)
Captured some footage today with a Sony AX53 Handycam and a Sony A7iii ‘mirrorless’ with 100-400m and 1.4 convertor, results below….what do you think?
Rainbow Lorikeets with Sony AX53 (smartphone-remote enabled)Little Wattlebird with Sony A7iii (100-400mm and x1.4 converter)White-throated Honeyeater Sony AX53 (remote)Various honeyeaters with Sony A7iiiScarlet Honeyeater with Sony AX53 (remote)Red-necked Wallaby with Sony A7iii
Since I filmed the 3 clips I’ve been experimenting with footage from various cameras, a Canon EOS7d_mk2, a Sony A7III and the Sony AX53 Handycam. The first featured will be almost un-edited (Hopefully on these I’ve removed most ‘wobbly’ ‘in and out’ bits, but there are no added ‘effects’)
I welcome any ‘constructive-criticism’, please add comments.
Footage taken with Canon EOS 7d mk2,100x400mm and X1.4 converter Tripod and camera audio used Footage taken with Sony A7III,100x400mm and X1.4 converter Tripod and camera audio used Footage taken with Sony AX53 Handycam (4K Res) No Tripod but Steadyshot and external microphone Footage taken with Sony AX53 Handycam (1080 Res) Tripod and external microphone used
Original footage using Sony AX53 Handycam
Nesting in tomb drain-hole
Experimenting with 4K video an a Sony AX53 Handycam, a little disappointed with focus and ‘flatness’ as it was quite bright at time of ‘footage’. Please let me know what you think of these 3 clips.
Will attempt more with different equipment and settings in the ‘near-future’.
Recently Glossy Black Cockatoos have returned to a small area of private land between Samford and Dayboro in South-east Queensland. The area is owned by conservation-aware land-owners but access is restricted, however the birds can often be seen from the roadside.
Over Easter (2019) I was fortunate to be granted access to one of these properties and was given permission to film/photograph the birds, currently I believe there are approximately 10 to 20 birds present, but they can still be difficult to locate as they are generally quiet except for the sound of their bills cracking casuarina-nuts.
Male Glossy Black CockatooGlossy Black Cockatoo family