253) Festival of Fairywrens

Splendid Fairywren

We finally made time to head to Round Hill - an ecological island 500 km inland. It is an island in that there are some endangered species there which are geographically separated from the rest of their range (as if they were on an actual island). We were pleases to find a good number of Splendid Fairywrens  in their breeding-plumage glory.

Splendid Fairywren (Female)

The females were delightful, flitting about with their tails swishing to and fro.

Splendid Fairywren

Variegated Faireywren

We also had good views of beautifully plumaged Variegated Fairywrens

Variegated Fairywren

A wonderful find in some roadside saltbrush was a family of White-winged Fairywrens. With some patience I finally got a reasonably close view of one of the males - they are quite shy and keep their distance.

Inland Thornbill

We also spend some time determining the differences between the Inland Thornbill (here)...

...and the Chestnut Rumped Thornbill. Fast, twitchy flyers and really really similar!

Brown Songlark

Brown Songlark in full breeding plumage. What was striking was the size difference between the males and females (below)

Southern Scrub-robin

We were happy to find a few scrub-robins who were happy to lead me on a merry chase out into the malee (always an issue when you can't see the car and can't see anything but endless dry trees. No landmarks at all!)

Red-capped Robin (female)

The female Red-capped Robins were happy to pose - the males were about but far skitchiyer..

On returning to camp we were pleased to find a small flock of Southern Whitefaces around our tent. We have seen them (rarely) singly before but never in a flock.





















Nancy also found this amazing Shingback - prehistoric! This is his threat-posture as Nancy crouched to take a picture (as I sensibly stood 10 feet away ready to rescue her!)



Unfortunately our choice of weekends could have been better. We didn't find any of the unusual species we had hoped for - it has been really dry in the region and we picked the hottest weekend on record (for November - 43.7 C (110 F)!

So we will return come cooler temps to search, once again, for the our desired list....

252) A Quick Jaunt Down South

Flame Robin

I had a workshop in Canberra (Australia's capital - 3 .5 hrs south) and Nancy took the bus down to join me to explore some new terrain afterwards. We enjoyed the Rose Robins in Brisbane as we left, the Scarlet Robins in SE QLD and finally had some good sighting of the Flame Robin in one the great 'urban' birding areas just outside Canberra (a woodland right next to a large office park).

For comparison, here is  Scarlet Robin we saw in Buderoo National Park near Sydney  two days later. More black than grey and less red on the chest.

Superb Parr

Another major draw were the Superb Parrots that are doing very well in the green areas of the city. We had met  Canberra locals Tony and Cathy on a wildflower hike in N. Sydney and they graciously took us to the Olympic Training facility (parrots in the trees in the parking lot) and then to  a green belt in the 'burds where blooming trees were a draw for a heap of Superbs. Australia parrots are just amazing.....

White-winged Choughs

They also took us out to Mulligans flat - a predator-proofed (fenced) nature reserve N of town. It was pretty dry but we did did find this group of 8-10 White-winged Choughs fighting over who got to sit on the nest! They are communal nesting birds who share duties but it was quite a raucous ritual!

Southern Emu-wren

Back in Royal National Park I made another pilgrimage to Watamolla (a beach with good heath on the cliffs above) and got a slightly better photo of a Southern Emu-wren. This is one of Australia's smallest birds if you consider the tail is 2/3 its total length! They are quite shy and I am still on a mission to obtain a better photo.