..............................................................Private birding tour

..........................................................20 – 23 November 2012
................................... .........
...................................................Beechworth — Hattah/Kulkyne NP

......................................Jack Hanna (Canada) & Xavier Lambin (Scotland)


.............................................................Tour leader: Philip Maher

 

 

20 November 2012
Jack and I flew in from my South-West Western Australia tour mid-afternoon and met up with Xavier at Melbourne Airport. We headed off to Beechworth in Northeast Victoria, ready for some intensive birding the next morning.

21 November 2012
Breakfasting early, we birded around town for a while. There were quite a few king parrots about and plenty of immature satin bowerbirds. Gang-gang cockatoos, however, were much scarcer than on prior visits, with us seeing only one bird briefly. Eastern spinebills and yellow-faced honeyeaters were about the town. Jack is pursuing world families so we headed to Mt Pilot to get him a quail-thrush. Conditions looked good as we drove into the ranges. We were soon stopping for birds that included yellow-tufted, fuscous, black-chinned and brown-headed honeyeaters as well as restless and leaden flycatchers, olive-backed orioles with a nest, and a bevy of other species.

We searched for spotted quail-thrush and soon, to Jack’s delight, had a pair feeding young in a nest. Further along, I was surprised to see a diamond firetail feeding with a bunch of red-browed finches by the roadside. I’d not often seen diamond firetails in heavy forest before. We had a couple of turquoise parrots about a waterhole and eventually managed a good view of a male. Here we also had a painted buttonquail. Several pairs of white-bellied cuckoo-shrike were seen, as were white-naped honeyeaters. Our only dip being chestnut-rumped heathwren, which I’ve seen here previously.

Spotted quailthrush 21 Nov 2012
P Maher

Chiltern was next after lunch and number 1 dam produced little lorikeet feeding in a flowering redgum and a few Latham’s snipe about the dam, as were ducks, including pink-eared and shovelers. White-browed and masked woodswallows were overhead in good numbers.

Moving on to the Warby Ranges, we checked out an area where a pair of powerful owl resided pre-drought, to no joy. The eucalypts still looked fairly ragged and probably not thick enough yet for a powerful owl to hide in. Great views were had of a pair of turquoise parrots with recently fledged young.

On to Killawarra forest where we had a pair of painted honeyeaters nest building; somewhat late for this species in this area but perhaps prompted by the cool conditions earlier in the spring.

The usual assemblage of apostlebirds was seen near Berrigan as we drove across to Deniliquin, NSW, for the night. Jack and Xavier were returning for the weekend’s plains-wandering event so we didn’t bird the Deniliquin area. Instead we headed to the mallee early next morning.

22 November 2012
Not much to see on the way to Moulamein other than good numbers of wedgetail eagles thanks to a rabbit plague, and a few gull-billed terns about a rice crop at Moulamein, and our first little corella. No Major Mitchells were seen west of Moulamein; they were reasonably common in this area pre-drought.

The roadside mallee about Annuello was full of white-browed and masked woodswallows alongside a few black honeyeaters. There was an active malleefowl mound in a nearby reserve but no malleefowl about. Luck being with us, there was a pair of malleefowl sheltering in the shade of a mallee eucaltypt a few kilometres away. A few groups of regent parrots and ringnecks were about the almond plantations adjoining the mallee reserve. Other good birds included an owlet nightjar, a family group of mulga parrots, and splendid fairywrens.

Owlet nightjar 22 November 2012 P Maher

We moved on and I was pleased to see chestnut-crowned babbler present in roadside mallee where I’d first found them thirty years ago. Again, huge flocks of white-browed and masked woodswallows were everywhere.

A stand of flowering eremophila west of Annuello produced many black honeyeaters, a few white-fronted honeyeaters and a single pied honeyeater. A pine thicket nearby boasted a pair of Gilbert’s whistler at a nest.

Late in the afternoon flocks of regent parrots were crossing the highway east of Hattah/Kulkyne NP and heading into an almond plantation. An estimated 300 regents, both adults and juveniles, crossed the highway in the half hour or so we were stationary. Mulgas, red rumps, bluebonnets, galahs and little corellas, in and around the plantation, made for quite a parrot spectacle in the late afternoon light.

23 November 2012
We left Ouyen well before dawn. At a dam near Hattah we had no less than four spotted nightjars. An owlet nightjar called nearby. Daylight gave us a pair of emuwrens, crested bellbird, scrub-robin, heathwren and chestnut quail-thrush. Next stop produced red-backed kingfisher and a nice lot of white-backed swallows. The day was warming up and striated grasswrens proved elusive.

We headed for Deniliquin after a burger at the Hattah store. Stopping en route at a drying out freshwater swamp south of Robinvale, we were chuffed to see three Australian painted snipes fly up. Many red-kneed dotterels, numerous assorted ducks and black-tailed native-hens and a hobby were also observed. At salt lakes around Swan Hill and Kerang we added greenshank, sharp-tailed sandpiper, red-necked stint, red-capped plover, red-necked avocet and thousands of banded stilt and whiskered terns, as well as orange chat. Xavier, being a wader buff, was delighted with this lot. (He has dotterel breeding not far from his place in Scotland). A mob of feral ostrich was ticked off on the way back to Deniliquin.

These few days were something of a birding marathon, particularly for Jack and me who had kicked off this private tour on the back of the SW Western Australian tour … and we still had that plains-wanderer weekend starting tomorrow.
2012 plains-wanderer weekend checklist of birds seen

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