Parrot hunting

On the road again

Its beginning to feel a bit more like spring and summer now with the mercury getting up into the 30's again. So what to do? Sit in the car with the air-conditioning on and head off for some parrot spotting. The message on the bird sightings website was clear enough and simply read, "If anyone has not seen a Superb Parrot come to Grenfell. The birds are all around the town area." Sweet. Grenfell is only 4 hours drive west of Sydney and with a flock of Swift Parrots visiting the same tree in Penrith every day for the past couple of weeks, a stop to pick them up on the way sounded good.

Super pleasant

I found the tree in Penrith without difficulty and staked it out for an hour or two. No sign of the Swifties though. A walk round the neighbouring streets turned up nothing either. Just as I was leaving a small green parrot with red underwings streaked overhead but was it a Scaly-breasted Lorikeet? Unlikely. But possible and so no tick.

Portrait of a Bearded Dragon

No matter though, Grenfell is currently under siege from a swarm of Superb Parrots so I drove west. I spent a bit of time at a load of reportedly good sites only to come up empty-handed again. The birding was pretty good though with lots of interesting dry country specialists like Red-backed Kingfisher, Babblers, Apostlebirds, Cockatiels and the spectacular, but annoyingly hyperactive, Red-capped Robin.

The spring wildflowers are out

Again I'm pretty sure I saw the Superb Parrots, flying across the road, but pretty sure isn't sure enough. As a result, the list stayed the same and I'm getting a bit disillusioned with this whole twitching nonsense! Should be different next week though as I'm off on holiday for the week. I don't know where yet but its going to be good. Something about returning a campervan to Sydney from some far away place. Its road-trip madness!

Brown Falcon

Crested Shrike-tit