Sunday, April 26, 2009

New car

The official handover

I picked up a new car on Saturday. The poor old one had become a little too annoying and so the time was right to upgrade. Palli has also decided its time to change and so I've taken his old Focus off his hands. No more stress now worrying if the car will get me to where I want to go and unlike the old one, Emily is also happy to risk travelling in the new one. Things are good.


Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Outback tour - Part III

Heading up through sheep and cattle country

There were plagues of grasshoppers throughout the tour

We returned to Brisbane following the Darling River up through Menindee and Bourke and then on to Goondiwindi staying on a couple of farming properties along the way.

Frog in a swimming pool

Birding was good and around Menindee I picked up the Chirruping Wedgebill #397 and on the back roads there were a couple of flocks of Banded Lapwing #398. Outside of Bourke, a temporary wetland had formed after the rains which was packed with waterbirds and we were lucky enough to see a Black Falcon stooping at a flock of sandpipers. One of the properties we stayed on had flocks of hundreds of budgerigars which was spectacular and here I also found a single Masked Woodswallow #399.

An acrobatic Blue-faced Honeyeater

At that point I actually thought I'd got bird number 400 as I'd just read that the (newly named) Paperbark Flycatcher in the Northern Territory has just been split from the Restless Flycatcher giving me an extra tick. But what the splitters giveth, the lumpers taketh away. The Spotted Catbird of north Queensland has been lumped with the Green Catbird from these parts and so I also lost one leaving the list on 399.

The refreshing Dividing Range

We stopped off briefly on the Dividing Range on the way back into Brisbane which provided us with a cool walk in a forest gully which provided a refreshing conclusion to the trip - 5000 km covered.

A friendly Kookaburra

A pair of Tawny Frogmouths

Outback tour - Part II

On the road again

From the corner country we headed south to Broken Hill and Mungo NP. Broken Hill is a mining town which bizarrely runs on Adelaide time (although its still in NSW) which is a silly 30 minutes behind NSW time. Add to this the confusion of Queensland being an hour behind NSW at the start of the trip and then NSW moving back an hour in the middle of the tour (daylight saving or something). With all that going on I didn't really know what time it was for most of the time. Lucky someone else did.

Lace Monitor

In Broken Hill we had a good day down an old silver mine and also sat in on a lesson at the School of the Air which teaches the kids out on all the sheep stations and country properties via satellite. This was surprisingly entertaining. "There's a shARk in the pARk!" pup bARked. I think you had to be there.

"Clumping" White-breasted Woodswallows

One new bird on this leg of the trip with two pairs of Chestnut Quail-thrush #396 showing up in the Mungo NP.

The Walls of China - Mungo NP

Chestnut Quail-thrush

Outback tour - Part I

Touring again

Sorry for the delay in getting these pictures up for you all. I've been sleeping lots over the past few days as I recover from a very enjoyable holiday with my parents. (I'd better say at this point that my Dad took all the pictures on these posts. Credit where credit's due!) This time we all set out on a two week tour of the outback with John and Ros from Naturebound Australia with whom we travelled up the Dividing Range a couple of years back.

Big Red

We started by flying up to Brisbane and then set out west by road to Thargomindah, Tibooburra and the corner country around the Sturt NP. On the bird front things got off to a cracking start on the first evening with a group of Plum-headed Finches #389 spotted by the river in St George. An early morning walk on the edge of Thargomindah turned up Chestnut-crowned Babbler #390 and we weren't even in the national park yet.

Cameron Corner - I'm in NSW, Dad's in QLD and Mum's in SA

Gibber country around Mt Poole

The gibber plains of the Sturt NP are a desolate place with the red earth strewn with a carpet of small gibber stones. The temperature was pushing towards 40C and the flies were out causing mischief but this is a great place and we found Cinnamon Quail-thrush, Orange Chat and White-backed Swallow #'s 391-393 as well as loads of Kangaroos, Emus and Wedge-tailed Eagles. Sunset on a hill outside Tibooburra turned up the beautifully understated Bourke's Parrot #394 and a small group of Mulga Parrots #395 flew overhead as we were heading out of town to travel south the next morning.

Emus

Its hot out there but well worth the trip!

Wedge-tailed Eagle