Going South -- 04

Next stop was Alice Springs and a day out with Mark Carter [Birding and Wildlife] chasing Letter-winged Kites but it rained and all the dirt roads went to mush so I spent a restful day in Alice doing the mundane but essential household chores such as cleaning the car, have a shower, do the laundry and a bit of local birdwatching with coffee -- Olive Pink Botanic Gardens has a very nice cafe.

Western Bowerbird Ptilonorynchus guttatus working hard on his bower.

The bower did need some work.

Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae a rival to above!

There were sightings of Grey Honeyeaters nesting near the Desert Park so I did an early morning walk there. Did I see one?

Unknown honeyeater. What do you think?

Chestnut-rumped Thornbill Acanthiza uropygialis

Mistletoebird Dicaeum hirundinaceum

Western Gerygone Gerygone fusca

As I had a bit of time up my sleeve, I headed south with rain for 600km to Coober Pedy and stopped beyond Glendambo [a 900+km day] for the night on my way to visit Chuckles. I got out of the car at a WikiCamp and there were a small family of Varied Sitella Daphoenositta chrysoptera pileata, "Black-capped Sitella", foraging about on the trees and stumps. They fly into the tops of trees in groups and move downwards towards the ground. I don't know how they handle the brain blood pressure being upside down a lot of the time. This leads to classic sitella images of face down, the beak out.

Magic. f8 and be there!

Wandering Dutchman gets SE-wing

Our failure to see a live Ground Parrot prompted us to drive out to Shipwreck Creek early the following morning to another "Where to see ..." recommendation with the added chance of seeing Southern Emu-wren and Striated Heathwren.

The walking track heads west from Shipwreck Creek towards Seal Creek.

Image by Robert Middelveld

After traversing Shipwreck Creek and crossing the beach you quickly climb into a heathland that Robert described as "perfect". Time for the birds.

Image by Robert Middelveld

Although we didn't hear or see a Ground Parrot, we saw lots of other birds in the gorgeous early morning light during our walk of about 3 km return. An "accidental" life-tick was the Beautiful Firetail below identified only after we scrutinised the images of a bird we knew was a finch but couldn't discern properly because it was a silhouette almost directly into the rising sun. It has to be said that these days there are some fantastic aids to our birdwatching. Digital cameras and computer software.

Beautiful Firetail

Another great bird was a Varied Sitella gathering insects on the bark of a tree on the edge of the heath.

Varied Sitella

We had seen on Birdline that a Striated Heathwren was in the vicinity so sparked up the playback mode for two, yes, just two, calls and in he came.

"Just who is in MY territory? I'd better out-sing him"

But the main excitement at this site was caused by the Southern Emu-wren of which there were a plethora. We saw 20 or so birds in several, probably four, families on the approximately 19 hectares of heathland. No apologies for the following plethora of images of this lovely little bird. The only thing missing is an image of a male with his tail straight up in the air.