This will be a fairly long post, as I’ve got to finish off this saga before going to the Indian Ocean Territories! This post covers the last few days of the ADEISA mission, all of which were spent in Queensland.
19/7/22 - Birdsville to Boulia
We were up early in the cold and the dark to get up to Cuttaburra at a reasonable time for birding. It was a fairly uneventful drive apart from rumbling a lone Dingo – shades of the Coyote in Collateral as he drifted across the track in my headlights. Not long after, one of my pax pointed out something to the east and I pulled over in surprise to have a look. It was still dark, and a chain of satellites was glistening in the sky, falling towards the horizon. I’ve never seen anything like it. It reminded me of a salp chain; we figured out later it was probably a Starlink launch, but it was a serious head scratcher upon first seeing it.
The next stop was the southern edge of the giant Lignum swamp at Cuttaburra Crossing. As we geared up, my heart was racing. This was the last chance for Grey Grasswren, and my second time looking for the grey ghost at this site. We had dipped hard the first time with not even a sniff. Dan (and about half of the punters) still hadn’t seen the beast. We fanned out and headed into the maze …
Before too long I thought I heard some contact calls. I whistled up the others and we slowly closed in. I positioned myself so that I had a good view of a channel in the Lignum, hoping for a glimpse as one crossed, as I could hear them on both sides. And whooshka – quick as a flash one zipped across the channel. The sun was behind me and the bird was about 6 m away. The grey ghost was ticked in Queensland! I stowed my scope and camera in a clearing taking a GPS point so I couldn’t lose them (or myself) and then focused on following the birds. We had all spread out and were mainly following the channels in an attempt to get a glimpse like I had. Dan, Peter and I maintained comms on the radio, eventually tracking the family down again. I was on the other side of a clump with everyone facing me – and I could hear a bird! I slowly lowered myself until I was basically lying on the ground. I could see the shadow of the bird in the Lignum moving around… and when Peter stepped forward it ran out of the Lignum, paused for a split second to look at me, and then disappeared. That was the last time I saw the grey ghost… we spent about an hour more without success and then it was time to motor. Interestingly, the bird(s?) I saw inside the clump was on the ground and not climbing around as I had expected.
We headed north up the Developmental Rd, eventually pulling up to a dry creek crossing. Two white birds were perched on a dead tree in the distance, shimmering through the heat haze. We slowly picked our way through the creekbed, where I was disturbed to find cat prints and scat, and set up the scopes. Two young Letter-winged Kites sat sleeping in the full sun, having escaped the felines for now. Crossing the road back at the car, we saw an adult circling high up with a couple of Black Kites. Stunning bird! We all had amazing views of the most holy of scriptures before it came down and perched next to its mate, who was sitting on a nest. We hadn’t seen this bird initially and immediately backed off about 50 m before setting the scopes up again. On the way back to the cars I twitched a willy-willy again, getting amongst it and getting sandblasted.
Rolling into Boulia (the ‘home of the Min-Min light’) that arvo, we waited about an hour for some sandwiches at the supermarket and then retired to our rooms for a little bit. We headed out later in the afternoonwith no real targets – going birding and seeing what turned up. It was really nice actually, just cruising around in the golden hour and checking the place out. We finally connected with the elusive Red-browed Pardalote that we had been chasing for days! A full night of sleep was a restorative blessing.
20/7/22 - Boulia to Winton
The pressure was off for me now: no new birds ahead, apart from county ticks… I could relax a bit. We moved east from Boulia across a vast floodplain littered with Night Parrots. Once the sun was properly up we stopped to grab a triptick – Horsfield’s Bushlarks were singing in their spring finery, dodging thousand’s of Budgies during song flights. The country was pumping! There was life everywhere. Hopefully the fat budgies were chewing on seeds somewhere nearby and sitting on eggs. We drove past the turn off into Old Cork Station and my pax had to listen to The Diamantina Drover (again). We stopped at the Diamantina for a cuppa and then continued on, moving through several different habitat types along the way. The scenery was fantastic. Jump-ups everywhere supporting Eremophila shrubland. Mitchell Grass on the flats… then we started getting into the mallee / spinifex woodland that surrounds Lark Quarry. It had been a very scenic drive, as promised by Peter the night before!
We screeched to a halt near the radio tower at Lark Quarry and were out in the spinifex immediately. I got onto Rufous-crowned Emu-wren almost immediately and everyone had a good look at a male. I hung back for some photos and then caught up with Dan, who was extremely excited by a scaly item he had flipped: Spinifex Slender Blue-tongue (). Apparently an absolute monster. Then a devastating call came in over the radio – ‘where are you guys we have fantastic views of the Grasswren!’. Shit! We raced towards the group but by the time we had got there they were heading back to the cars with big grins on their faces. Great pain. Had Dan dipped another Amytornis? Thankfully not. We quickly refound some very confiding Opalton Grasswrens that put on a fantastic show for us In the end we had incredible walk away views.
Dan took some of the crew to have a look in the dinosaur museum and I wandered around with Peter and some others, finding a nice little dragon. Then it was into the big smoke! Dan and I dropped our gear off at the motel then zipped out to the poo ponds to nail his last avian lifer of the trip – the Plum-headed Finch. A nice dinner capped off a great day.
21/7/22 - Winton area
A very civilised start to the morning (ie we didn’t leave our accom before dawn) saw us heading down to the Bowra mimic. Bladensburg NP turned it on for us that morning and we nailed every target we had going in. The Quail-thrush showed well out of the gate, with a singing male leading us to a family group, who were parading around in front of us shortly after. Nice incidentals followed them in a little mixed flock: Hooded and Red-capped Robin showed well, Dan found a Black Honeyeater nest and we (finally) got onto Crested Bellbird. I also found several stone tools lying about the place, which was a nice experience. I wonder how long it has been since someone had held them?
We continued down the road to Opalton, grabbing a last-chance Restless Flycatcher for the trip (the transition to Paperbark Flycatcher occurs just to the north-west of this area).
We rolled back into town for lunch, where Richard’s wife and daughter met us as a surprise – they’d been in covert comms with Peter for the last few days. We munched some lovely birthday cake and sang Richard’s praises. Fred managed to lock himself in the vehicle but was soon freed to my great relief. A little nap back at the accom was a pleasant segue into some patch birding. We took the group down to the poo ponds, where Dan and I got a few patch ticks and the crew revelled in the point-blank views of the Plums. Black Falcon ripped through again, and we picked up a few incidentals as usual – Baillon’s Crake and Little Buttonquail were pleasing to behold.
The hotel we attended for dinner was a bit light on for vego options so I decamped to the North Gregory for a veggie burger. I was happy to find that it was music night – I sat under the stars in the outdoor area enjoying the ambiance. A very Woodford-y vibe. Nice. I returned to the other hotel and everyone else was still waiting for their dinner! Grim. I had missed the homework for the day so copied off Dan while he gobbled up some prawns. We got our nocturnal kit and headed down to Bladensburg chasing the big kahuna. There were several records of Julia Creek Dunnart along the entrance track but, when we got out there, we reckoned they must have been trapping. We wandered around for a bit in hope of a Hail Mary but it was not to be. We started yawning and so headed back to town… we woke up at about half past three the next morning freezing our bollocks off. The air con was broken so we rugged up as best we could and snuggled back into the blankets. It was 4ºC!
22/7/22 - Winton to Isa
First light saw an astonishing number of Magpie-larks perched on the telephone wires. We headed down to Bladensburg again and hopped out for a walk. We had amazing views of Chestnut-backed Quail-thrush singing in the crisp morning air and Dan and I stumbled across a Bourke’s Parrot. The arids from the day before were all out in force again too. We stopped at Skull Hole on the way out, where I crawled into a cave and found a big bat that Dan assured me from my description was most likely to be Northern Mastiff Bat – very cool. Unfortunately, I lost my walkie-talkie in the cave! Great pain. In town again I picked up a couple of tea towels and blanched at the $500 price tag on the walkie-talkies. I told Peter I’d swing past on my way home, grab the radio from the cave and leave it for him in Winton. Very kindly, he said that was fine.
We continued to the north-east, passing by the McKinlay (Crocodile Dundee) Hotel and getting in to Isa in the mid-afternoon. Despite some mutterings, we headed straight out to Chinaman Ck Dam in search of Kalkwren. At the first site, we had brief views but most people failed to connect. Painted Finch fell on the way back out to the motel. After pulling in, Dan had a nap and I went for a little walk. It had been a long day in the car, and I was feeling a bit homesick. Every single dog in the street barked at me but it was a nice stroll.
A bizarre situation unfolded at dinner where some ‘spies’ were hanging around the table and trying to discover
our plans for the morning! Apparently they had used Peter’s advertised itinerary as a guide for planning their own trip. However, they obviously didn’t have the ‘secret site’ for Carpwren and were sniffing around for some gen. Very weird. I took Paul out for a little drive in hopes of rumbling a Spotted Nightjar but we dipped.
22/7/22 - Mt Isa area
Wow! The last day of the trip. We rolled out to the secret Carpentarian site west of Isa at dawn. Moving into the spinifex, Black-tailed Treecreeper and White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike were new for the trip – all of a sudden the trip record (229 species) was in sight! If we had known about it we would have gone hard from Day 1, but we were still in with a chance if we did well today. We flushed a heap of Brown Quail as we moved across the plain towards a drainage line. The group crossed it and moved on – and I heard a Carpie singing! I called everyone back but we failed to connect and the bird went quiet. Ros parked up for a rest under a tree after this, feeling tired. She’d already seen Carpies back in the day, so we left her with some water and moved on. We moved another 500 m or so and I caught up with Peter. He had just heard a second Carpwren. I had a brief glimpse as the bird moved around in front of a rock pile.
Everyone was trained up now, so we spread out and slowly moved towards the bird. A bit of a wild goose chase ensued, but we eventually had good views of the last Grasswren of the trip as it moved through its territory. The best views I had were down the bins as it sat atop a termite mound about 10 m away from me. Lovely. I hadn’t even bothered trying to get photos of the last two Amytornis species; I found it quite pleasant simply trying to get good binocular views of my old friends. We headed straight to Moondarra after a nice cuppa, searching with little success for the Kalks. Dan and I prowled the shores in search of the record, which finally fell with Spinifexbird. We pushed the boat a bit further out with fantastic scope views of Long-tailed Finch, before adding Great Bowerbird and Red-backed Fairywren. The punters enjoyed some nice views of a Purple-necked Rock Wallaby before we moved on to the sewage ponds. The last new bird of the trip was a Cattle Egret.
Returning to the motel we had an emotional homework session before celebrating the end of the record-breaking trip with some cold bevvies. There were some nice speeches and after a few tears, hugs and handshakes I burned rubber out of Isa on my way to McKinlay, where I planned to stay the night. I had been tasked with returning the hire vehicle to Brisbane! Extracurricular activities were planned along the way, with a chance of connecting with two furry jewels (Julia Creek Dunnart and Bridled Nailtail Wallaby) getting me through the long hours in the saddle.
It had been a fantastic trip for me. The clients had been a great crew of people and I’d made some new friends in Peter and Dan. I’d seen a swag of new birds, including some serious MONSTERS, and harvested some nice fur along the way too. Spending all day out in the beautiful Australian countryside and looking for cool animals was pretty awesome – it was a nice life on tour
Thanks to Peter for having me along, to Dan for the extracurricular fun and some good chats, to work for releasing me, to the parentals (both sides of the fam) for some emergency care while I was away, and to Jess for keeping the home fires burning.
Until next time!
