Terrick Terrick National Park

Driving into Terrick Terrick is a complete contrast to the surrounding area. From farming plains to trees, scrub and rocky outcrops. It is little wonder the birds choose to come and mingle with one another. Gone are the Little and Long-billed Corellas, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, replaced by Robins and Treecreepers and Thornbills. Not for the first time I found myself in bird-wonderland by myself. Everyone else must still be enjoying family and friends during the holidays, rather than visiting National Parks. I did actually see a couple of other cars, but generally had the place to myself.

Arriving at a new location is always both exciting and frustrating. Tuning your ears to the new sounds of the bush, remembering old calls once easily identified, straining to hear the "odd call out", eyes darting from treetops to ground cover. Terrick Terrick has all of the above. On the drive in towards the picnic area, I stopped upon hearing a burst of bird call activity. Red-rumped Parrots and Yellow-rumped Thornbills everywhere, just in a small pocket of woodland. I continued up the track and sat in the car in the carpark, listening, waiting to decide if here was ok. Sounds started coming from everywhere. Mainly Brown Treecreepers, but also Rufous Whistlers, Red-capped and Hooded Robins, Yellow Thornbills, Restless Flycatchers and Southern Whiteface.

Walking through Terrick Terrick is so much easier than lots of bird-watching spots I have been to. Under the tall trees is mostly open with a few fallen logs and small grass patches. The birds can be quite friendly, or sometimes extremely annoying as they chirp away high in the canopy without ever coming down. The picnic area was a good place to start, but eventually I drove through the middle of the Park until I exited on the far north western edge.

It was a fun few hours spent, and the completed list numbered 24, maybe not as many as I had hoped but there were some nice species in that lot. Some of them made taking photos pretty easy, others a little harder. ere are some of the better photos:

Sacred Kingfisher

Hooded Robin

Jacky Winter

Restless Flycatcher

Rufous Whistler

Southern Whiteface

Yellow Thornbill

Jacky Winter, Forest Kingfisher, Flycatchers and Doves photos

My youngest son and I ran into the Jacky Winter birds in the middle part of the Northern Territory, namely at Elliott and Dunmurra. They were very accommodating.

Jacky Winter

Forest Kingfisher

Leaden Flycatcher

Lemon-bellied Flycatcher

Paperbark Flycatcher

Shining Flycatcher

Bar-shouldered Dove

Peaceful Dove

Birds of Lajamanu - Jacky Winter, Grey-fronted Honeyeater and others

Work has brought me to Lajamanu, a community in the central north west of the NT. To get here is a decent drive from Alice Springs, heading north until just beyond Dunmarra, then a left turn onto the Buchanan Highway to Top Springs, another left at Top Springs onto the Buntine Highway and then another left turn just before Kalkarindji, for the final 100 or so kms to Lajamanu.
There are lots of flowering shrubs around at the moment which normally means birds have lots of food and the honeyeaters are out in force.
It took me a little while to identify the Jacky Winter, a fairly non-descript bird that looks like a lot of other small birds, but I am fairly confident my id is right, although always happy to be corrected. Generally they were sitting on tree-tops on bare branches like the last photo, but the one in the first four photos came to check me out in a tree on the other side of the road from where I had stopped. This was about 2 kms from town.

The Grey-fronted Honeyeaters are a noisy mob, and they delight in flitting over the shrub-tops and then diving into a bush just beyond eyesight. Can be very frustrating. But eventually they started to show themselves. I saw these just opposite the Police Station which is the first building you come to driving into town. They look like a similar species, the Grey-headed Honeyeater, but on further close inspection of the photos, they have a break between the black part on their nape and their eye:

Continuing on the theme of the honeyeaters were the Brown Honeyeaters and the White-plumed Honeyeaters. These are seen around town and on the outskirts:

Another bird I should be more familiar with is the Rufous Songlark. I had trouble working out what this bird was as I was missing the familiar songs heard so often earlier this year down around Alice Springs. Finally, after many photos, I managed a blurry photo as one flew off and I could see the reddish brown of the rump. This one perched nicely on a twig not far from me:

In our family we know this next bird of the Dove of the Top End as it is one of the more common sounds and sights we have seen on our trips up north. This Peaceful Dove was feeding in amongst the grass and ground cover just near where I was parked:

The last photographs are of one of the prettiest parrots - the Red-winged Parrot. I have heard these around town but not actually seen them. It took a trip just outside of town to get the photos. I had just pulled over on a deserted track and could hear the parrot calling to others. At first I couldn't see it as I was looking in the sky, but then realised the sound was coming from the same place and looked to the top of a nearby tree and saw this:

Other birds seen around Lajamanu thus far include Black Kites (lots of them), Little Corellas, Black-faced and White-breasted Woodswallows, Willie Wagtail, Zebra Finch, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Magpie Lark, and Red-backed Kingfishers. Hopefully more to come in the coming days and next week.

Happy Birding!