Black-shouldered Kites in the Mallee

The Black-shouldered Kites have had a good breeding season by the looks of the fully-fledged and independently hunting juveniles as well as the mature adults around Ouyen.
Further afield they continued to appear, and providing a few photo opportunities.

Black-shouldered Kites

Some "different" Major Mitchell or Pink Cockatoos

The Major Mitchell or Pink Cockatoos at Ouyen are slightly different to the ones I see around Alice Springs. The ones from further south have the yellow in their crest, whereas the majority of those I see in the Northern Territory don't.

It is pretty special to have these birds just across the road in Ouyen. I think I counted 10 of them at one point. It was good to hear their calls every morning and evening. So the photo opportunities are easier than they usually are in the NT.

Major Mitchell Cockatoos

Buangor State Park, Victoria, west of Beaufort

You would think there would be many many photos from a trip that took me from Alice Springs to Melbourne to Canberra to Wollongong to Sydney, Newcastle, Ballina, Burrum Heads, Rockhampton, Longreach, Mt Isa and then back to Alice Springs. Yes there are a few but not nearly as many as I would have thought. Sometimes life gets in the way of a passion and rather than devote my time to birding and photography, the main focus on the trip was to enjoy spending time with others.

But, of course there were a few photo opportunities along the way.

The trip from Alice Springs to Melbourne was fairly meandering once I hit the Victorian border. I had hoped to stay in National Parks, but quickly realised the rain they had had was making birding much harder than normal. Not only did I get the usual neck strain from looking up at and through tall trees, the grasses were so long it was very hard to see the ground dwelling birds. Until I reached Buangor State Park, just west of Beaufort.

Driving in on the dirt road, I noticed the lack of dust covering the trees by the side of the road. Windows down, I could hear both familiar, and not so familiar sounds. I pulled into a picnic area/campground, totally stunned to find I was the only one there. I headed over to the toilet block (one of my main reasons for choosing this spot), and stopped only five steps from the car. A male Flame Robin was sitting on a bollard, right there, right next to me. The an Eastern Yellow Robin, then Superb Fairy-wren, and the varieties just kept coming. The skies were filled with the calls of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos and Long-billed Corellas. Dusky Woodswallows raced around and Crested Shrike-tits. I wasn't sure what to do. Go to the toilet or return to the car to grab the camera. Nature calls, both very different, were having a tug of war inside me. The former won out. I figured if they were there now, they would be there post toilet. Thankfully I was right.

Here are some of the photos from that little adventure:

Flame Robin

Eastern Yellow Robin

Crested Shrike-tit

Dusky Woodswallow

Golden Whistler

Grey Fantail

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos

A Quick visit to Melbourne and some bird photos

I had to make a quick one week visit to Melbourne and had a few opportunities to get out and see some of the local bird species. I visited some of the local hills and a few of the local parks. Probably the excitement of these limited opportunities was my first visit to One Tree Hill. The day (as were most of the days) was very overcast and cold, and the hills were pretty muddy and damp. Perfect conditions for Superb Lyrebirds. I had only just started walking up one of the paths when I noticed a male Superb Lyrebird foraging on the side of the path, scratching away at the ground and then moving to the next likely food place. While I was standing and watching, an Eastern Whipbird "cracked" further along the path, only to be answered by another very close to me. I managed to get a photo of the one close to me, although not a great photo as it moved off into the scrub a bit and I had foliage in the way as well as not much light, but still happy I had finally managed a recognisable photo of one of these birds, something I hadn't managed in the past. The Lyrebird meanwhile had disappeared, only to reappear a short time later when I was walking back down the path. This time I crouched on the path and observed as the bird walked up towards me. Again the light was poor even though it was out on the path. The closer it came, the harder the camera had to try to focus, so I switched to the M mode and eventually, after a few setting changes, managed some half decent photos, although by now the Lyrebird had jumped up into a tree on some low branches.
At the same location but on top of the hill at the picnic area, a male Scarlet Robin came out and perched very obligingly on rocks, bollards but again the light wasn't fantastic and the misty rain started moving in. On a subsequent visit I managed to get decent photos of the Scarlet Robin.

The other places I visited were Edithvale Wetlands, Jells Park and Valley Reserve. Below are some of the photos from the week:

Black Swan Cygnet

Eastern Whipbird

Grey Fantail

Long-billed Corella

Purple Swamphen

Scarlet Robin

Superb Lyrebird

Murray Sunset National Park to Lake Cullullinane

After the excitement of Hattah Kulkyne, I set off for Murray Sunset National Park. Although this was in my original plans, I had intended to enter via the south end of the Park, but, as I drove up the highway I saw a sign and headed to the North-eastern corner instead.

I had only just entered the Park boundaries when I saw a small flock of medium sized birds fly off from what turned out to be a puddle. I decided it was worth checking out what these birds were. I was surprised and happy to see Banded Lapwings through the binos, so sat and waited in the car, in the heat, with the flies, until they started walking back towards the puddle. 5 of them, and whether it was my mind playing tricks on me or the heat of the day haze, they looked bigger than the ones I had seen in the NT previously. It was a nice tick to get started for the Park.

Murray Sunset is another potential place to see the Malleefowl. There are some really good displays showing what the nest looks like and what sort of terrain I should be looking for. Alas, no Malleefowl again, but I couldn't help but see the Bluebonnets. There were small groups everywhere which eventually turned into a larger group. They were tricky to get decent photos of so I ended up going at about 10 km/h and taking photos on the move, just to try to capture how many were in the group and the scenery I was driving past. I wouldn't recommend this as a photographing method, but the result was ok.

Bluebonnets

Banded Lapwing

I had thought I would camp here for the night, but the flies were pretty horrendous during the day, so I was figuring with another 5-6 hours of daylight, I may as well keep going and keep away from the flies.

I continued up to Mildura, stopping in at the Kings Billabong Bird Hide, not one of the most exciting birding experiences, and it was a hot 5 km walk out to the hide and back. About the most exciting thing I took photos of was a large skink/lizard at the Hide itself.

There was also a close encounter with a very large Grey Kangaroo, who watched me closely as I walked towards its family, but I had also seen then and ensured they moved on before I got too close, but he kept a watchful eye on me and continued to bound parallel with me until they were gone.

Kangaroo

There were a few birds around, here are a couple. Peaceful Dove followed by Varied Sittella.

It was back on the road again, the intention to get to Renmark if possible, but I ended up staying at Lake Cullillinane. On the way I came across a small family of emus, one of my all time favourite birds, and couldn't resist stopping on the side of the Sturt Highway to take a few shots.

Emu

Finally pulled into Lake Cullullinane for the night. It had been a big day. I was at first delighted to see the Little Corellas hanging around in largish numbers. I was soon to realise there were more than I thought and they would be here for the night to keep me company. I did enjoy this scene below, where they were acting like Cormorants on a fallen tree in the lake.

Little Corellas

Hattah-Kulkyne National Park

Driving up into the top corner of Victoria was exciting for me. The chance of a few special birds beckoned, but I knew I was going to see a lot of birds. I stayed the night at Ouyen before heading off and had already had a nice surprise of Major Mitchell Cockatoos fly in late in the evening. Next morning the Red Wattlebirds decided to show me that even birds I thought were a bit bland could be very colourful.

Red Wattlebird

Leaving Ouyen, I headed north to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. One of the places to see the Mallefowl and Mallee Emu-wren, well, supposedly. Although I had done well with finding birds I normally dip on this year, I wasn't overly confident about these two. And I was right in the end. I pulled up inside the Hattah part of the Old Calder Highway due to a lot of noise from the driver side of the car. A bird I have seen before but not in this area - the Apostlebirds, about 8 of them chattering away.

Apostelebird

Mulga Parrot

There were Mulga Parrots there too as well as Weebills and Malle Ringnecks who were surprisingly shy the whole trip. Back into the car and crawled along the old highway, windows down, waiting for sound. But it was movement that caught my eye. Something hopping along the ground. A Chestnut Quail-thrush. I thhink in hindsight I had possibly seen one of these before in this area on a previous trip but had put it down to one of those sightings you don't know what it is because it was too quick into the scrub. This one wasn't going anywhere in a hurry and came out into the open and into the sun nicely for a few photos.

Chestnut Quail-thrush

 A little bit further along the old highway and I pulled off into what looked a bit like a camp site, complete with bins and the inevitable toilet paper blowing around. The Dusky and White-browed Woodswallows were flitting around, as well as the Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters, a bird I was to see a lot of in the coming days. Jacky Winters, Tree Martins, Willie Wagtails - a nice little spot for smaller birds.

Dusky Woodswallow

White-browed Woodswallow

Yellow-plumed Honeyeater

Despite searching along the Nowingi Track, nothing new appeared. It was time to keep going.