This trip with Emu Tours (Richard Jordan) and expert guide there, Phil Maher, has become almost an annual event for COG. We had perfect, mild to warm weather, contrasting with very hot weather the previous trip in December 1998. The trip was done over 4 days/3 nights (2 days are mostly travelling), so we had some time along the Murray River, Barmah and Millewa State Forests, and in north-central Victoria, including Terrick Terrick State Park, a remnant White Cypress Pine/Box woodland where there is a very good selection of woodland species, and a hotspot for Gilbert's Whistler (it is always around the picnic area) – everyone got close views of a male and heard its call. The very tame, resident group of Brown Treecreepers at Terrick Terrick picnic area cleaned up our cake scraps after lunch.
We also visited the Ibis Rookery and wetlands on Reedy Lake at Kerang, where both Straw-necked and White Ibis were in the thousands, with many other waterbirds around and Caspian Tern and Swamp Harrier.. At one point we had White-bellied Sea-eagles, Whistling Kites and Black Kites soaring above the wetland in a thermal, a good learning exercise to contrast the different wing and tail shapes of the raptors.
The highlights of our day and evening with Phil were, of course, the Plainswanderers, 3 females and one male (one pair was courting). In fact, we saw the first female Plainwanderer within 3 minutes of setting out in the vehicles – this must be a record! Over a couple of hours we also saw Stubble Quail, Singing Bushlark and Brown Songlark in the spotlights, and earlier in the evening Inland Dotterell and Orange Chat, plus wonderful views of a Barn Owl on the way back to Deniliquin. Other good sightings in the area around Deniliquin were Owlet Nightjar, Superb Parrot and Grey-crowned Babbler in the Black Box (Eucalyptus largiflorens) woodlands, Singing Honeyeater in the Booree (Acacia pendula), White-winged Fairy-wrens in the clumps of saltbush, and Peregrine Falcon hunting low over the plain. Bitterns and Black-tailed Native Hens unfortunately were absent, due to the rather dry season, and the Painted Honeyeaters which had been in an area of Booree recently must have moved on.
The 3 COG Plainswanderer tours have now seen just about every aspect of Plainswanderer, adult male and female, immature, and adults courting - we really have only adult male with chicks to get (in this species the males incubate eggs and bring up the young alone to maximise the breeding of the females). We have booked another trip in 2001 at the same timing (31 March - 2 April). We think this is the best time of year to avoid the very hot weather and to maximise the number of Plainswanderers around, which breed up following the summer rainstorms, and still gives a very good bird list overall. We recorded 130 species on this trip. Bookings are being taken now for the 2001 tour - details here.
Jenny Bounds