gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

On the first morning in the Kununurra area we took a boat trip on Lake Argyle. Compared to the birding we had been doing onshore, it was relaxing and cool. A most pleasant experience. Lake Argyle is a man-made reservoir a short distance from the town and is one of the largest bodies of freshwater in Australia.

We expected to see Little Pied Cormorants …

… and Australian Darters …

…. but were not expecting a Black Bittern, a species normally confined to dense waterside vegetation and not rocky slopes.

The shallow, vegetated areas were full of birds: Magpie Geese, Wandering  Whistling Duck, Glossy Ibis, Pied Heron and Intermediate Egret in this photo alone.

The boat took us near an island where a pair of Black-necked Storks were nesting.

The male (identified by its dark iris) was on the nest ….

…. and hunkered down as we passed.

The female, with a yellow iris, was feeding nearby.

In the waterside vegetation we had good views of a Baillon’s Crake (a bird that occurs in Europe and may even have bred in Britain, but is normally very hard to see) …

… and the rather more showy White-browed Crake, which occurs in much of SE Asia, New Guinea, northern Australia and some Pacific islands.

Comb-crested Jacanas showed off their combs …

…. whilst White-breasted Woodswallows collected nesting material.

We had close up views of a Freshwater Crocodile devouring a catfish.

We moored up by a low-lying island and waded ashore, fortunately there were no crocodiles here! (I know Alison is wading in the wrong direction, but if I’d have taken the shot as we disembarked rather than when we got back, all I’d have photographed was backs).

The bays were full of birds, more Magpie Geese …

… Grey Teal …

… and Rajah Shelduck.

We circumnavigated the island seeing many birds …

… ranging from the now familiar White-headed Stilts and Pied Herons …

… and Australian Pelicans …

… to the more seldom seen Australian Pratincole …

… and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, a migrant from Siberia.

Overhead we saw White-bellied Sea-eagles …

… but our main quarry was Yellow Chat, a rare and restricted range species that is actually a honeyeater and not a chat, like say, the Old World Stonechat.

They were quite furtive and hard to approach but I did capture the striking black band on the chest (even if it was partially hidden by a twig).

Suddenly we came across a group of 58 pigeons feeding in front of us. They were directly into the sun and very flighty. Scope views yielded what I had hardly dared hope for, Flock Bronzewings, a nomadic and elusive pigeon of the northern interior, here at the very edge of its range. My photos show little more than bumps on the ground so …

… as my photo is so poor I have used one of a group of male Flock Bronzewings taken by ‘Salvadori’ in the Northern  Territory see: https://www.hbw.com/ibc/species/flock-bronzewing-phaps-histrionica 

On our way back we saw the much more sedentary, but range restricted White-quilled Rock Pigeon. Known only from the Kimberley region, we also saw this bird on the Mitchell Plateau (see previous post).

We also had very close views of Short-eared Rock Wallaby.

Any closer and I would have been unable to focus!

Around Kununurra there are large areas of cultivation crisscrossed by canals used for irrigation. This area is very attractive to finches and we spent much of the afternoon searching for species like Crimson Finch …

… Chestnut-breasted (four birds) and Yellow-rumped (2nd from bottom on the left) Manikins.

We also saw Zebra Finches …

… and the lovely Star Finch.

Several Spotted Harriers circled over the fields.

During our time at Kununurra we paid a couple of visits to the ponds and woodland near the golf course seeing many birds like this Yellow Oriole …

… Fairy Martin …

… Sacred Kingfisher …

… White-winged Triller (a species of cuckooshrike) …

… and two species of cuckoo, Brush Cuckoo …

… and Pallid Cuckoo.

Some populations of Dollarbird (a species of roller named after the pale circles or ‘silver dollars’ in its wings) breed in Australia, others are migratory arriving from as far north as Japan.

On the ponds we had good views of Australasian Grebes …

… Dusky Moorhens …

… the enormous Australasian Swamphen …

… and the trips only Green Pygmy Geese.

Our late afternoon at the golf course ended with a spectacular sunset.

The following morning we set off early for Wyndham, a former gold rush town on the coast to the north of Kununurra. The area has quite a high indigenous population which is commemorated by these giant statues of an aboriginal family.

We headed for a campsite where a riverbed usually has a number of pools where birds come to drink. Whilst waiting we saw a spectacular dawn flight of many hundred Little Corellas leaving their roost.

We saw many birds in the area ranging from the ubiquitous Willie Wagtail (a species of fantail) to a Pacific Swift which Andy declared to be probably be ‘the first to be recorded in the whole of Australia that spring’, having flown all the way from north-east Asia to escape the northern winter.

The pools in the riverbed had dried up but people at the campsite had filled up metal containers for the birds to drink from. We had cracking views of Double-barred Finches …

… and Rufous-throated Honeyeaters (this was one of the very few individuals that actually sported a rufous throat).

In this photo we can see (L-R) two Double-barred Finches, a Long-tailed Finch, a Striated Pardalote and a Masked Finch.

As the mercury rose we were obliged to get out of the open. Fortunately there was some shade by the camp site shop where a Straw-necked Ibis strolled round in the open (note the straw-like feathers on the lower neck).

We were lucky that the staff had placed some drinking containers outside the shop and as the temperature rose to over 37 degrees a steady stream of birds came in to quench their thirsts. Here is a Peaceful Dove …

… and here a Bar-shouldered Dove.

Other visitors included Little Friarbird …

… a Silver-crowned Friarbird …

… the inevitable Magpie-lark …

… Blue-faced Honeyeater …

… Bar-breasted Honeyeater …

… Yellow-tinted Honeyeater …

… and the rather drab Olive-backed Oriole.

… what we hoped for was this …. (photo was taken from the factzoo.com website)

… what we eventually got was this – a very plain juvenile Gouldian (sorry to include a photo of captive individuals in the previous photo, but it does show the three different colour morphs). This juvenile proved to be the ‘disappointment of the tour’, ok I got the tick but I didn’t get the ‘value’. It was a was a shame to end the tour on this note, but hey, there’s a good reason to come back!

That wasn’t quite the end of the tour, the following morning we had time to check some woodland by this ford where we found the last new bird of the tour – a Shining Flycatcher.

At least staying overnight at a very hot and humid Darwin allowed me to see a few more birds like this rather tame Orange-footed Scrubfowl.

The onward flight to Melbourne took me across the entire continent from north to south.

Much of the flight was over the Red Centre …

… and afforded spectacular views of the desert …

… and as we approached Melbourne the view changed to one dominated by agriculture.