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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

CALM survey camp - Lake Muir catchment SW Australia (1 Viewer)

Gemfyre

Well-known member
Australia
Well, that was a great trip.

Before we get started. The new birds for my life list.

Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)
Little Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus)
Australasian Bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus)
Common Sandpiper (Actitus hypoleucos)
Masked Owl (Tyto novaehollandiae)
Western Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria griseogularis)
White-Breasted Robin (Eopsaltria georgiana)
Restless Flycatcher (Myiagra inquieta)
White-Winged Triller (Lalage tricolor)

As the Mad Hatter's sage advice goes "Start at the beginning. And when you get to the end, stop." So I will.

First place I checked out was the scenic drive along the north-western part of Peel Inlet. I stopped where a boardwalk went out through the reeds and onto the water.


Peel Inlet - Late morning 19/11/04

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Common Bronzewing
Common Sandpiper - I couldn't get a good look at this guy because he kept flying away when I got near. The constant bobbing allowed me to ID him.
Darter
Galah
Great Egret
Grey Fantail
Grey Shrike-Thrush - He whistled. I'd whistle back. He'd follow me.
Inland Thornbill
Little Black Cormorant
Little Pied Cormorant
Magpie
Pelican
Rainbow Bee-Eater - thought I heard these. I was deterred from the chase by a swooping magpie. (I haven't been swooped in years!)
Sacred Ibis
Silver Gull
Silvereye
Splendid Fairywren
Striated Pardalote
Western Gerygone
Whistling Kite
White Faced Heron
Willie Wagtail


The camp was a volunteer effort to survey the birds at the many lakes and swamps in the Muir catchment. I never realised there were so many wetlands in this area. Here I thought we'd be in Jarrah forest but as I drove further east into the catchment the vegetation changed to a sparse Jarrah heath with lots of banksia and melaleuca. 99% of the place names in South-West Australia end in "up". Apparently "up" means "place of".


Bukerup Lake - Early evening 19/11/04

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Clamorous Reed-Warbler
Emu
Golden Whistler
Great Crested Grebe
Grey Currawong
Grey Fantail
Grey Teal
Hoary-Headed Grebe
Inland Thornbill
Laughing Kookaburra
Little Grassbird
Magpie
Musk Duck
Pacific Black Duck
Purple Swamphen
Sacred Ibis
Splendid Fairywren
Striated Pardalote
Varied Sitella
Western Gerygone
White-Eyed Duck
Willie Wagtail
Wood Duck


Kulunilup Lake
night-time - 19/11/04

First visit here was at night to listen for nocturnal waterfowl and owls (we also played owl calls hoping they'd respond). I did see a bird - most likely an owl - flutter into a tree but it promptly disappeared as soon as the spotlights were turned on.

Australasian Bittern - Possibly the most exciting bird of the whole trip. There were not seen but were heard often in the extensive reed beds. Apparently only about 500 individuals live in the catchment and the species is endangered.
Australian Sheduck
Little Bittern - Another great find, again heard but not seen.
Purple Swamphen - The most heard "night bird". I don't think these guys ever shut up. And they have a lovely call like a woman being murdered.
Wood Duck

morning - 20/11/04

We headed back to this lake in the early morning and wandered down the track to the lake.

Australasian Bittern
Purple Swamphen
28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Baudin's Cockatoo
Black Swan
Blue-Billed Duck
Clamorous Reed-Warbler - SO many of these in the catchment. Very noisy.
Common Bronzewing
Elegant Parrot
Golden Whistler
Grey Butcherbird
Grey Fantail
Grey Shrike-Thrush
Inland Thornbill
Laughing Kookaburra
Little Grassbird
Magpie
Muir Corella - The Muir Corella is the same as the Western Long-Billed Corella. This species is becoming increasingly rare because farmers like to kill them. They are most common in the Muir catchment - hence the alternate name.
Musk Duck - These were plonking and blipping away all morning.
New Holland Honeyeater
Purple Crowned Lorikeet
Red Wattlebird
Sacred Ibis
Sacred Kingfisher
Scarlet Robin
Shining Bronze Cuckoo
Silvereye
Splendid Fairywren
Striated Pardalote
Swamp Harrier
Tree Martin
Weebill
Welcome Swallow
Western Gerygone
Western Rosella
Western Thornbill
White-Faced Heron


Red Lake - Late morning 20/11/04

Wow, "Red" doesn't end in "up".

Australian Sheduck
Black Swan
Blue-Billed Duck
Clamorous Reed-Warbler
Eurasian Coot
Golden Whistler
Grey Fantail
Grey Shrike-Thrush
Grey Teal - A HUGE floatilla of these guys. The Chestnut teal was spotted among them.
Hoary-Headed Grebe
Inland Thornbill
Laughing Kookaburra
Musk Duck
Pacific Black Duck
Red Wattlebird
Sacred Ibis
Shining Bronze Cuckoo
Silvereye
Splendid Fairywren
Striated Pardalote
Swamp Harrier
Tree Martin
Western Gerygone
White-Faced Heron
Chestnut Teal - I think I may already have these down as being sighted. I think I have seen these previously but this was a definite sighting.
Australasian Shoveller
Pink-Eared Duck
Great Egret
White-Browed Scrubwren
Yellow-Billed Spoonbill
Little Black Cormorant


Yarnup Swamp - Sunset 20/11/04

Another evening more for listening than viewing. We didn't hear much apart from Reed-Warblers and frogs but saw a few birds while the sun was still out.

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Brown Honeyeater
Clamorous Reed-Warbler
Common Bronzewing
Grey Fantail
Laughing Kookaburra
Little Grassbird
Magpie
Masked Owl
Muir Corella
Purple Swamphen
Red-Capped Parrot
Silvereye
Striated Pardalote
Tree Martin
Western Gerygone
White-Faced Heron
Yellow-Rumped Thornbill


Lake Muir Observatory - Morning 21/11/04

After I left the camp I dropped in at the observatory to see what I could see. Lake Muir is a MASSIVE lake and I couldn't see an awful lot from the viewing platform. I just saw many bushbirds around the carpark. Despite the abundance of mistletoe in the trees, no mistletoebirds were in sight.

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Black-Faced Cuckoo Shrike
Golden Whistler - Until now I'd only heard the whistlers and not seen them, they respond readily if you whistle at them. But this guy decided to reveal himself fully.
Grey Fantail
Laughing Kookaburra
Magpie
Muir Corella
Red Wattlebird
Shining Bronze Cuckoo
Silvereye
Striated Pardalote
Tree Martin
Wedgetailed Eagle
Welcome Swallow
Western Gerygone


Birds on the farm 19 - 21/11/04

The farm consists of a few paddocks with sheep and cows and a bluegum plantation (bluegums are planted due to their deep roots, which helps aleviate the salinity problem). It was wonderful to be woken by splendid fairwrens and white-winged trillers. I didn't get the opportunity to check out the bluegums but the small area of bush around the front driveway was a great patch for birds. Most of this list was viewed there. I got 3 new birds in the front patch alone!

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Common Bronzewing
Grey Fantail
Inland Thornbill
Laughing Kookaburra
Magpie
Muir Corella - These guys get noisy at times, but it's a pleasant, country sound.
Red Wattlebird
Splendid Fairywren - These were hopping about on the fence around the house and under people's cars.
Striated Pardalote
Swamp Harrier
Tree Martin
Varied Sitella
Welcome Swallow
Western Gerygone
Western Rosella
White-Browed Scrubwren
White-Faced Heron
Willie Wagtail
Western Yellow Robin - FINALLY! All through the camp people kept telling me they'd seen yellow robins. There were some just down the front of the property. In the morning before I left I had one last check. I heard a strange sound and looked at this tree and there was a yellow robin just sitting there as if to say "Here I am, happy now?" A pair of them gave me many good views. Bright bright yellow underneath.
Restless Flycatcher
Magpie Lark
White-Winged Triller - LOTS of these on the property gave me a good opportunity to remember their call and get a good look at them.
Dusky Woodswallow
Black-Faced Cuckoo Shrike
Square Tailed Kite


Glenoran Pool/One-Tree Bridge/Four Aces - Midday 21/11/04

I stopped off here on the way home and spent about 2 hours wandering around this area of Karri forest.

28 Parrot
Australian Raven
Dusky Moorhen - In a farm dam across the road.
Dusky Woodswallow
Eurasian Coot - In the dam.
Fan-tailed Cuckoo - Many of these guys calling.
Golden Whistler
Grey Fantail
Grey Shrike-Thrush
Laughing Kookaburra
Magpie
Red Wattlebird
Red-Winged Fairywren
Shining Bronze Cuckoo
Silvereye
Spotted Pardalote - Flew down very near to me and let me get a good look.
Striated Pardalote
Tree Martin
Western Gerygone
Western Rosella - I almost got a great photo of one of these guys, but it flew away before I could take the shot. :(
White-Breasted Robin - Many of these. In my field guide one is pictured with an insect in its mouth. One of the robins I watched sat there with a rather large insect in its mouth! Gorgeous little birds.
White-Cheeked Honeyeater
White-Eyed Duck - In the dam.
White-Naped Honeyeater - High up in a karri tree.
Wood Duck - In the dam.


Lake Clifton Boardwalk - Late afternoon 21/11/04

Lake Clifton is one of a chain of saline lakes between the Harvey Esturary and the ocean. They were cut off by dune systems in the last ice age and therefore have a similar salinity to the ocean. The two largest lakes - Clifton and Preston are RAMSAR wetlands. Got here at the wrong time of day. The tide was right in so there wasn't a wader in sight.

Australian Sheduck
Grey Fantail
Little Black Cormorant
Silvereye
Western Gerygone
White-Faced Heron
A pair of Ospreys nesting in a tree on the main road nearby.
A flock of Straw-Necked Ibis flying across the road nearby.


Other animals seen...
Grey Kangaroo
Bobtail Skink - Got some great close up photos of him trying to scare me away. They open their mouths and try to look big and scary.
Slender Tree Frog - Lots of these on the Baumea reed at Red Lake.
Quacking Froglet (Crinia georgiana)
Gould's Monitor
Pobblebonk Frog
Tiger Snake - almost ran over this guy.
loads of Oblong Tortoise shells
On the trees and reeds near Red Lake were countless shells of cicadas, dragonflies and damselflies. It must have been the moulting area. Dragonflies and damselflies were abundant among the Baumea.
Saw some Gambusia fish and a similar native fish in Red Lake as well.


So there you have it. Squillions of birds and some other animals.
 
Gemfyre said:
I stopped off here on the way home and spent about 2 hours wandering around this area of Karri forest.
:clap: :clap: :clap:

About jarrah - what's the situation: I see there is activism to protect these trees, but yet they are marketed around the world as building material. So they are legally cut?

Karri from snow-man's-land
 
There's very little old growth Jarrah left. The majority of it is replanted or restored forest.

It's still logged with gusto, but replanting schemes are a lot more effective now. Large areas are also felled so the underlying soil can be mined for bauxite. That wood is also sold and I've actually been to one of Alcoa's mine sites where they rehabilitate the area afterwards and due to the millions they can put into such projects they do a pretty good job.

Ideally you wouldn't chop it down in the first place, but people keep demanding resources so I guess good restoration is the next best thing. I just finished a unit on Environmental Restoration so I'm pretty full bottle on it all right now. *empties brain* exams are over now.
 
Just remembered another thing.

The big uproar at the moment is over the Ludlow Tuart forest which was the last stand of tall Tuart in the world (tall just being the growth form, there are old patches of the shorter growing Tuarts around). That forest unfortunately is now being logged to mine mineral sands. It will be restored, but I really wonder if these companies realise it takes in order of 500 years to get back to how it was with understorey and nesting hollows and what-have-you.
 
Great stuff, Gemfyre, I would loved to have been there on that trip. It really whets my appetite for a trip to WA, not least to see Splendid Fairy-wren. I must go to WA on my next trip down under (along with Tasmania, Darwin, Alice, Victoria, Cape York - it could be a long trip at this rate....)

As for Little Bittern, the local birdos told me when I was in Brisbane last month that the Australian race was now considered a separate species, Black-backed Bittern (Ixobrychus novaezelandiae) which was fine by me because it meant it was a lifer!

I also liked your description of the Purple Swamphen's call "like a women being murdered." Hope you don't hear the real thing too often. According to Pizzey and Knight there's another Aussie night bird which has a blood-curdling call "a human-like sobbing" if I remember rightly, and that's Barking Owl. A Brisbane birder I spoke to said when he first heard it he was convinced that a woman was having her throat cut in the immediate vicinity of his tent! Not the ideal recipe for a good night's sleep in the bush.

E
 
Splendid Fairywrens are very easy to see over here if you're in the right spot.

Februrary this year I chased a pair of barking owls around my parent's neighbourhood. Apparently they are kinda rare to start with and being in such an urban area (Perth foothills) was cause for the woman from the raptor place that I had a chat to to demand I report them if they show up again (I've told my parents to keep and eye and an ear out). 14 years living in that house and I never saw a single owl. 3 months after I move out and a pair of rare owls shows up.

Anyway yeah, the noise they made was the horrid screaming sound too. At first I thought it was bats or something. They also make a sound that sounds precisely like an annoying yappy dog barking, but my pair never made that sound.
 
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