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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrew Whitehouse" data-source="post: 1554000" data-attributes="member: 3550">Day Ten and Eleven: June 28th-29th, Cheynes Beach, WA to Sydney, NSWIt was still windy the following morning.  I got up early to see if I could find the local Noisy Scrub Bird.  It was singing a hundred metres or so along the road from where I'd left it the previous evening.  Hoping it was heading back towards the caravan site I stood opposite where the bird was singing from.  It went quiet for a minute or two and then started singing again - from a hundred metres back down the track!  Presumably in travelling it must also have crossed a broad side track and been visible.  Darn.  While I was waiting I did see a pair of White-breasted Robins, which was a bit of a consolation.I headed off into the heathland where I heard a rather distant sweet song.  Checking my recordings, I was sure it was a Western Bristlebird and soon there was another one singing.  They would sing for perhaps a minute and then go quiet for ten or fifteen minutes.  Apparently they can sometimes sit up on bushes to sing, but I suspect that in a raging gale this might be less likely.  With neither bird singing from at all close and both of them getting quieter as the day drew on and the winds grew stronger, I didn't have too much hope.  While I was hanging around I did manage to see White-cheeked Honeyeater, Western Spinebill and another White-breasted Robin.I could hear a couple of scrub birds - one rather distantly and the other the 'local' bird, which had moved back to the area around the caravan park.  After a time, I noticed that it seemed to be singing from closer to the road so I headed back from the heath to see if it might become 'seeable'.  Sure enough, it was singing from the corner of the junction with the road into the caravan park and, unless it went back on itself, I knew that it would eventually run across one or other of the roads.  So I stood and waited at the junction.  After several minutes I glimpsed something furtively edging along the road but it disappeared before I could get my bins on it.  Then, maybe a minute later, a Noisy Scrub Bird darted full pelt and head down across the road.  It might have been in view for a couple of seconds, but at least it was a view.I had another go for Western Bristlebird but they were hardly singing at all.  The wind didn't put off raptors too much and I had good views of Nankeen Kestrel, Brown Falcon and a couple of Little Eagles.  But, unfortunately I knew I had to be in Perth around 450km away in 24 hours.  An easy overnight trip for Mr Stratford no doubt, but a bit harder for me, so I had to set off on the long road back to Perth.I actually took a bit of a detour, via Lake Muir, Manjimup and Bridgetown, in the hope of finding some birds on the way.  This didn't entirely work.  Lake Muir looked good but was almost devoid of birds except for Australian Shelducks.  The forests at Bridgetown looked good and I found some Red-capped Parrots and Western Rosellas there, but not the black cockatoos I hoped I might.  By this time it was beginning to rain and, as I drove north, the showers became more and more torrential.  I stayed the night in Harvey, a small town an hour or two south of Perth that I suspect gets very few visitors.  Then I drove up to Perth airport through more downpours the following morning and from there I flew across the continent to Sydney, where I spent the next night before embarking on the next leg of the trip.So that was the southwest: some great birds and mammals, a few misses, some mixed weather and very few people.  And I managed to avoid hitting anything in the car, which was quite a big result for me.Attached are some more recordings from Cheynes Beach.  The first is a very loud recording of Noisy Scrub Bird, which will indicate why they get their name.  The next recording also has a scrub bird on it but is mainly a very quiet recording of Western Bristlebird.</blockquote>

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