A few months ago, Teresa and I decided to go on a pelagic boat trip out of Port Macdonnell to see sea birds, scheduled for May 12th. We had planned to head down to the South East and explore the region for a few days, so when the boat trip was cancelled due to predicted dangerous waves, we decided to go ahead with our trip as planned, with extra time for land birding instead of the pelagic. At 6am on Saturday morning we were off, and headed south-east via Langhorne Creek and the Coorong. We stopped at Parnka Point, where we only travelled a short way down the road to a spot where Teresa had seen Southern Emu-wrens before, and we managed to find them again! There were two or three there, and we managed to get a few shots of one of them. These photos, which aren't brilliant, are my best to date of this difficult-to-photograph species!
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| Southern Emu-wren, Parnka Point |
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| Southern Emu-wren, Parnka Point |
We continued our journey along the Coorong, and our next stop was the Salt Creek loop road. We stopped at the malleefowl mound, found no malleefowl but were tricked by a tree making some noises in the wind that sounded a bit like a malleefowl grunting! We added a few birds to our trip list here, including Scarlet Robin, White-eared Honeyeater, and Grey Fantail.
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| Scarlet Robin (female), Salt Creek |
We reached Kingston SE and the end of the Coorong, and not far out of town we stopped at Butcher Gap Conservation Park. I had never heard of this little park, but Teresa had been before and thought it was worth checking out. We had a really nice encounter with some Beautiful Firetails and got some great close up views. They were feeding on the track as a group, with eleven birds present at one point.
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| Beautiful Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Beautiful Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Beautiful Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Beautiful Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Red-browed Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Red-browed Firetail, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Superb Fairy-wren, Butcher Gap CP |
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| Willie Wagtail, Butcher Gap Conservation Park |
Not long after leaving Butcher Gap, Teresa spotted a raptor soaring along next to the road. She identified it as a Spotted Harrier - a new species for me! We were treated to extended views of this bird soaring along, perching a couple of times, and even having a mid-air altercation with a raven!
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| Spotted Harrier, Princes Highway, Reedy Creek, SA |
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| Spotted Harrier, Princes Highway, Reedy Creek, SA |
Along the same stretch of road we counted at least twelve Brown Falcons, mostly perched on fence posts.
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| Brown Falcon, Princes Highway, Reedy Creek, SA |
Upon further inspection, two of our "Brown Falcons" turned out to be Black Falcons - another lifer for me, one I have dipped on several times previously!
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| Black Falcon, Princes Highway, Reedy Creek, SA |
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| Black Falcon, Princes Highway, Reedy Creek, SA |
We got to Mount Gambier at about 3:30pm, checked into a motel, and headed off to Port Macdonnell for a look around. It was high tide when we arrived, so we didn't get to look for shorebirds, but we did get to see a lot of Black-faced Cormorants on Camel Rock at Cape Northumberland.
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| Cape Northumberland, Port Macdonnell, SA |
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| Cape Northumberland, Port Macdonnell, SA |
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| Black-faced Cormorants, Cape Northumberland |
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| Cape Northumberland, Port Macdonnell, SA |
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| Me and Teresa at the end of our productive first day away! |
We drove around a bit more until it became dark and I was dozing off in the passenger seat. We had a fantastic first day on our South East Adventure, with 72 species in total, including 2 lifers for me, none for Teresa unfortunately as she has already seen a lot more species than me!
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for the rest of our trip :-D
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