BOWRA SANCTUARY - Part 2

All up during our five day stay at Bowra we saw nearly 80 species of birds, the most conspicuous being the smaller bush birds. Some were easier to photograph than others, but my main aim when birding is to observe and enjoy the experience as a whole and if I get a decent image that's a bonus. 

Jacky Winter

Rufous Songlark

Zebra Finch

I still like to add new birds to my life list though, and did when I found a small group of Hall's Babblers in the thick Mulga scrub about 8 km from the Homestead, pishing one inquisitive bird in for a good look at it's identifying features. It didn't hang around for a photo though and was quickly flying and bouncing off with rest of the mob.    

Diamond Dove

Splendid Fairy-wren - female

A bird I failed to find even after some diligent searching around a known area for them was the Chestnut-breasted Quail-thrush, a cryptically patterned ground bird that obviously blends in well with it's preferred habitat.

Stony Ridge - spot the Quail-thrush!

While walking along looking for the elusive Quail-thrush I nearly bumped into the massive web of this  large spider. The females can measure up to 45mm in body length and the male a puny 6mm. 

 Orb Weaver

The image below along with the Brolgas in my previous post is a favourite, primarily because I very rarely snaffle three or more birds in one frame unless it's a distant flock of waders or such.  

Hooded Robins - 2 males and a female

Red-capped Robin

Bowra is renowned for its birds of prey and we saw seven varieties there. The bird list has 19 raptor species including Grey Falcon (seen on our previous visit) and Black Falcon, one that still eludes me and my official bogey bird.    

Brown Falcon

Black-shouldered Kite

  

Black-breasted Buzzard

Black-breasted Buzzard

Bowra Sanctuary is managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, an organization that owns 23 sanctuaries across Australia and well worth supporting. 

See here for more info: http://www.australianwildlife.org/Bowra.aspx

Bourke's Parrot

Cheers & Happy Birding

A VISIT TO GLUEPOT

After our Murray-Sunset encounter in early March, we continued on north and west along the Murray River into South Australia with the aim of a visit to Gluepot Reserve, part of a huge area of intact mallee bushland, and managed by Birdlife Australia. 

On our way there one of our overnight stays was in a public park next to the rail line at a little town called Underbool, where we watched the sunset over the grain silos nearby.   

Underbool sunset

A few encounters with some locals gave me a couple of of photo opportunities.   

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo

Apostle Birds

Black Kite

After the drive in along the 50km of rough and in parts sandy road, we arrived at the reserve

and got our bearings at the fantastic information centre near the rangers residence.

Gluepot information centre

After finding a suitable camp site we settled in, and made the most of the glorious weather over the next few days, driving the tracks and walking the numerous trails looking for birds and enjoying the unique beauty of our surrounds. 

At the "Babbler" camp site

The watering points scattered through the 126,000 acre reserve are a great way to spot some of the resident bird life and the pigeons below were one of the more prevalent attendees.  

Common Bronze-wings

Grey Currawong

This native shrub was one of the few plants flowering at the time of our visit. 

Unidentified Mallee shrub

A sunning Bearded Dragon is usually an easy subject to photograph, not like some of those pesky things with wings.

Although the two birds below behaved themselves and stayed within range.

Red-Capped Robin - male

Jacky Winter

While we were unsuccessful in locating some of our target species such as the enigmatic Scarlet-chested Parrots that had been seen here in recent times, and the rare Mallee Fowl (not for lack of trying!), a bonus was a small flock of Regent Parrots that landed in a tree close to where I was searching for the SCP's, on our last morning there. Not a tick for the life list, but a bird I had seen only at a distance previously. This race (the other being found in south west WA) is classed as an endangered species and I felt privileged to get a good look at these lovely birds.

Regent Parrots

We had a great stay here and observed close to 50 species all up including 3 lifers: Chestnut Quail-Thrush, White-browed Treecreeper and Gilbert's Whistler. Some great information available at this site: http://www.riverland.net.au/gluepot/