One of the things I need to do this year to achieve my goal of 350 species is to get out to some of the peripheral areas in my region. This includes a place called Lake Broadwater, a wonderful reserve south-west of Dalby. I planned to head out there with a number of local birders, armed to the teeth with scopes to look for waterbirds at the lake. Sadly, unlike every other waterbody in south-east QLD, Lake Broadwater is bone dry, and several of the target species we were planning to see on the long trip out there were impossible. Despite this disappointment, we did manage to see quite a few great birds on the day.
We started out with a couple of lazy year ticks on the drive through the Lockyer Valley, with a flock of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (#275) perched by the highway, and a Spotted Harrier (#276) cruising slowly over grasslands as we whizzed past. Stopping for some fuel at Dalby gave us Yellow-throated Miners (#277), another easy (but expected) year bird, as w
ell as being our first of many honeyeaters for the day.
When we reached Lake Broadwater, a quick stop at the lake itself confirmed the futility of trying for waterbirds - there was only a tiny little bit of water left at the boat ramp and the rest of the lake was just gone. So without wasting any time we headed down to the belah and cyprus forest south of the lake to look for our target dry country species. Within a minute of stopping we had Yellow Thornbill (#278) and Inland Thornbill (#279), and these two species were possibly the most abundant birds for the day. A Red-capped Robin (#280) male flitted over the track, giving us our next target for the day. This was the first of quite a few Red-caps for the day, with at least eight pairs being seen during the day, sometimes associating with Eastern Yellow Robins. The circuit walk produced some great bush birds as well as some surprises. A frustrating encounted with a bird that looked like it might have been a Western Gerygone led us to a feeding flock of birds, including Brown and Scarlet Honeyeaters. Further down the track we had a very young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo being frantically fed by Yellow Thornbills, with Rufous Whistlers and Grey Shrike-Thrush calling loudly from the area.
Our group got split up for a little while as some of us chased butterflies and others pressed on down the track. While I was split from the group, I found a White-eared Honeyeater moving through the trees, our only one for the day. Getting back to the others, we found out they had seen a Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater (#281), a difficult bird in SEQ and one I wasn't sure where to look for. I spent a frustrating few minutes looking for it, before one of the others called me from further up the track and pointed another one out in a clump of mistletoe. Our next wave of birds was all small birds, an amazing cluster made up of Speckled Warblers, Weebills, and Yellow-rumped, Yellow, and Inland Thornbills. Then someone saw our last target bird for the day, a Chestnut-rumped Thornbill (#282), somewhere in the flurry. Somehow, everyone but me managed to see this first bird, and I was left to trudge around dejectedly checking all the little birds in the area with
no luck. Fortunately, someone came to my rescue again, and found a little flock of them moving through the bush about 100m from where we started looking. Feeling like a bit of a chump, but very grateful to see this difficult SEQ bird, I hurried over and got great views. All the karma I got for seeing the Black Cockatoos at 100km/h from the car was surely used up by now.
A quick stop back at the lake to eat lunch meant I had a chance to wander through the long grass trying to flush quail or button-quail. Sadly, this produced nothing except a few Singing Bushlarks, a bird we had at Coolmunda Dam earlier in the year, so after this we moved on to the Jandowae area. On our way we had a great encounter. Driving through an area of particularly lush grassland we saw a couple of small brown things scurry across the road. Screeching to a halt, we piled out of the car looking for what had to be a quail of some kind. Sure enough, we flushed a beautiful Stubble Quail from the grass, and then another. I had some more great views of this bird in flight. I was jealous w
hen a few minutes later, Laurie and Andy managed to see one on the ground wandering through the grass, but it was a new species for both of them so I was also very happy for them.
Jandowae is famous in this region as being the home of Painted Honeyeater, a long-shot bird on the day, but one that we have to get this year to reach our target. While there is very little woodland left in the region, the back roads near Jandowae have some remnant Brigalow forest running along the roadside reserves, in some cases heavily loaded with mistletoe. It is the mistletoe that attracts the Painted Honeyeaters, along with some rarer birds such as Black Honeyeater having been seen occasionally. However, on this trip, it wasn't the right time of year for such things, and it was more of an exploration as neither Andrew nor I had been out here before and we wanted to get our bearings. It did produce a couple of new birds for the year, with White-winged Chough (#283) finally putting on an appearance after being strangely absent til now, and Singing Honeyeater (#284) being fairly common in the area. We also lucked onto a small flock of Zebra Finches (#285) which was great, though we would hav
e got these in the Lockyer Valley had we needed to. Our final new bird for the day was found as we were driving home in the late afternoon, with many parrots flying around the road, including Pale-headed Rosellas and Red-rumped Parrots. In amongst these, we found a pair of Bluebonnets (#286) that flushed off the road, and we managed to get some great views for Andy, who hadn't seen them before.
In all it was a great day with 12 new species for me and 11 for Andrew (the Spotted Harrier was one he'd already seen). While the day didn't go remotely as planned, we still got a lot of dry country specialties that we had to get at Broadwater, and we managed to scout out where to go in Jandowae for later in the year.
Total birds to date: 286
Photo 1: Grey Fantail, Lake Broadwater
Photo 2: Satin Azure, Lake Broadwater
Photo 3: Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Jandowae
Photo 4: Singing Honeyeater, Jandowae
cessible). All up there must have been well over 5000 birds. We were mainly looking for Asian Dowitcher, a very rare bird locally and one I don't really expect to get for the year. Sadly, today I was right, with nothing presenting itself. We did have a small flock of Black-tailed Godwits in amongst the thousands of Bar-tailed Godwits, and a pair of Grey Plovers were also good for the site. The stars of the show, however, were the birds in breeding plumage. By early March, many of the migratory shorebirds are ready to start migrating, and one of the first things we noticed on arrival at the site was the Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers in stunning breeding plumage. As the day progressed we saw Pacific Golden Plover and Curlew Sandpipers in partial breeding plumage, and a couple of Bar-tailed Godwits resplendent in their blood-red plumage. After spending an hour going through each bird at the site carefully, we finally admitted there probably wasn't anything rare at the site. Having made this admission, I promptly found a Double-banded Plover (#287) in non-breeding plumage, just to prove me wrong. Now these birds aren't really that rare in Brisbane, it's just that right now they are meant
to all be in New Zealand. I'm not sure whether this was a very very early non-breeding arrival from NZ, or a bird that decided to stay in Aus instead of migrating home (how unlike a Kiwi!), but either way it was a big surprise to see one in February.
