Friday 3 January 2020

Western Australia Trip Report

My final tour of 2019 was to one of my favorite spots, Western Australia.

Before my tour started I did a bit of twitching around Perth for a couple of Mega Australian birds - firstly Crested (formerly called Oriental) Honey Buzzard and then Eurasian Hobby. These birds are covering a large area of foraging habitat and so can be really difficult to pin down at times. I got the Crested Honey Buzzard on the second go, largely thanks to the gen of ace local birders Dan and Plaxy who gave me the spot to view them as they leave their roost site. I actually had 2 birds up in the air together, they were even displaying which was awesome to see - the old "butterfly flap"! The Eurasian Hobby was tougher still and that took three attempts, but amusingly it was the first bird of prey seen on my tour! Some way to start the tour.

For the tour itself I went from Perth, down to Dryandra (home of the Numbat - which we saw), into the Stirling Ranges, down to the stunning coastline at Cheynes Beach, across through some very dry landscapes to the tip of the southwest of Australia at Cape Leeuwin before we completed our loop back to Perth via Busselton.

All of the SW endemics fell into place, along with the near-endemics. We got absolutely spectacular views (and even photos) of the Noisy Scrubbird, one of the toughest birds in Australia to see/photograph, along with Black-throated Whipbird (formerly Western Whipbird before the recent split), Western Bristlebird - my third and final of the Bristlebirds for the year.

Other targets fell nicely into place such as Crested Shriketit (Western subspecies and likely split), Western Whistler, White-breasted Robin, Western Yellow Robin, Blue-breasted Fairywren, Red-winged Fairywren, Western Wattlebird, Western Spinebill, Gilbert's Honeyeater, Spotted Scrubwren, Rufous Treecreeper, Carnaby's Black Cockatoo, Baudin's Black Cockatoo, Red-capped Parrot, Western Rosella, Western Corella, and Red-eared Firetail.

Lots of other 'good' birds too like Little Eagle, Hooded Dotterel, Australian Fairy Tern, Rock Parrot, Square-tailed Kite, Blue-billed Duck, Splendid Fairywren, Scarlet Robin, Varied Sittella, and Red-capped Robin.

Here are some pics....

Noisy Scrubbird

Black-throated Whipbird

Western Bristlebird

Australian Hobby

Baudin's Black Cockatoo

Blue-billed Duck

Blue-breasted Fairywren

Brown Songlark

Carnaby's Black Cockatoo

Western Crested Shriketit

Western Crested Shriketit

Grey Currawong

Grey-tailed Tattler

Hooded Plover

Jacky Winter

Laughing Dove

Little Eagle

Rainbow Lorikeet

Red Wattlebird

Red-capped Plover

Red-capped Robin

Rock Parrot

Scarlet Robin

Splendid Fairywren

Square-tailed Kite

Western Corella

Western Whistler

Western Yellow Robin

Whistling Kite

White-breasted Robin

Willie Wagtail

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