Saturday 4 December 2010

Albany to Cheynes Beach, WA


Elegant Parrot

Brush Bronzwing

Elegant Parrot pair

Red-capped Parrots with Ring-neck Parrot

Western Rosellas

Brown Falcon

Approach to Cheynes Beach (double rainbow)

After two weeks of filming around the south-west corner of WA I took the opportunity to go to Cheynes Beach near Albany - one of very few homes for the Noisy Scrub-bird.

Me and the talent, Ashley and Kylie, who turned out to be accomplished ornithologists (WT!) had a crack at the site at Two People's Bay a couple of days before with no luck. Although, we did hear the other two birds you have to pick up around here: Western Bristlebird and Western Whipbird.

Despite a full day's stakeout I didn't get a sighting here either although I was witness to a good half an hour of singing. Here's a quick snippet of the end notes.

The other highlight was getting my first good sighting of Brush Bronzewing (after four years of living with a stringy one).

The drive home was great too with c.20 Elegant Parrot (new for me), 30+ Red-capped Parrot, c.10 Western Rosella and more Common Bronzewing than I've ever seen, all feeding on the side of the highway.

NB. If you do go to Cheynes Beach to look for NSB, WBB and WWB, be sure to check in at the general store. They keep an excellent book pinpointing recent sightings of all three. Thanks too to Frank O'Connor's excellent WA site (http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au/)

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Albany, WA