The Kimberley ~ Part One

26 Years Sober.

At our bush-camp on a ridiculously idyllic, wilderness riverside in The Kimberley, a Huntsman Spider the size of a child’s hand was hiding in my boot the other morning. I had slipped the boots on my bare feet and somehow I walked around sharing the boot with the spider for about five minutes. Seemingly it suffered no ill affects, but then it bit me. I suffered no ill affects either (it did sting a bit). It was an amazing way on 16 April 2016 to begin to my 26th year of sobriety. That this once massively addicted alcoholic (who was also agoraphobic) is now twenty-six years sober and out in the utter wilderness, and loving it, is just about unbelievable. Hell, it is unbelievable, but believe it. And I am grateful.

We entered the Kimberley on Thursday, 14 April and before we made our first camp, we had Sandstone Shrike-thrush. Tick!

Sandstone Shrike-thrush        

We were exploring a bit of this amazing wilderness with our new friend, George Swann. Thank you, Nigel, for introducing us! George knows The Kimberley better than anyone, and we are incredibly fortunate that it worked out for him to accompany us on a little birding trek across this amazingly wild part of Oz.

We made our first bush-camp somewhere out amongst it well off the famous Gibb River Road. It was a gorgeous evening (no humidity!). It was mostly clear and we ended up setting our scopes up to look at the sky. We saw planets! I saw the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn! Just wow. That is an experience I will never forget. I am so grateful.
     

George and Lynn heading back toward our first bush-camp.

We began the next day birding around the dams near where we had bush-camped. Then we headed off bright and early along the Gibb and over the course of the day we picked up seven Life Birds! I will let the photos below mostly tell the tale.
     

Northern Rosella

Pictorella Mannakin

Silver-backed Butcherbird recording shot, sort of               

Lynn on the rocks

The view directly in front of Lynn where a White-quilled Rock-pigeon hopped up on that rock. It then flew to our left where I made its photo. We were doing a bit of "rock hopping" here. More about that in part two.

 

The lovely White-quilled Rock-pigeon

We headed away from the rocks to find three more lovely life birds.

     

Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens! We have now seen all of the Fairy-wrens. I love them all. We saw more Purple-crowns later in the week and I will have a few more photos of them in the next blog. 

Banded Honeyeater. We had looked for them around Broome with no joy. We saw lots of them in the Kimberley, but this was our first little group. 

The absolutely beautiful Varied Lorikeet. I just did not expect them to be that beautiful.

The day ended with the lovely camp mentioned in the first paragraph. Lynn even went down the river that night (the moon-brightness here is amazing) and had a wash-up on a big flat rock. She is far more comfortable going bush than anyone would have imagined. I am grateful.

As usual, these blogs are being written in bits and pieces over several days. I am in fact writing this part on Monday 18 April. We are exhausted and exhilarated, thrilled and dazed. I will go into more of that in Part Two, but now I am going to take an actual shower! I am oh, so grateful!

Stay tuned for Part Two and the quest for the Black Grasswren!

Birds. Peace. Love.

Broome Bird Observatory ~ Part Four

We have been at BBO for far longer than we expected, but it has been a wonderful stay. We are leaving in just a couple of days. The birding has slowed down, as it must. We have seen most everything we could reasonably hope for and more. We have wonderful new friends in Nigel and Jaime, and in Graffy and Dave. The tribe expands. My US bird friends would effortlessly dovetail into these wonderful Aussie bird friends. I am so grateful for this place, these people and this whole opportunity to explore and bird so much of Oz.

To catch up… we haven’t been doing all that much. Lynn and I chased Roseate Terns earlier last week and with two visits to their roost, we got them. And by we I mean, Lynn. We were at Willie Creek (there is a pearl farm there, no we did not buy any pearls). I was scoping through the scores of terns as best I could across a couple of hundred meters of water. Then Lynn had one fly up and out toward us, I missed it, but she had cracking views of a flying Roseate. I continued with the scope and got some long distance views as well and I was and am, grateful.
   

This digi-scoped photo looks as if it were drawn by a child with pastels, but that one in the middle with the long bill is a Roseate Tern (I think).

On Sunday, I walked the soles off my Keen sandals (literally, they are wrecked) as Nigel and Dave and I walked about a kilometer to view the other point at Willie Creek. Unfortunately, the flock that Lynn and I had seen, which was almost all Roseates and Commons, was not there and we saw no Roseates, but we had a nice walk in the 40+ degree heat along the shade-less beach (there was an excellent breeze though). And to get within a kilometer of the point, Troopi rolled us through some ridiculously deep, soft sand and some big holes. My confidence in my girl builds. I am very grateful.
   

They have gone a lot of miles, but they are now done. They did get me back to Troopi.

Dave and Nigel at the beginning of the long walk to the point.

A White-winged Black Tern gliding over a few of the others at the point. The large flock of common-type terns that Lynn and I had seen was evidently elsewhere.

And then, Monday was a surprise boat trip! Nigel asked us if we wanted to go out on a fishing boat that we could bird from as well. It was a beautiful boat, a much more comfortable boat than on any pelagic I have done (Brian’s big boat in Hatteras is quite comfy, but this was broader with much more seating in the shade). We left from the beach. There’s a little amphibious boat that drives up onto the beach to collect everyone. It was very cool.
     

The little amphibious boat is to their left and the boat we are going on is to their right.

About an hour offshore, almost the first bird we spotted was the Streaked Shearwater that we were hoping for. It had been a nemesis bird for Nigel, and it would be a lifer for Lynn and me. We ended up seeing a lot of them. Tick! I am grateful. I also had proper looks at Roseate Terns (finally). All in all it was a very comfortable, enjoyable day. The seas were also ridiculously calm. We saw quite a few turtles (Loggerheads I believe) and sea snakes as well as the occasional pods of dolphin.

Heading out... 

Streaked Shearwater

Mackerel Tuna feeding on the surface (there's one jumping out of the water on the right).

Roseate Tern in the middle there.

Roseate Tern going by the boat (photo: Nigel Jackett)

   

Sea Snake (do not know what kind).

Hutton's Shearwater

Streaked Shearwater Lifer Selfie for Lynn, Nigel and me.

There were about a dozen fishing persons, all bottom-fishing with bait and catching a fish now and then. Since the birding was slow, I asked if I could use the rod with a jig on it for a bit and see what happened. They said I could (I had not paid to fish, so it was nice of them- I also told them if I caught anything, the boat could keep it). I caught three fish! The fish in the photo is a Blue Lined Emperor. Evidently I can still work a jig right well. That really was fun. It had been a very long time since I caught a fish. This was my first fish in the Indian Ocean and come to think of it, in the southern hemisphere period. I am grateful.
     

The Old Man and the Sea back in his element.

Lots coming up, stay tuned I will keep y’all posted! Sending good vibes to all from northwestern Western Australia.

Birds. Peace. Love.

Broome Bird Observatory ~ Lynn's 600th

And on Saturday, 2 April 2016 Lynn Richardson saw her 600th bird species in Australia. And then saw two more for a total of 602. Yay! I am so deeply grateful. But first, let’s catch up…

Friday afternoon, following a morning of looking at Little Curlews at the ovals (see blog before this one) then hanging out in the library, we hunkered into our air-conditioned room here figuring to have a nap. Then there was a tap on the door. Jamie Jackett said in a put-on American accent (she is Canadian), “I got y’all a plover.” Meaning that John Graff had located an Oriental Plover in a flock of waders only about a kilometer from the Observatory. It is a bird that they all knew we wanted badly. She gave us directions and we leapt into Troopi and took off. Soon, after much sand and dirt flying, we rocked up (literally) behind John’s BBO Landcruiser overlooking the bay, and were soon having beautiful views of this awesome plover. Although he was leading a paying tour, they had waited for us to get there and see that one bird. Very cool! And I was and am, very grateful! It also put Lynn’s Aussie life list at 599.
   

Oriental Plover right there in the middle.

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dark and rolled out of the Observatory at 5:30am for a morning of birding with Nigel and John. We were heading inland to look for some new birds. After about an hour’s drive, we arrived at a lagoon, and in just minutes, Nigel had us Painted Finch. A bird that Lynn and I had dipped on repeatedly, a bird that is stunningly beautiful and a bird that put Lynn’s Australian life list at 600 species.

Painted Finches at last (four in this shot).

Lynn's #600 official Lifer Selfie with Nigel Jackett and me.

I am so grateful that Lynn is a birder. That simple sentence means more to me than I can put into words. It is wonderful to be able to share this noble passion. I do get a bit more (too much perhaps?) intense about it, but I do. So I will just say again simply that I am so grateful that she is a birder!

As we continued to look around the lagoon area, John said, “Flock Bronzewing! Flying over those two cows.” We both got straight on it and we had about ten full seconds of watching a flying Flock Bronzewing. Tick 601, I am very grateful (and once again, thank you, John!).

We headed along to another stop at a dry lake and amongst the trees nearby, once again, Graffy (as John Graff is sometimes called) found us a life bird, Yellow-tinted Honeyeater. We have heard that they will be ubiquitous further along our journey, but this one was our first. So it popped Lynn to 602! I am grateful.
       

Yellow-tinted Honeyeater

Sunday we headed to town for a bit of Honeyeater looking, checking the flowering trees. We saw quite a few Honeyeaters included a stunner of a gorgeous “Golden-backed” Black-chinned, but alas, no Banded Honeyeater yet. I honed my honeyeater pishing skills and had crazy success with Brown Honeyeaters. I thought they might perch on my head at times. We will keep looking. Sadly, the library is closed on Sunday, so there was no wifi and a/c time for us there, and this blog did not get posted.
               

Red-collared Lorikeet... so lovely and an armchair tick for us a while back.

Black-chinned Honeyeater (once called the Golden-backed Honeyeater and you can see why) 

Brown Honeyeaters love my pishing.

So now it is Monday and we are at the library... after a frustrating morning looking at hundreds of terns (some of which were probably Roseate) on a sandbar about a kilometer from the land. Our scope is good, but not that good. We needed an astronomer’s telescope… or a boat. 

Terns... hundreds of them... they were on both ends of that sandbar WAY out there.

We birded a bit on the way into town before having a bite and hitting the library. I am grateful indeed. Stay tuned there will be more coming soonish...
       

Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos on the way back into town.

Pheasant Coucal, always a cool bird to see.

Lifer on Saturday, 'town bird' on Monday... Yellow-tinted Honeyeater. 

Birds. Peace. Love.

Broome Bird Observatory ~ Part Two

Ok… let’s catch up. Tuesday, Lynn and I were checking the sports ovals in town (possibly Little Curlew or Oriental Plover) when we saw a snipe lounging in the shade of some trees. We watched it for a while without getting any determining looks or photos. Then the maintenance truck flushed it and it seemed to have flown “away.” Later in the day we saw it and two more on the same ovals. So there were three snipe hanging about there. John and Dave came by, but again no one could get an i.d. look or photo. That means we had three Pin-tailed/Swinhoe’s Snipe.

Wednesday morning early and reasonably bright, Lynn and I hit the double oval again and there in the shade of the few trees between the ovals were three snipe. We began stalking them, with me holding the camera ready should they spread their tails (Google: Pin-tailed vs Swinhoes and see the difficulty in determining which is which. I will not go into it here. Just realize that basically you have to see the tail spread). A Magpie Lark bothered two of them and I managed a poor, yet possibly identifiable photo. I sent it to Nigel and it was! He confirmed it as a Swinhoe’s. Other photos were taken later, and at one point it was thought we also had a Pin-tailed, but that was premature identification. However, we definitively had Swinhoe’s (at least two) and that is a wonderful thing and I am grateful!
       

The first i.d. shot... Swinhoe's!

Swinhoe's Snipe

After the ovals, Lynn and I went into the shops to pick up a couple of things and I got a call from Adrian Boyle. He was looking at a Eurasian Curlew at Crab Creek. Since Lynn and I had twitched the one at Bunbury last month, we were not going to dash down to mangroves to try and see it. Then we found out that he had also seen Little Curlew! A bird that we badly wanted, but the tide was rising and we could not get from town to the creek in time (the tides here are massive, running about 8 meters now I think).

Thursday morning a Brown Goshawk gave me a glare and then said good morning to me while I had my coffee. 

     

Shot through the fly-screen but I love that "stink eye" look that he is giving me.

I think he said good morning.

Then a bit later in the morning, Lynn and I headed down to catch the tide at the correct level and (hopefully) get out and have a look for the Little Curlew. Our new friend, John Graff, the Assistant Warden here at the BBO, was also heading out to have a look for the Eurasian Curlew. We followed him down the beach and then through the mangroves out to view the mudflats.

Our intrepid leader, John Graff doing what he does.

There were a lot of waders out on those flats. John went out about 100 meters further (we opted-out on crossing the little tidal rivulet with the really sinky mud). So we were scoping from our vantage point when he phoned to say he had the Little Curlew. It was straight out across from us! Quite a ways, but we got smashing scope views of this beautiful shorebird. I took the following photos. (Nigel is going to try and teach Lynn and me to digiscope with the iPhone. We will see). SO we got Little Curlew and I am really grateful! We have more days here and there will be more birds and blogs to come.
     

Little Curlew! Worth the mud, sweat and more sweat.

Well, here I am in the Broome Library again. It is Friday morning and Lynn and I began our day birding the point at the port, and the point at the lighthouse. They can be “migrant traps,” but not this morning. On our way back into town, we decided to check the sports ovals where we’d seen the snipe and much to our surprise had three Little Curlews! Such is birding. Yesterday’s mud slog to get a distant (but excellent) view of a lifer and then having 3 of them together and viewable from the air conditioned comfort of Troopi. Of course we got out and looked, scoped and got some photos. I am grateful.

Three Little Curlews! Less than 24 hours later... no mud or mangroves and closer.       

An Osprey flew over and they all crouched and watched it.

We are still here in Broome and we may hide out here at the BBO a bit longer than we had planned. There are wonderful birds and people here, and some air conditioning. This unseasonable heat wave is continuing (110F in the shade yesterday afternoon).


Birds. Peace. Love.