OPALTON GRASSWREN

I'm just back from a quick trip to Winton, to look for the Opalton Grasswren. I flew to Longreach, that took a day. First I flew to Brisbane, then Barcaldine, then (finally) Longreach. From Longreach, the next day I took the Greyhound bus to Winton (and a beautiful new bus it was too!). The following day I joined Peter Waanders grasswren tour just for the day, to look for the Opalton Grasswren. Then I reversed the procedure: it took me a day to do a two hour bus trip back to Longreach, and a day to fly home to Melbourne. Four days travel and one day birding. Now what could be stressful in that? The streets in Longreach are all named after birds: east/west streets are water birds; north/south streets are land birds. What a great idea!

The bus trip from Longreach to Winton was very comfortable and I saw some nice birds from the bus. Amongst others there were lots of Brown Songlarks, a lone Brown Falcon, and, best of all, several Australian Bustards. I reckon I saw eight in ones and twos. I thought this was pretty good, until I met up with Peter's group that evening. They had driven to Winton from Mt Isa and had seen ten times as many! Eighty bustards is quite a record. I had limited time in Longreach, but I did not see a sparrow. Winton, on the other hand, has a healthy population of House Sparrows. There were also a few Common Mynas. The most common birds around town are Black Kites and Crested Pigeons. There are also lots of budgies, Cockatiels and Peaceful Doves. I had time to do the touristy things: I visited the Waltzing Matilda Centre and Arno's Wall (just a concrete wall with various items embedded in it) and the site of Queensland's last Chinese market garden. I went to the cooling ponds (Winton uses artesian water, which is very hot when it comes to the surface). Here I saw several noisy Rufous Songlarks, but little else. But the purpose of my trip was to look for grasswren, not songlarks. I was confident about achieving my objective. Everyone I knew who'd set out to see an Opalton Grasswren had been successful. Realistically, my chances of seeing one were very good.

Opalton Grasswren are found at the Lark Quarry turnoff, near a large communication tower. The countryside was unbelievably green. We'd been told to wear jeans or even gaiters, but all the spinifex was soft and green and leg protection was not necessary. Unfortunately it was very windy when we arrived, not good birding conditions. Peter instructed us to stay together as a group, and to stay very quiet. As we set off, I felt all yesterday's optimism evaporate. This would go down in history as the first birding tour ever to dip on Opalton Grasswren. We would walk all day in this wind without glimpsing a grasswren. I would probably twist my ankle and get sunburned. Worse, I would fall over in front of everybody and break my other hip.

We left the motel at 6.30 a.m., paused briefly along the way to admire Hall's Babblers, and arrived at the Lark Quarry turnoff at 8 a.m.

By ten minutes past eight, we'd all had good views of the grasswren, as confirmed by this beautiful photo taken by Andrew Hobbs. How easy was that! In fact, except for the Dusky Grasswren that ran around under my feet at King's Canyon, it is the easiest grasswren I have ever seen. We walked around for a while, and kept seeing grasswren. Peter reckoned there were just two pairs that kept circling around us, but it certainly seemed like more than four birds to me. Then we turned our attention to Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens, which are delightful little birds, but, on this occasion, after a lifer, seemed like an anticlimax. We saw both Black and Pied Honeyeaters and Splendid and Purple-backed Fairywrens. Crimson Chats were common and one beautiful male Red-capped Robin wanted to make friends. We had excellent views of a Red-backed Kingfisher. Later, we visited Winton's sewage ponds where the highlight was Plum-headed Finches. An excellent trip! A great bird. Well worth four days' travel!