WESTERN SHRIKETIT AT LAST
I was very frustrated last year when I dipped on the Western Shriketit after having seen (with some effort) the supposedly more difficult Northern Shriketit. This time I was determined not to fail. So succeed I did! Thank you, Des Hume! I was advised not to travel during school holidays (always good advice) but I had not considered that it is best not to travel the day after school holidays either. My plane flight to Perth on Monday 15 April was uncomfortably full and I thought I'd have been better off travelling on another day. However, when my trip home to Melbourne from Perth on the following Thursday was equally uncomfortably full, I revised this opinion and decided there was little I could do to ensure a comfortable flight. Des picked me up from my hotel at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning and we drove straight to the Stirling Range, pausing only for coffee at Kojanup and arriving comfortably in time for lunch. We stayed at the Stirling Range Retreat and immediately checked out the famous water bowl by the office where the shriketits come to drink. Of course there was nothing there. It wasn't going to be that easy.
There were lots of Gilbert's Honeyeaters and Restless Flycatchers around the office and we heard owlet-nightjars, but did not see them. We wandered around and it wasn't long before Des heard shriketits call. Very quickly we were on to them: three birds, two males and a female.
Despite having missed the birds on my first attempt, I'd have to agree that the Western Shriketit is not as difficult as the Northern Shriketit. We went for a walk and soon saw another male. Then a large flock of Carnaby's Black Cockatoos flew very low over our heads. It was breathtaking. We enjoyed Elegant Parrots and Brown-headed Honeyeaters. After tea, I asked if we could go spotlighting, because we knew there were at least owlet-nightjars in the vicinity. We donned head torches and walked around the retreat, seeing lots of wolf spiders and one golden orb, and that's it. Not a hint of any bird or mammal. I ended the day with a list of 39 birds I'd seen, not a spectacularly large number, but who cares when there's a lifer amongst them? On Wednesday, we had just one task: drive back to Perth. Of course I wanted to see as many Western Australian species as possible in my very limited time, but I thought my time might be best spent looking for the last race of western whipbird I had not seen. I'd ticked both the White-bellied Whipbirds in South Australia and I'd seen the Black-throated at Two People's Bay, but I'd never seen the Black-throated at the Stirling Range. We decided to give that a try. I had no confidence whatsoever, but I had nothing to lose. I'd come to WA to see a shriketit and I'd done that. So we set off for Mt Trio, arriving at 7.30 a.m. I did not fancy walking through the dense scrub, but Des said we wouldn't do that: we'd stay on the road, and see the birds from there. 'Oh yeah,' I thought. Fat chance. We heard the birds almost immediately. I thought there were three, but Des said it was difficult to tell, they could be moving about. We walked up and down the road, hearing them well. I was quite happy, still enjoying the glow of yesterday's tick. After three hours, I did think fleetingly that perhaps I could have ticked a few more endemics and forgotten about the whipbird when a bird called quite close. We could hear that he turned his head while calling, and when he faced us, he wasn't far away at all. For the first time we ventured into the scrub. Branches were still black from the fire a few years previously and inevitably our clothes were soon striped attractively. Suddenly we saw the bird! It was just a new race for me, but I got as much pleasure out of seeing that bird, as I had the tick I saw the day before.
This photo is by Des Hume, as are the three Western Shriketits above. Thank you, Des for a most enjoyable and extremely successful trip.
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