It's happened to me a number of times, I've been out looking for a particular species, spent so much time listening, watching and waiting and finally 2 seconds before packing it all in - the blasted bird appears! Sometimes it won't be the 'target' species but something just as peculiar or even more staggering...to the point where at times I've felt like I've won Avian Lotto...anyway, pour yourself a hot cup of something and let me begin....
Note: this could get very 'Mills & Boon' as it 'evolves'..or very 'Mind-numbing & Boring'....you've been warned!
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THE BIG ONE.
As I have mentioned in the last entry, I lived in the remote NW of South Australia for a number of years. I did most of my birding alone. One Saturday in May 2010 I spent the morning out on some remote 4WD tracks stopping at intervals of roughly 1km or wherever the vegetation seemed to change markedly. I wasn't looking for much in particular as I had driven much of this track almost every weekend for the last 4 months. I went home after a relatively quiet morning and on my way back into the community one of the roving relief teachers based in our spot was home for the weekend. He waved me down as I drove the one-way road toward home. He asked if I'd seen much in my travels, I replied with a dull, "no..." he asked if I planned to go out again that evening, I hadn't planned to but I hadn't really had a good whinge all week so I said, "sure....see you at 5:00pm". Soon enough 5:00 rolled around and me and my incredibly fast-talking friend were on our way back down the very track that I had scoured hours earlier.
At this point I must explain that my friend talks at a-mile-a-minute, I am a fast/non-stop blabberer but he makes me feel like an amateur. Anyway, we're driving along and he asks, "So.... what are you looking for?" I explain that nothing out of the ordinary usually shows itself in the far west until the hotter and wetter seasons bear down around October/November and to 'just look and listen and point out anything unusual'. He assures me that he's a good observer and with all of his km's under his belt on the APY Lands he's well qualified to spot ANYTHING out of the ordinary. For a moment I start thinking, "hey...maybe I should do this with him more often ....hmmmm, he does see a lot of the country and he's dead keen....bit too much yabbering, but 4 eyes are better than.........." when all of a sudden he yells, "LEFT!...what's THAT????" he grabs for the bin's I've loaned him and by the time he's got them focused I see (without the aid of such tools) that he's fiddling like a madman to get a better view of a Magpie.
So much for that idea.
Despite it all we stay out a while, I tell him to 'ease up' after the fourth or fifth, "ON YOUR RIGHT!......WHAT IS IT????", after jamming on the brakes, time and time again, for another bewildered looking Magpie. Don't know what it was about the humble Maggie that was getting him in such a huff...it was odd. So, we stayed out a while and once he calmed down he seemed genuinely interested in learning about which species were out and about at this time of year. He was chuffed to see Varied Sitella in a small gang, noisily hopping from one Desert Oak to the next. He remarked that, to his eye, these birds were "plucky little buggers!" and this comment alone 'wiped the slate' as far as the earlier Magpie faux-pas went. I was having fun showing him about and he seemed just as excited as me to be getting about looking at birds.
To cut a short story long (again?) we had a good time and just before dusk we were on our way back when, 'WHOOSH!'....just to the right of the car, sitting low in a Casuarina, a very light looking raptor belts out of the tree and up above the dense canopy of the Desert Oak forest. We jump out for a better look and manage fleeting views as the bird skims the treetops as it heads right to left in front of us.
I already have an idea of what I think it may be but I ask my 'partner' to describe it to me.
"What do you see Martin?"....
"ummm, it looks light, very light...grey, are the legs yellow?....yes, yellow!"
I was not 100% satisfied that we saw a Grey Falcon, despite both of us agreeing on the pale, uniform shade of colour and quite 'bright' yellow legs. He looked in the field guide and assured me that's what it was, but I've been duped before...Brown Falcon's of the arid interior have caught me a number of times and I mean, "jam on the brakes, slide the troopy to a halt despite the gasps of wife and child , run like a demon and get onto it!" kind of 'caught'.
We return home eventually, him feeling elated at having chased some birds and me feeling duped again at not getting a good enough view to even rule out a geriatric Brown Falcon...the feeling lingers and I want another shot! Even if it turns out to be a Brownie, at least the doubt will be erased.
By this time my long-suffering partner has had enough, her wise words of, "just eat your dinner, go to bed and try again in the morning!" temporarily halt my thoughts of going out in near-dark conditions and having another look....
The next morning I'm up at 'Sparrow's Fart', dressed and ready...enough water for a month in the desert and about to go when aforementioned 'long suffering' partner emerges bleary-eyed from the bedroom. She asks, "why do you always go on your own...you never take us out with you? C'mon, take us out today and we'll help you look!??". I go through the "rules" of being a 'passenger' in the bird-mobile (as it was known, to me at least, on weekends...)...no inane chatter, no music, no toilet stops, no questions......etc. etc. Despite making a dictatorial 'arse' of myself in outlining my conditions, she merrily replies, "you're on...we'll be in the car in 2 minutes!". And sure enough, in 2 minutes flat, we're off!
Same track, same modus operandi.
A few kilometres down the track Rosanne starts getting distracted, talking about how nice the spinifex looks, how wet it has been and so on....despite a severe reprimanding for talking too much and despite (again!)suffering my supreme 'arse-ness' she agrees when I ask, "would you please just look to the LEFT...not my side, just the LEFT??" And onward we roll.............
Barely out of second gear after a stern 'telling-off' (that required pulling over, for extra effect!) Rosanne turns and casually asks,
"Did you see those parrots?"
"Which parrots?"
"Those......." (pointing to my side of the car)
"Where?.....oh, must be Cockatiels!" (he says pompously & barely even looking to the right)
"No...these are dull green and really big!"
....JAM! SLIDE! GASP! RUN!
The group of birds had now landed in a large Desert Oak, I could see their silhouettes on the "outer" edges of the big, round-crowned tree. At this point I am nearly wetting my pants...Rosanne's description, where they were in the tree, I was hoping.....PRINCESS PARROTS! As I stalked closer I lifted the bin's for a better view through the wispy foliage of the canopy....AND THERE THEY WERE!
8 Princess Parrots.
I had been looking for them on the APY Lands since 2004. I had torn the Princess Parrot colour plate out of my fathers copy of A.H. Lendon's 'Australian Parrots : In Field and Aviary' at 6 years old. I had it hidden under my bed for yonks and would retrieve it at night and copy my interpretation of the Parrot into my drawing book at night. 27 years of wanting to see one had finally come and not just one, but eight!
To this day Rosanne still reminds me that I would have just passed them by without her alerting me to their presence...I argue that she would never have got the chance to one-up me had I not spent years scouting for the right habitat and driven her right through it on that very day. A weak retort, I admit...but at least I had won first division in my 'Avian Lotto'....of all the birds I could have picked!
...note : the pics. were taken using Martin's camera, an archaic 3MP pocket jobby that had a hamster in it that spun a cog to 'zoom' the lens in and out. I had no such camera with me on the day...I asked Rosanne to stay under that very tree until I returned with one to photograph the birds (if the birds were still there at all???) I drove that narrow 4WD track at an insanely unsafe speed, something I'd never do again. Once I got home I strafed through drawers and cupboards looking for my camera....no luck. Sprinted to Martin's, flung the door open (he was sitting down with visitors, enjoying a chat and a cuppa) and yelled, "Martin, can I take this?' I swiped his camera from atop his telly without waiting for a reply and headed back out to the tree at the same warp-speed that I left in.
Madness.
Even madder, the birds were still there after my 40 minute idiot-blitzkrieg. Rosanne had the greatest of views, she saw them feeding on the ground, not more than 5-10 metres from her, as her and Ivy quietly sat waiting for Captain Clodhopper to return. She stills reminds of that too.........
Alas, I got some photos and spent some time viewing the birds myself. They sat about for what felt like ages and only Ivy's crying pushed us to leave such a special moment. We had to walk away from the Parrots! Amidst it all, I didn't take any notes of sexes, apparent ages of birds or any of the 'finer' details...I was literally gobsmacked! Definitely my 'number one' moment of what felt like birding 'serendipity'.
Nice.
Wati Tjulpu
I'm hearing ya! Done the Grey Falcon lock-up a couple of times myself on the Strezlecki track to only find light phase Browns staring back!! Always worth a check though! no matter how many flat spots are formed on the tyres!!
ReplyDeleteGreat story! lucky with those Princess!!