Winter day trip report: Hattah-Kulkyne National Park
It was an extremely cold start to the morning with a meagre 1c on the thermometer as I left the house to pick up my guest Lynley who was visiting from Gippsland. The first surprise was a Blue-faced Honeyeater before we had even left Patchewollock! The first time I have seen one here in town so a good start to the morning. A short while later, I found Lynley her first lifer for the trip as we passed through Patchewollock State Forest; a quick view of a female Chestnut Quail-thrush made me pull over before the male happily came trotting out in front of the parked car giving us fantastic, relaxed looks from the comfort of the heated vehicle.
A quick 'pre-Hattah' stop in wonderful triodia habitat brought us a few Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters, quite a few Weebills and fantastic views of a pair of Crested Bellbirds, and another pair of Chestnut Quail-thrush but in the icy winds, not a lot else apart from an almost complete loss of feeling in our fingers and tip of nose! It is always great to see a pair of sexually dimiporhic birds (when males and females look different to each other) at the same time as you can really highlight the points to look for on each gender.
Due to the still freezing winds I decided to reverse my normal tour route so that we ended up back in triodia country on the western edge of Hattah in the afternoon, when hopefully it would be warmer and the small target birds would be more active. Definitely a bloody good idea!
Picking up the majority of the target birds (such as Regent Parrots, Apostlebirds, Whistling Kite, Brown Goshawk, White-bellied Sea-eagle, Musk Ducks for instance) throughout the southern end and the middle of the park, we headed to Lake Mournpall for lunch. Seriously, those Noisy Miners have some balls! They were literally picking crumbs inches away from our hands. I know they annoy a lot of people but they are good looking birds and one young bird was definitely entering cute territory.
With a bit of sustenance, we were ready to go and try for the trickiest pair of Mallee birds over in the west… the Mallee Emu-wren and Striated Grasswren.
Spoiler alert: we found the Grasswrens.
Striated Grasswren (Amytornis striatus)
En route we stopped at a bit of habitat which I expected to be good for smaller bush birds, and we hit a bit of an active patch for a feeding flock of mainly Southern Whiteface, but accompanied by Chestnut-rumped and Yellow Thornbills, Weebills and another pair of Crested Bellbirds - this was also the only spot we found Splendid Fairywrens. The rest of them must have been sensibly ensconced in a warm bush somewhere as despite the sun beginning to crack through the cloud, it was still bloody cold despite me having clad myself in merino before leaving the house. Yes, I am a wuss! I love warmer weather, haha.
We moved on and stopped at a location I last saw Striated Grasswrens; grabbing our binoculars and strapping on our cameras we locked the car and then as we went to head in, a familiar car was heading towards us - it was mutual friends to both Lynley and I, more Gippsland birders Rob and Jill. Rob and I had only just made a successful twitch together to see Bustards a couple of days earlier. Working on the theory that more eyes/ears may be useful, we headed in as a team to try and find small bundles of feathers in a veritable massive field of needlestacks. Within five minutes, Lynley has picked up the diminutive call of the birds to her left and as we turned to look I saw the first of the group shoot out and hop between the hummocks - success! Top job, Lynley! In the end we all had truly wonderful views of a group of 4 birds as they zigged and zagged their way through the spiky alleyways of the triodia - one even allowing us a whopping 0.386 seconds of remaining in the open AND in sunlight - none of us wasted that opportunity to get some highly sought after proof of life shots :) A new bird for Lynley, Rob and Jill’s lists.
It was an exhilarating and magical way for Lynley and I to wrap up the days birding, and some of the best views I have personally had of these elusive wee beauties.
Despite the Antarctic conditions (OK, maybe not quite but it felt like it at times!) and the low numbers of the various birds we saw - for instance only one Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater - we still ended up with a very respectable day list of 56 species. Not bad for a Mallee winter’s day… thanks Lynley for the great company.
Striated Grasswren (Amytornis striatus)