Day 2- 20/10/10 We arrive

The cold light of dawn revealed where we were: in the middle of treed flat downs, rolling out to the far horizon. We were two-thirds of the way to Scotia. Thoroughly fortified, we de-camped at 5.30am for an early start. Breakfast on the road, like so many other things, became a familiar ritual: a handful of almonds and Spekulatius biscuits washed down with water. We were not ten minutes into our drive when we spotted our first Bluebonnets (Northiella haematogaster), new for both of us. Not five minutes later, I had my first Mulga Parrots (Psephotus varius), and three minutes after that, my first Cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus). A ten-minute hat-trick of genuine arid-zone parrots, all new! Not only that, but we soon sped past my first flock of Hooded Robins (Melanodryas cucullata); four new ticks by 6am, we could not have gotten off to a better start. Amidst all the excitement, I barely noticed that I had also seen my first wild Common Wallaroo (Macropus robustus).

A stop at Wilcannia was preceded by a pass at the outskirts of Paroo-Darling NP, and a genuine gem: my first Black-breasted Buzzard (Hamirostra melanosternon) (right) circling frantically as a magpie did its best to ruin the romance, while nearby an Australian Hobby (Falco longipennis) did its rounds. The buzzard, though, was the real highlight; nowhere common, and certainly not a bird one can expect to see at any one point. Throughout the drive, we had a steady stream of raptors, mostly Nankeen Kestrels, Brown Falcons and Black Kites, with a smattering of Black-shouldered and Whistling Kites, Little and Wedge-tailed Eagles and Brown Goshawks. One of the main aims, though, was the elusive Grey Falcon (Falco hypoleucos), widely regarded as Australia’s rarest raptor. A genuine dry-country specialist, this was a connoisseur’s tick: elusive, requiring some degree of effort and chance to track down, and a sighting to brag about. I’ll just come through with it and say we didn’t see one; Jeremy had by the end of this trip covered in excess of 30,000km through reasonable habitat without ever getting it. We were also hoping for, and didn’t get, Australia’s second-rarest raptor, the Letter-winged Kite (Elanus scriptus).

We were by now on the home stretch en route to Broken Hill, where we planned to stop for lunch and bolster our supplies. Sixty km out the land opened up to the most gob-smackingly flat terrain I had ever seen (below). Flat, treeless plains so featureless one could drive a straight line to the horizon, all the while marvelling at the curvature of the Earth’s horizon bending away into the distance. The day was warming up nicely and a few herps were starting to get about, mostly goannas and Inland Bearded Dragons (Pogona vitticeps), though at this point all the lizards we'd seen since leaving Cobar were road casualties. About 45km out from Broken Hill, we found a Shingleback Skink (Tiliqua rugosa) (below), a first for both Jeremy and me. This being a notable occasion, it was time to break out the camera gear and get a few pics. While Jeremy worked the lizard, I did a brief scout-around and was rewarded with our first-ever White-winged Fairy-wrens (Malurus leucopterus). I found a small group of females and juveniles; Jeremy finished with the shingleback and duly found the male nearby. It was thoroughly heartening to know we could stop at a random spot in such utter desolation and come away with such reward. On a high, we fairly flew to Broken Hill, barely affording me glimpses of my first Crimson Chat (Epthianura tricolor), Yellow-throated Miner (Manorina flavigula) and Brown Songlark (Cincloramphus cruralis). This stretch was also notable, less happily, for our first live Inland Bearded Dragon (Pogona vitticeps) of the trip, and I got to see my first ever individual of this species, a hundredth of a second before it copped half the tyre count of an 18-wheeler road train. A reptick is a reptick [they don't count unless they're alive], but there are surely far less tragic ways of securing them.

After doing all we needed to do in Broken Hill, we made a beeline for Scotia, now just 160km away. Travelling along the Silver City Highway, we noted lots of Emu families, some over a dozen strong. Everything was green, and even out here, streams were merrily flowing. So much rain had fallen, in fact, that the dirt roads leading into Scotia were actually closed by the local council earlier that week, and only reopened the day we arrived. Just before the Scotia turnoff, we achieved one more tick: Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo (Lophocroa leadbeateri). It wasn’t new for Jeremy, but like the Turquoise Parrot, it was an improvement on his one previous sighting. Turning off onto the dirt roads that would become so much more familiar than tarmac over the next couple of weeks, we noted a Gould’s Goanna (Varanus gouldii), seemingly welcoming us to whatever laid ahead.

We were there, but we weren’t. Scotia itself was still another 30km away, abutting the South Australian border and enveloped by other current and former grazing properties. Getting there meant negotiating some pretty sodden roads, with large puddles threatening to bog or fling us into the trees at the slightest miscontrol. Jeremy’s expert gear-handling meant we got to the gate thoroughly muddied, but without mishap [he will modestly treat them as none-too-severe conditions, but I was and still am impressed]. The property itself was 64000ha, about a quarter of which was enclosed by an eight foot-high electric fence for feral animal control. Within the fence were a half-dozen of Australia’s rarest mammals, either reintroductions of animals gone extinct from the region, or insurance populations of animals not actually found there but highly threatened elsewhere. The land was a former cattle grazing lease, since regenerated into its former ecotypes: mallee and saltbush scrub, with swathes of spinifex and belah woodland.


We arrived at about 3pm and walked smack into my first Singing Honeyeater (Lichenostomus virescens); I was starting to believe in omens. We introduced ourselves to the sanctuary’s chief ecologist, who gave us the down-low of what we were expected to do: there were 64 sites marked out across the sanctuary, in all the different ecotypes. We had arrived at the tail-end of birding surveys, and were expected to complete at least one rotation of all the sites in about ten days. It was a bit rushed, but a lot of birding which can only be a good thing. In between there was other research being conducted: black-eared miner surveys and driving transects for numbats. All those would take up half our overall tenure, the other half would be dedicated to pitfall trapping using the same sites, in order to survey for other wildlife.

Having settled in, we decided to use the remaining daylight to check out the first of our sites in advance. This first site was a mallee scrub grown thick on the recent rains. Our quick peek landed us a few more new things to close out the day: Brown-headed Honeyeater (Melithreptus brevirostris), Yellow-plumed Honeyeater (Lichenostomus ornatus) and Chestnut-crowned Babbler (Pomatostomus ruficeps). We also found the remains of a Southern Boobook (Ninox novaseelandiae), evidently predated upon. After dinner, we decided to have a quick foray inside the electric fence, and were rewarded with our first Burrowing Bettongs or Boodies (Bettongia lesueur), Bilby (Macrotis lagotis) (left), and my first Bridled Nailtail Wallabies (Onychogalea frenata). Heading back into base, we quickly fell into bed. We were tired, and there was a lot of work to do ahead. As a final afterthought, I had earlier lamented that we would not have been able to achieve much driving non-stop at speed; in the end, we had positively identified 80 species of birds, 18 of which were novel to either or both of us.