Day 7- 25/10/10 Fowl Play in the Mallee

Another day, another largely uneventful morning, though not totally devoid of highlights. Most of the birds were now exceedingly familiar, but we still got two new species: Stubble Quail (Coturnix pectoralis) flushed from the mallee, and a quick glimpse of a Grey Currawong (Strepera versicolor). We also discovered that far from being a rare bird, the Chestnut-backed Quail-thrush was actually present in some numbers; at one site, no less than five birds were calling, with one male in particular putting on a decent show. We were also getting good glimpses of Variegated Fairy-wrens, but oddly, hadn’t yet seen any Splendid Fairy-wrens (Malurus splendens), supposedly equally common to the former. Other things seen included Mulga Parrot [the most common psittacine on the sanctuary next to Cockatiels and Budgerigars](top of article), Sacred Kingfisher, White-winged Triller (above left), scarcer near the coast but reasonably common here, and a trio of Major Mitchell's Cockatoos (below).


Today we’d decided to chance our hand at finding a Malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata). Rare over much of its range and officially a threatened species, this was the last of our target trifecta of grail birds [the others being Black-eared Miner and Scarlet-chested Parrot]. We had already achieved the other two, and were desperately hoping to find this southern outback specialist. Protected by the electric fence, a tiny population of malleefowl hold out, surviving and nesting on an island in a sea of degraded pasturelands and feral predators. Most Brisbane-ites are so familiar with the local Brush-turkeys, that it is hard to comprehend the tenuousness of its closest relative’s existence: the breeding ecology of this species is still relatively poorly understood even though the nesting behaviour is famous, and the species’ rarity means that any indication of perpetuation is a cause celebré.

For us, the obvious place to start was the one known active nest on the property; the donors had been taken to the site over the weekend and managed to flush the attendant male. Having received the GPS coordinates, we made for the mound, passing over rolling dunes and through some of the thickest spinifex I had ever encountered. We found the nest (right) without any problems, but the bird was nowhere to be seen. Unlike the trusting Brush-turkeys which readily acclimatise to human presence, malleefowl are secretive, and as we were to discover, unbelievably cryptic. We spent the best part of twenty minutes circling the immediate vicinity without finding the bird. Aware that our continued presence might unduly stress the bird and conscious that a whole crowd was here just a few days previously, we did not linger, and decided to come back at a later juncture.

One’s luck can only hold out for so long.