Day 6- 24/10/10 Prized Parrots and Lovable Lizards

By now the pattern had been firmly established: a 6.30am wakeup call, a 7am start, and seven or eight sites done by mid-morning. As we became steadily more familiar with the terrain and wildlife, the ticks started to slow: this was our first morning in which we hit nothing new. Activity was generally low though; the previous day’s rain had been followed by a cold front that dropped temperatures down as low as 7 °C, and though conditions improved through the week, it was to be generally cool every morning, adding a further challenge to our survey effort. A few definite trends had been established: we would definitely see Chestnut-rumped and Inland Thornbills, Spiny-cheeked and White-fronted Honeyeaters, and hear at least one bellbird at every site.

Such familiarity had meant we were able to move quicker through our surveys and train some of our focus on that other great wildlife demographic of the outback: the reptiles. Scotia has over 40 recorded reptile species, and we were doing well finding some of the commoner ones, most notably the agamids, of which there were four species: Mallee Military Dragon (Ctenophorus fordi) (right), Painted Dragon (C. pictus), Nobbi Dragon (Amphibolurus nobbi) and Inland Bearded Dragons. There were also a few skinks around; most of the conspicuous ones were of the genus Ctenotus, notably Ctenotus atlas, C. regius, C. schomburgkii and C. strauchii. The latter two were nearly identical, and as is the case with a lot of herp taxonomy, different in cryptic ways; we would have to wait until pitfall trapping began, when we would be able to have the animals in the hand, to formally identify individuals.

We returned to an emptying station: the donors had left, bar a few who had stayed on to do some survey work. That afternoon, we decided to take a break from BEM surveys and make a serious attempt of finding the Scarlet-chested Parrots (Neophema elegans). It turned out the sighting was made in the fire scar, not far from where we were the other morning. Going down with Ian, we spent the best part of an hour fruitlessly searching for the birds. We did turn up some other new finds: Shy Heathwren (Hylacola cauta) (left) and Redthroat (Pyrrholaemus brunneus), but no parrots. We were sauntering slowly back to the car and ready to concede defeat when Ian spotted movement in a low thicket. Approaching it from all sides, we managed to flush two birds into a higher tree, where they revealed what they were: Scarlet-chested Parrots, a female and a juvenile; they were not 100m from the car. Like all Neophema-s, they were flighty and nervous, yet were surprisingly reluctant to leave the general area. When spooked, they merely flew from one tree to another a few metres away. It also struck us how silent they were; unlike most other parrots, these didn’t even have a flight call, and the most we heard of them was a soft twittering. Nevertheless, we had them firmly in our sights and managed to wring a good 15 minutes of sight time. The only downside was that we didn’t get to see the more colourful male, which would have been a real prize, but no matter, this year marked the first time this species had been seen in NSW for over fifty years, and the fact that we were one of the first dozen or so people to do so made this a very special tick indeed*.


Cracking open a beer back at base, we toasted an end to a great day, as the sky dipped to a dark blue and my first Spotted Nightjar (Eurostopodus argus) began hawking over the buildings. We were in jubilant mood: we were averaging one rare bird a day, when would it end?

*I feel obligated to pen this aside. The Scarlet-chested Parrot is understandably a ‘grail’ bird to many birders, and their appearance at Scotia is undoubtedly a special incident. The AWC however are, at this time, hesitant to excessively publicise the occurrence of this species on this property [a small-scale announcement was made regarding the first sighting in May], understandably to prevent the descent of hordes of twitchers onto their property, for no purpose other than to tear about the mallee searching for the birds. That the birds are there at all is a hallmark of the good work the AWC have done to maintain and regenerate suitable habitat for such species. My personal plea: if you are a twitcher and want to chance your hand at finding these and the other rare birds in the region, donate or volunteer with the AWC, and turn part of your endeavours towards aiding a genuine conservation effort. Otherwise, they’re often seen at Danggali, across the border in SA.