Western Australia, Day 19

Townsville: Many times I’ve walked alongside the Ross River and been disappointed at its dearth of water birds on the river section that runs through Bicentennial Park. Not so this morning. A striated heron hunched on a sandbar while two Australian pelicans rubbed shoulders on a broad, rocky ledge. An intermediate heron hunted near the shoreline, and a little pied cormorant perched on a protruding rock, scanning the water for prey. There was action overhead, too, with a fearless white-breasted woodswallow attacking a black kite from above. A trio of sulphur-crested cockatoos – the bad boys in town (I say this because when they fly in, songbirds clear out) – flapped across the waterway, their loud screams tearing into the morning air.

That sound and other bird songs I’ll take with me back to Canada and store them in the recesses of my mind, as I did the sound of masked lapwings ten years ago. In New Zealand, the lapwings are called spur-winged plovers, and I saw them as frequently in the fields outside the South Island township of Lincoln (near Christchurch) as I do on the golf course and parkway here. When we arrived in Townsville at the end of December, I heard the high-pitched, machine-gun rattle of a bird call and – bingo! – knew exactly what it was. Vilis teased me one day about accumulating all this avian information for which I’ll have no use after we leave Australia. My answer to his teasing was, “You never know when it might come in useful.” Perhaps one day I’ll write a novel set in Australia.

Western Australia: With three weeks of biodiversity research nearly completed, Vilis, Janis, Euan Ritchie, and Gus McNab spent the day exploring on Cunyu and climbing rocky uplands that offered spectacular views for quintessential outback photographs. On their return to camp, they enjoyed one last campfire in the desert.

Today’s birds: masked lapwings, magpie-larks, rainbow bee-eaters, great bowerbirds, helmeted friarbird, *olive-backed oriole, peaceful doves, brown honeyeaters, rock doves, house sparrows, Australian magpie, mynas, white-gaped honeyeaters, blue-faced honeyeaters, leaden flycatcher, rufous whistler, Australian white ibis, Australian pelicans, striated heron, intermediate egret, little pied cormorant, black kite, white-breasted woodswallow, sulphur-crested cockatoos, nutmeg mannikins, red-backed fairy-wren, yellow honeyeater, rainbow lorikeets, spangled drongo, white-breasted cuckoo-shrike. (*denotes lifelist sighting)