In 2007 I visited South Australia as a birder for the first time. I was here to give a keynote talk at the national conference, but having one day spare at the end, of course I did my usual thing of hiring a car to head off for some birding. Noone at my conference had any idea who, what or where “Gluepot” was, but it popped up in my pre-trip research as having great potential to deliver a range of species I’d not seen before. Back then Peter Waanders was doing part-time guiding, mostly around Gluepot, and I booked him for half day to maximise the effectiveness of my limited time, and try to see as many of the mallee specialties as we could. Between dawn and midday we found the big 3: Red-lored Whistler, Striated Grasswren and Black-eared Miner, as well as a bunch of other great birds, many of which were lifers for me that day including Hooded Robin, White-browed Treecreeper, Gilbert’s Whistler, Shy Heathwren, Striated Fieldwren and Southern Scrubrobin. I finished off a cracking day with a quick trip to Hogwash Bend on another tip-off from Peter, and found some Regent Parrots.
Fast-forward thirteen years later and I had still not seen another Striated Grasswren. They seem to have all-but-disappeared from Gluepot, previously a stronghold, and these days all the bird tour companies go to Murray-Sunset NP over the border in Vic to ensure their paying punters get this desirable taxon. Striated Grasswren do cling on in small numbers in unburnt patches of mallee spinifex in the SA’s east and so I decided to use my Sunday pass-out for some mallee birding with a focus on trying to find one for myself rather than be shown it by a guide.
En route early morning I stopped briefly to admire the fantastic artwork on Karoonda silo.
I pulled into the park at around 8.30 on a still, fine morning, perfect for birding, and in the first good looking spot of habitat with mature mallee and spinifex under-storey, within minutes I heard the tell-tale high-pitched chattering of a grasswren. This was promising but an hour later I had still not even had a glimpse: at 9.30 I got a text from Nikki and pinged back: “I’m hearing this bastard bird but he’s skulking and I just can’t see him”. Fortunately soon after that I finally did get that glimpse, and then 10 further minutes of chasing shadows between spinifex clumps, I tracked him down to a low perch. He was still a bit distant, so my pics are big crops, but today was more about finding and seeing them.
I also had a nice encounter with a very inquisitive Shy Heathwren (not living up to it’s name), a male Splendid Fairywren who was still only half-dressed even though spring is upon us, and a vociferous Golden Whistler.
On the way home I called in at Kinchina and clocked the very cooperative Southern Scrub-robin as well as a “teenage” Rufous Whistler and a Purple-backed Fairywren, showing off his eponymous feature.
As I began writing this short blog post I started thinking of all the different “wrens” in Australia: Fairywrens, Heathwrens, Fieldwrens, Grasswrens, Scrubwrens, Emuwrens. Oh, and there is a Fernwren too, a monotypic tropical Qld endemic. None of these are true wrens, but take that name because they usually look and behave in a similar manner: ground-dwelling, long-cocked tails, lots of attitude! I now have quiet a collection. This includes all of the Fairywrens bar one (I’m missing Lovely Fairywren from my list, restricted to Cape York). I’m also missing one (of the three) Emuwrens; I failed to track down Rufous-crowned Emuwren on my one brief to to the red centre in 2014. There’s a couple of range-restricted Scrubwrens from Qld that I also need, Atherton (from, funnily enough, the Atherton Tablelands) and Tropical, from the tip of Cape York. But the biggest hole in my list comprises the Grasswrens. This fantastic family is the closest thing we have in Australia to antbirds. Crpytic and skulking, but full of character, they live in out-of-the-way, harsh, outback places. The family is also subject to seemingly regular lumps and splits as more is discovered about them. I will need to plan trips to see the following: Black, White-throated, Dusky, Kalkadoon and Carpentarian. And depending on your taxonomy Rufous (Pilbara) and Opalton… Among these are some iconic species that even many Australian birders have never seen.
Here’s some galleries of the “wrens” I have seen. Some cracking pics, but some shite record shots too, not least when I bumped the settings on my 50D and didn’t realise until I’d fired off about 20 point-blank pictures of Thick-billed Grasswren!
Fairywrens:
Scrubwrens:
Fieldwrens:
Heathwrens:
Emuwrens:
Grasswrens:
