I last visited Lake Gilles in 2016. Paul Coddington and I had tried to go up the Strzelecki Track but we were thwarted by rain. A hastily rearranged itinerary gave us two days in this lovely stand of mallee on the northern part of the Eyre Peninsula, bisected by the Eyre Hwy. The lake itself, about 10km north of the highway, is usually a dry salt lake, but it is the bush birds that bring SA birders here: it is the just about the eastern-most point that a number of primarily south west species are found – Rufous Treecreeper, Western Yellow Robin and Blue-breasted Fairywren. In 2016 we found all three in a lovely couple of days’ camping.
In addition, since we visited five years ago (in fact shortly after our visit), Chestnut Quailthrush has been split into Copperback Quailthrush and Chestnut Quailthrush with the former to the west of the Flinders/Lake Eyre barrier, and the latter to the east. As far as I can see they are almost indistinguishable in the field. Perhaps the Copperback has more extensive copper/chestnut on the back, but it’s pretty marginal — the split was done on the basis of DNA studies. But the geography of the split means that SA gets another quailthrush and the birds at Lake Gilles – west of the Flinders Ranges — are Copperback. Since Paul and I missed the quailthrush on our 2016 visit, CBQT is one the few remaining terrestrial lifers available to me in SA. Adding this to my life list was priority number one for the trip, but I was also keen to continue building my 2021 SA year list by picking up the other specialties.
Paul picked me up in the Eastern suburbs at 5am Saturday morning, and by 8.30 we were rolling into the car park at Arid Lands just north of Port Augusta. A Birds SA outing had also just arrived, and we chatted briefly with some of the group, noting that as usual, that despite being 55 and 60 respectively, we still substantially reduced the average age of the group.
We also rendezvoused with another just-boomer, Mike Potter, who had already been scouring the gardens unsuccessfully for Black Honeyeater. Mike was en route to Marla for a bucket-list trip into the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yanjuntjatjara (APY) Lands that would be crucial for his big year record attempt. Paul and I wished him well as he departed up the Stuart Hwy, and we split from the Birds SA group to look for one of my targets, Chirruping Wedgebill. We heard one or two snatches of song but could not track one for an hour or more until finally we tracked one to the top of a distant bush. Chirruping Wedgebill thus became #316 for the year. The views were definitely tickable, but the record shots I took were not worth displaying even on this blog. We tried for closer views which we got but there were no further photo ops so we headed to the café for a decent breakfast.
The wind had started to pick up when we left Arid Lands and conditions were not ideal to look for grasswrens near Iron Knob, so we left this for the return journey. But we did check out a dry creek bed and local dam where Ed Smith has previously seen Black Honeyeater. We drew a blank.
Mid-afternoon we finally rolled into Lake Gilles and found the track to a spot Mike had suggested as a great campsite with chances for all the local specialties. The track passed an area of flowering spinifex and an old dam, and the fringes of this area delivered some nice birds, with Blue-breasted Fairywren posing well. I was even able to get some photos that clearly show the deep blue breast which looks black in all but the best direct light.
Yellow-plumed and White-fronted Honeyeaters were also common.
A few km into the mallee we found a nice spot to camp as recommended by Mike. A couple of old tin sheds and a now-dry dam were evidence that this area, like many conservation parks, was once a working station. Some wag has scrawled above the smaller shed “The Love Shack” and Paul would later remark that is was a shame we’d forgotten our juke-box money!
As we set our tents in a suitable clearing surrounded by high-quality mallee, a pair of Gilbert’s Whistler started singing and posed uncharacteristically prominently.
A short walk around our camping area produced a tidy list of mallee birds (ebird lists here and here) including another of the big four, Rufous Treecreeper. Satisfied with the afternoon’s birding we cracked open some cheese and biscuits and a bottle or red wine. Mindful of how cold I had been last time I camped here (the temp dropped to 2 degrees), I donned thermals and squeezed into my sleeping bag and had a surprisingly comfortable night.
I woke as an amazing dawn chorus blasted out all around me, a reminder of a what a fantastic thing it is to wake up in the mallee in spring. Perhaps some common and familiar birds were vocalising in ways only used at dawn, but it felt like I could only identify a small proportion of the perpetrators. By the time it was light enough to bird we extracted ourselves from tents and went for a walk. The mallee had quietened down and the day’s birding took a while to warm up. We noted a few Inland Thornbill, Singing and White-eared Honeyeater, a Crested Bellbird which sang in the distance, Red-capped Robin, and more Rufous Treecreepers.
It took an hour or so, but eventually we heard the continuous piping of a “Chestnut” Quailthrush (as well as looking the same, Copperback and Chestnut also sound the same) as we returned towards our camp for breakfast. I had expected them to be wary and unapproachable but in fact we tracked it down fairly easily for some great views. Copperback Quailthrush was a lifer and top target for both of us, so it was gratifying to get this UTB before breakfast on our first (and only) full day at Lake Gilles. We repaired to the campsite, and as we made tea and ate muesli and muffins, presumably the same pair of CBQT decided to follow us and walked right through the camp! (ebird list here)
This was a cracking start to the Lake Gilles birding, but it went somewhat downhill for most of the rest of the day. The wind had steadily picked up from sunrise onwards and by the time we finished breakfast it was quite strong, steadily 25km/h and gusting to considerably more. It would get even worse during the day. We tried multiple spots around the park for the final one we needed of the big four, Western Yellow Robin, but we heard and saw nothing. This was contrary to our experience from 5 years ago when a few showed up in various spots as we birded generically. I guess they are fairly unassuming and in strong winds, unlikely to be sitting up and shouting: “Hey Ian and Paul, here we are” and flaunting their funky stuff.
By 5pm we were both fairly jaded and decided to make our way back to camp slowly along the track south of Eyre Hwy. We had birded this in the morning seeing very little, but this was also where we had most recent confirmation of a positive sighting — WYR had been reported from this track just the week before.
An impressive rainbow gave us pause along the track, and with the wind dropping slightly we birded with some renewed enthusiasm.
Almost immediately afterwards a small bird flew to a metre or so up a thin mallee in the middle of the track and I landed bins on a small bundle of grey and yellow cuteness – Western Yellow Robin! The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? We piled out of the car and proceeded to follow this bird and another that was in its company around the mallee, eventually scoring passable images.
Now that we had completed a clean sweep of our targets we were tempted to head straight for the pub in Kimba, but I suggested we drive the extra km to check our camp while it was still light. I didn’t think anything bad could have happened, but since we were so close it seemed sensible. This turned out to be a very good decision because when we arrived we discovered that the high winds had broken a supporting pole on Paul’s tent, which was now slumped in an ungainly mess on the ground. We were able to make some running repairs using the well-known engineering principle that if it moves and it shouldn’t, apply duct-tape (the converse is also useful: that if it doesn’t move and it should, apply WD40). Sorted to a point we felt it would survive the night, we headed back to Eyre Hwy and thence to Kimba where we filled the tank with petrol at the servo, and our bellies with beer and steak in the pub.
Monday – which I had taken unofficially as leave to make up for a day in July when I was officially on leave but spent it writing a major grant proposal – dawned still and we had some excellent pre-breakfast birding around the campsite. Jack Winters were prominent, at least two pairs of Copperback Quailthrush were super-cooperative again, and we even encountered a day-time Southern Boobook (ebird list here). But once again the wind picked up as the day warmed, and by the time we had broken camp and heading out of the park it was quite breezy again.
At a pull-off towards the eastern edge of the mallee we did our final bit of birding for Lake Gilles, finding a family of Blue-breasted Fairywrens.
We tried for Western Grasswren in a few spots near Iron Knob, but didn’t hear a peep in less-than-ideal conditions. Soon after midday we decided to knock it on the head and roll back to Adelaide. Our wet 2021 winter meant that once south of Port Augusta the terrain switched from brown and red to lush green, and we stopped for photos at the pink slat lake at Lochiel.
We’d had a great weekend camping in a top spot, and despite testing conditions, our persistence had delivered all the key species.
Postscript:
As a brief postscript to the Lake Gilles trip, on Thursday evening after work I bombed down to Goolwa where Ed Smith had alerted me to a long-staying White-necked Heron, finally laying that bogie to rest for the year, and on the following weekend a brief trip to Pengilly on the Adelaide plains produced several Rufous Songlarks (as well as numerous Brown Songlark and a Stubble Quail).
