White-browed Babbler
I had read a lot about Gluepot on Birding-Aus and elsewhere. People I spoke to who had made the trip also spoke well of the place.
With these words in mind after a quick visit to Hattah, I found myself wending my way to this remote site. Remote it certainly is - the first stage from Waikerie involved a ferry across the river - not even any bridges out here it seems. Unlike some roads I know in big cities, this ferry was free - no tolls out here either. Bitumen roads were the next to go and a sign at the start of a sandy track said simply: Gluepot 50km.
This 50km was a challenge - speeds were often as low as 40kmh, and never above 60kmh. Not so much rough as very sandy and a challenge to negotiate, kilometre after kilometre, interspersed with luckily dry but badly rutted low sections. Adding several gates to open and close as well made this a leisurely trip.
I wouldn’t want to be here after rain, 4WD or not (and I don’t have one). Gluepot it is for a reason - the soils are just that after rain. My suspicions were reinforced at the visitors centre with signs asking people not to drive around for 24-48 hours after rain. The ranger took one look at my trusty (two-wheel drive) ute and said: ” 20mm of rain is forecast in a couple of days - if I were you I would be out of here before then.”
Hooded Robin
Having made it this far, the visitors centre was a pleasant surprise - new and very well set out. And surprisingly in this day and age, everything was on the trust principle. Of course, to get this far takes a certain type of person and I guess us types can be relied on to pay when we take things.
It is the noise that differentiates Gluepot from Hattah. I guess it is the water at Hattah. Every morning from dawn the air is full of parrot calls. Even the nights had Boobooks calling and responding across long distances. A love duet, or a territorial confrontation? Or just calling for the sake of calling across the lonely plains? Who knows.
Even the nights were punctuated by odd calls of ducks out on the water.
But a Gluepot, as I set up camp at Babblers campsite towards evening, the thing I noticed most was the eerie silence. No birds at all. Quite weird. Often I find at camp sites that birds are around, especially the opportunistic ones like Choughs or Apostlebirds and the odd magpie or two. I had seen all of these on the way in, but nothing at all at the camp.
The night was the same - nothing at all. No owls or anything for that matter.
Even at dawn, the usual morning chorus was absent. Apart from a solitary Butcherbird giving its maniacal call - nothing. Maybe it was just the cold? Anyway, as I cycled along the tracks an hour or so after dawn I began to see various birds. Choughs, a Butcherbird, some Magpies, a group of White-browed Babblers, a lone Hooded Robin and a pair of Brown Treecreepers were easily found and soon several Chestnut Quail Thrushes hopping across the track. But still the silence was almost complete. Lack of water seems to be a big factor.
To someone like me from southern Victoria, the birds are a foreign land. Regent Parrots (yes, the ones some idiots are shooting elsewhere - only about 2400 left in the wild), Mallee Ringnecks and Butcherbirds were soon visible. Hooded Robin, Brown Treecreeper (mostly on the ground!) and White-browed Babbler came next along with White-winged Choughs.
Along with the Chestnut-crowned Babblers I saw at Hattah, I began to notice that they were behaving much like the Choughs at home. I should mention that Babblers area communal species much like the Choughs and Apostlebirds.
In particular, I noticed that they frequented areas where I had spotlighted wolf spiders the night before. Were they working their way through spider burrows here like our Choughs?
Very similar behaviour using the beak to swirl sand out of the ground as they dig rapidly.
Looks like it, but more research is needed.
White-winged Choughs
Spotlighting spiders? … I hear you ask. Strange but true. Try it sometime in bush areas - shine a bright focussed torch along the ground and look along the beam. If you are lucky you might see several glittering jewels on the ground. Spiders! At Gluepot they were all wolf spiders. Many just popped back in their burrows, but a few stayed put for me to photograph. As you can see from the leaves and gum nuts, not very big, but spectacular in their own right.
It was the area I saw these guys that the Babblers were industriously quartering next morning. Hard to tell if it was the spiders. I should have marked some burrows to be sure.
