Apologies to William Shakespeare – Macbeth Act 2 scene 1

Desperate to get out of the house we grabbed the opportunity to go on an overnight trip to Narrogin. This might surprise people as Narrogin is not really known as a tourist destination and it was forecast to be 40ºC. There was madness in my method. Firstly Narrogin is a good jumping off point for Dryandra (I’ll save that for a later post). Secondly to photograph wildlife in hot weather you really need to find permanent water sources and the locations we’d chosen both had that. Thirdly you have to able to reach those locations at either first or last light. Narrogin fitted the bill. So the plan was to set out mid morning and take a leisurely drive down to Narrogin, get some lunch and check into our accommodation, then about an hour before sunset head out to the Narrogin Railway Dam.

The water level at the dam was very low, but at least there was some. So we followed the 650m Dam Walk keeping a firm eye on the canopy of the surrounding eucalypts. A lot of the birds we did see appeared very heat stressed – holding their wings out and panting. Nothing appeared to be going down to the water’s edge for a drink though. After our first lap my partner decided as it was still very hot that she’d had enough and went back to the car while I started to walk along part of the Archibald Park Trail. This was where things got very interesting.

 

 

 

 

Now I’m in my 60’s and my eyesight isn’t what it once was. This has led to quite a few embarrassing moments when searching for birds. Like the time I followed this small white object moving erratically along a beach thinking it was a dotterel, but, when I finally got close I found it was a scrunched up white paper bag. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stalked what I thought was a bird in a tree only to find out it was part of a dead branch. In fact I’ve come to expect that will happen every time I go out. Well this time I was walking along the path by the bank of the dam and I’d just seen a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike and a Red Wattle Bird when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a tree with what could be if I squinted a bit a largish bird. My initial reaction come on be serious you’re seeing things again it’s a dead bit of tree. So instead of stalking it I decided to keep walking. It was only just a I drew parallel with the tree that I noticed that the stick blinked (Pro wildlife tip #1 sticks don’t blink).

 

“Oh my goodness!” Or words to that effect. I had just found a Tawny Frogmouth. Now although Frogmouths are quite common they are a tricky bird to find. Their camouflage is incredible and their habit of roosting in the forks of trees makes them very difficult to see. Their main defence is to sit completely with their head up and eyes shut  pretending to be a stick. In fact this was only the third time I’d seen one in the wild. To say I was happy would be an understatement. Unlike metal detectorists birders don’t dance when they find something – we might allow ourselves a quiet smile. I went to bed that night a very happy boy.

So, day one of the birding trip had a brilliant start – couldn’t ask for better.