Lodge Review: Stirling Range Retreat

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Tara

Stirling Range Retreat offers air conditioned self contained accommodation, caravan and camping facilities beside Stirling Range National Park in Australia’s South West. We stayed there two nights in a rammed earth cabin and really loved it! The owners, Tony and Ayleen Sands are very friendly, knowledgeable about birds and go out of their way to help their guests.

Prices are extremely reasonable and they have a good choice to suit any budget. Directions are also on their website and it is pretty easy to find as there is only one main road through Stirling Range. Guided eco-tours are offered from mid August to October but it’s still pretty easy to find the local birds on your own so don’t be afraid to travel off-season. I do recommend avoiding school holidays if you prefer a quieter atmosphere……………which most birders do!

The Bluff Knoll Cafe is currently closed but they have BBQ meat and some frozen dinners for sale at reception. I do recommend a shopping trip at a larger supermarket before you travel to the park for better variety and prices. You can also pick up some good leaflets with maps for hikers and bird watchers in reception.

The rammed earth cabins are in 2 clusters of 4 cabins with parking just outside.

Inside, there are 2 beds, an ensuite and a fully equipped kitchen.

My husband made good use of the BBQ!

They don’t feed the wild birds but they do offer bird baths (and drinking water) to attract the many beautiful birds in the area to come in up close. It would have been pretty hard to get this shot of an Elegant Parrot otherwise! More photos of the birds we saw will be on a separate post.

Stirling Range National Park

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Tara

Stirling Range National Park encloses the only major mountain range with in the southern half of Western Australia. The best time to visit is around Sept-Oct when wild flowers are at their best but this is also the busiest season for tourists. As a birder, I chose to visit this park in February to avoid the Western Australian school holidays when the park would be most crowded. Most rain falls between May and August, with summer being very frequently completely dry around Borden for over a month and having typically very light showers in the south and on the peaks.

Stirling Range is around 5 hours from Perth so it would be more suited for a trip of at least 2 days. It’s best to stay in the park at Stirling Range Retreat (review coming) so you are right there at the crack of dawn when birds are more active. There are around 100 species of birds here and there are several sources for bird checklists.

Frank O’Connor

Eremaea

Birdlife (has pictures)

The Parks & Wildlife website has some more basic information about the park. There are fees applicable and you must have exact change (cash) available as payment is made at an honesty box at the entrance. Since I will be covering the birds I saw on a separate post, I will simply add a few photos of the amazing scenery in the park for now.

Birding Foxes Lair, Narrogin, Western Australia

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Tara

Foxes Lair is a small reserve on the outskirts of Narrogin, Western Australia. It makes a perfect complement to nearby Dryandra Woodland, especially for parrot watchers.

Google Maps don’t show it but it is where I have made the yellow highlights.

Foxes Lair

It’s well worth planning both a morning visit and an afternoon visit here as you can get different birds. I saw more Carnaby’s Cockatoos & Galahs in the morning and in the afternoon, I got my first look at Red Capped Parrots and Regent Parrots and of course more Port Lincoln Ringnecks.

Here’s a few pics of the birds I saw over 2 days. Sorry about the silhouettes of the Carnaby’s Cockatoos, it was around 5:30am-ish! You can see birds both on the side of the road near the caravan park opposite Foxes Lair and then drive into the reserve where there is a car park and a few trails you can follow.

You can stay in Narrogin where there are several options such as Bella’s Country Place (where we stayed-my review), Albert Facey Motel & Narrogin Motel.

Planning Your Birding Adventure In Western Australia

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Tara

Now that you know how to use miles to get to Australia and use Perth as a gateway city, what you really want to know is how to get out in the bush where the birds are! Fortunately, Australia is an amazingly easy country to travel around in. It’s safe, everyone speaks English and the tourism infrastructure is excellent! All you need is a well-researched plan and a car to get there.

MAKE YOUR PLAN

1. Determine what species of birds you want to see. Bear in mind that no matter what species you are targeting, you will find many other species in the same location. In my case, although I was really keen to see wild Parrots, I was very happy to see that other species such as Fairy-wrens and Bowerbirds were also within reach.

2. Use guide books such as “Parrots of the World” by Joseph Forshaw and “The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia” by Graham Pizzey & Frank Knight to determine where these species can most easily be found. These books have maps to help you formulate an itinerary. Although I prefer Kindle/eBooks for casual reading, with a field guide you really need the hard copy to be able to compare the birds you see to the images in the book. Don’t worry if you don’t know all the species. As long as you get a decent photo, you can always look them up! You can buy these books on Amazon.com if you don’t have them already.

3. Use other internet resources to find out where the birds have been seen most recently. These may be Facebook or Twitter contacts, blogs like Miles to the Wild or trip reports on Surfbirds. Google the scientific name of the bird + “report”. For example if you Google “Neophema petrophila report” gets you this and “Neophema petrophila sightings” gets you this. If you have destinations in mind from researching the field guides, you can get better results by Googling “Neophema petrophila Esperance” such as these. Do an Eremaea search on the locations to see what other birds are commonly found there. Here’s an example of “Eremaea Esperance“. This will help you allocate how many days you want to spend there. Spend more time if the destination has more of the species you are targeting.

This step can be very time consuming as you need to research each species you want to see individually but it is well worth it as you will save lots of time once you are traveling and you can travel independently which saves you lots of money and gives you more choices as to when, where & how you want your birding adventure to happen!

4. Once you have a list of your favourite species and have discovered where other people have been seeing them, choose some locations that have a nice variety of species and string them together using Google Maps. You should get a rough idea of how many kilometres you will be traveling, then allow some extra for traveling to and from your accommodation and traveling around the National Parks and Sanctuaries. This is what my final itinerary looked like. Although the point-to-points were 3360 km, by the time I returned my rental car, it had clocked around 4400 km! This probably looks very complicated right now, but as I continue with my birding in Western Australia series, you will see how it all fits together.

Western Australia birding itinerary focused on seeing wild parrots.

So there is a very basic idea of how to plan your itinerary. Next, you will need a car, accommodation and a budget so stay tuned!

Just Returned From Birding In The Aussie Outback

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Tara

People often ask me why I travel so far abroad to see wild birds, especially parrots when I have so many in the wonderful country I live in – Australia. Actually this trip has been several years in the making and I had been working on itineraries but it always got pushed to one side because I had so many mileage-earning opportunities that enabled the exotic trips overseas. I would normally never be able to afford such travel if I hadn’t been able to churn a few credit cards and shift spending to maximize mileage earning. I also got involved in some insanely lucrative promos such as US Airway’s Grand Slam, Daily Getaways, various Facebook promos, survey taking and checking into hotels via Foursquare. The last few years have been a golden era for those who were savvy enough to take advantage of it! So with lots of miles on hand, we concentrated on overseas travel, even flying business class in some cases!

But the one thing I had to face is that my husband and I are not spring chickens and we are not getting any younger. Traveling in the Aussie Outback involves huge distances and is very challenging. I knew we couldn’t put it off much longer, even though we only had to burn 10,000 AA miles for each one way sector on Qantas and I booked the Virgin Australia flight from Hobart to Brisbane during a 15% off sale.

During the last month, I drove over 8000 kilometers in cars rented from Hertz, Bargain Car Hire and Thrifty! The parrots have been amazing, we saw 37 species just on this trip, though I have seen more Aussie parrot species in my life since some are also found in West Papua and some are found in my own back yard! In the chart below, the boldface represents a species I have seen in my life, the grey shaded boxes represent parrots I saw on this trip within the last month.

Locations of Australian Parrots

Even though Parrots were the primary focus of the trip, I knew that these locations would also be home to other beautiful birds such as Fairy-wrens, Bowerbirds, Robins, Honey-eaters, and more!

The good news is that Australia is logistically a very easy country to travel in. It’s safe, people speak English, credit cards are widely accepted and you can easily get your own rental car. The AUD has gone down against the USD, GBP, EUR over the last few months so it costs less than it used to if you are coming from overseas. Over the next few weeks, I will be showing you more of the birds we saw, where we stayed and how I organized the flights, accommodation and rental cars so that you too can have your own Aussie Outback adventure!

Wild Bush Budgerigar Documentary

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Tara

This documentary shows the life of wild Bush Budgies in the Lake Gregory area of Western Australia (near the border with the Northern Territory). We won’t be going to this area on our trip in February, 2014 but we will be going to other areas where wild Budgies can be seen.

The first 11 minutes is beautiful and free from gory predation scenes which I personally don’t want to see. If you hate predation scenes or sad death scenes, then close your eyes at:

14:05 snake crawls into nest & eats baby budgie

19:50 baby budgie drowns while trying to fledge (and the camera crew just stood around and did nothing)

22:29 falcon attack

24:45 another falcon attack

You can tell when to open your eyes when the narrator changes the subject. I was thankfully forewarned by the comments on YouTube. I know this is a fact of life, I just don’t want the images in my head.

Southern Queensland Is A Bird Watcher’s Paradise

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Tara

It’s bird week, but according to Kevin and Kay Williams in Toowoomba “every day is a good day for birding!”

King Parrot

See full article from ABC News.

But don’t just read the articles, come and see for yourself! The good news is that you can use frequent flier miles to get to Australia very cheaply. I have another post with the details but please feel free to ask here in the comments about how to book the flights or how to acquire the miles at a very low cost.

Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Tara

Although the Black Swan is found in wetlands throughout Australia, this graceful bird has had a special association with Western Australia from the earliest times. Aboriginal lore tells how ancestors of the Nyungar people, the indigenous Australians living in the south west of the State, were once Black Swans who became men. This graceful, elegant bird is the official Bird Emblem of Western Australia.

The Black Swan is common in the wetlands of south western and eastern Australia and adjacent coastal islands. In the south west the range ecompasses an area between North West Cape, Cape Leeuwin and Eucla; while in the east it covers are large region bounded by the Atherton Tableland, the Eyre Peninsula and Tasmania, with the Murray Darling Basin supporting very large populations of Black Swans.It is uncommon in central and northern Australia.

The Black Swan’s preferred habitat extends across fresh, brackish and salt water lakes, swamps and rivers with underwater and emergent vegetation for food and nesting materials. Permanent wetlands are preferred, including ornamental lakes, but Black Swans can also be found in flooded pastures and tidal mudflats, and occasionally on the open sea near islands or the shore.

You have many places to choose from to see black swans but why not take the chance to see them in Western Australia, where they reign as the state emblem? Take a break from your business trip or sightseeing to relax and watch the black swans in the city of Perth! You can get to Australia using airline miles.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS BIRD

Government of Western Australia

VIDEO

Black Swans in Perth

Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris)

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Tara

The Short-billed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris), also known as Carnaby’s Cockatoo or Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo, is a large black cockatoo endemic to south-western Australia.

The endangered Carnaby’s black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus latirostris) is one of just two species of white-tailed black cockatoo on Earth. The other is the Baudin’s black cockatoo, and they are both found only in the Southwest Australia Ecoregion.

How many are there?

It is difficult to know how many Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos are left, but it is known that their populations have declined by over 50% in the past 45 years, and that they no longer breed in up to a third of their former breeding sites in the Wheatbelt.

They are gregarious birds and live in pairs or small flocks during the breeding season. After fledging, the young move with their parents from breeding areas to feeding areas where other family groups join the flock.

The cockatoos live for 40-50 years in the wild. A large proportion of the remaining population now is past breeding age. When these older birds die, there will be very few younger birds to take their place.

What is threatening them?

There are a number of threats facing Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoo:

Habitat fragmentation, particularly in the northern and eastern areas of the Wheatbelt. Most habitat suitable for breeding and feeding in the Wheatbelt has been cleared entirely or fragmented. In addition, clearing of heathland surrounding breeding sites has reduced the survival rate of fledglings by decreasing the available food sources for the young
Removal of nest hollows for use as firewood or just to make properties look ‘tidy’. Much woodland lacks hollows, and it takes over 100 years for woodland seedlings to mature and form hollows suitable for nesting
Competition for hollows from other species
Loss of native food sources caused by urban development on the Swan coastal plain
Poaching: illegal poaching is still a threat – trees are often cut down or the hollow severely damaged when young and eggs are taken, removing breeding sites
Invasive species: other bird species such as the Galah and the Western Long-billed Corella are extending their range in the Wheatbelt and are competing with and excluding Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos from traditional nest hollows.

Carnaby’s Cockatoo Range

Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos can be seen in Western Australia, even in some parks in the city of Perth! Another easily reached place to see them is Yanchep National Park just north of Perth. You can get to Australia using airline miles and get to the national parks via rented car.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PARROT

Australian Government Sustainability

Bird-O

ABC Australia

Bushland Perth

VIDEOS

On A Wing And A Prayer Trailer. Check here to see if you can view the entire documentary (could be IP blocked).

City dwelling Carnaby’s Cockatoos in a Perth park

A Tale Of Two Cockatoos

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Tara

A Tale of Two Cockatoos has been created to help publicise the plight of two endangered species of white-tailed black-cockatoos: Baudin’s and Carnaby’s. Both are found only in south-west Western Australia. More information is available on their website. I have embedded the video to help spread the word.

If you would like to have a chance to see these beautiful cockatoos in the wild, please see my series on how to get to Australia on frequent flier miles using Perth as a gateway. We will be visiting prime habitat for both of these cockatoos on our trip in Feb 2014. Baudins are commonly found in Wungong Gorge near Armadale and Carnabys are most easily seen in Yanchep National Park.

Miles To The Wild

Create unforgettable eco-tourism and birding adventures using miles & points!

Tag Archives: Western Australia