Thursday, August 26, 2010

A Big Country! Part 4

Kilcowera Station was our next stop. The Station is 90Kms south of Thargomindah down the Hungerford Road - or about 77Kms down that road and then 13 Kms on a private road into the Station. The roads are mostly gravel but we had no difficulty getting there in our 2 wheel drive car. However, after any rain it would have been a different story!
Kilcowera has a web page here and a blog here. Kilcowera Station is 120,000 acres and was once part of the Sir Sydney Kidman owned Boorarra Station.For us, this was the high point of our whole trip! Imagine being able to wander around an area like this with hardly anyone else around. During our stay there were only 12 other people camping and in the shearer's quarters - although we were told that school holidays are busier. This is the shearer's quarters and camp ground photographed on our last night there when we had a spectacular sunset. There was a big wind that afternoon and night but fortunately no rain.On the flat parts of the Station the vegetation is tall enough that you can't see too far but there are higher places where you can get wonderful views over the country. After the floods earlier in the year and also more recent rains there is a lot of grass covering the ground. It has dried off now and looks almost white.Parts of the Station are rocky and quite spectacular.Cardenyabba swamp is only a couple of Kms from the camping area.Of course, there are birds everywhere! For this post - just two of them!
I was lucky enough to see the Chestnut-Breasted Quail-Thrush (Cinclosoma castaneothorax) . There were two of them quite close to the road but definitely not easy to see with their coloring blending in so well with the red color of the soil.I was very excited to see flocks of Budgerigars - the first time I have seen these birds NOT in a cage!They were nesting beside Cardenyabba swamp and this one came down for a drink late in the afternoon.Part 5 - Lake Wyara - the best of the lot!

12 comments:

  1. And your adventure continues! I've only seen budgies in the wild a couple of times - my first sighting was of a flock wheeling around in the early morning sun, they just sparkled, absolutely gorgeous, and a delight to watch them flying free. Your photos are lovely - its such fun sharing the journey thank you.

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  2. Thanks Barbara, despite the Budgies being counted as "common" I got as much enjoyment out of them as some of the rarer birds. It was really good to see them flying free and doing typical budgie things in their own environment.

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  3. Alright, where is the next travel office to book my flight?
    *sigh*!
    I've never seen wild Budgies either.

    And hey, I get excited about every birdie around here too. Common or not.
    I have not seen these birds the last time around, I must have been blind (or too busy bitching about the trash) :D

    The trush is gorgeous too, what a Beauty!

    And lucky for you to have the landscape in green ;)

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  4. Yes we were very lucky indeed. In another few months the temperature out there will be far too hot for me. Summer temperatures are up in the 40's and the bad days 47-48! (that's 116-118 F)

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  5. I bet you wish you could of taken your kayak with you.

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  6. Hi Neil, yes it might have been good in some places but the National Parks definitely don't permit any on Lake Wyara - which is a Ramsar listed wetlands!

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  7. Great to get QT. And some budgies! Just imagine those pioneers who saw flocks of 10,000 and more wheeling as one under those pure blue skies.

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  8. Hi Tony, that would have been amazing - even the small flocks I saw were great.

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  9. Budgerigars were my pets when I was a kid. I haven't ever seen them in the wild.

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  10. Tell me about heat ;-)
    We right now have those 45-50C you are talking about ;-)
    (Even though my forecast widget will rarely ever show it,...)

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  11. Hi Mike, they are even cuter in the wild than they are in cages.

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  12. Hi Nicole, I don't think I would survive in that much heat unless I stayed inside with air conditioning most of the time - and that really wouldn't be much fun :-(

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