Evening of April 17. First stop: the dreaded Horsham Golf Course.
One of the canon events of a Victorian birder’s career is walking around the middle of Horsham, the golf course, the botanic gardens, and surrounding open areas- at night, spotlighting and dipping for Bush Stone-Curlew. Heartbreakingly, BSC is a bird that has declined astronomically in the south of their range since the introduction of foxes- the poor birds don’t fly away, they often rely on their camouflage and freeze, making them easy targets. Horsham seems to be a stronghold for a few pairs outside of reintroduced populations.
Josh, Chanith and I spent many hours cruising around looking. We got plenty of strange looks, and a few kids on motorbikes telling us they had seen big birds (insert extremely unclear directions here) out of town after we explained to them what we were doing when they asked. We found plague proportions of Brush-tailed Possums, but no BSC.
We drove down to a section of Little Desert- the Duchembegarra Woodland and camped there, which, according to a fire map I found online, should be unburnt from the 2025 fires. Some bushlarks appeared on the road on the way in, and a boobook and owlet nightjar made themselves known before we went to sleep.
5 hours later, we were up and scouring the unburnt heathlands for Slender-billed Thornbill and Rufous Fieldwren. Many calls of great misidentification magnitude were made that morning that will not be spoken of. We had just about every type of thornbill except the Slender-billed variety- but we were all pleasantly surprised by the high diversity the site produced- 43 species was our highest list of the weekend, including Tawny-crowned Honeyeater, Diamond Firetail, and many Scrub Robin. The visual difference in seeing where the fire got up to was also very interesting to see.
Our next stop was to a location Angus Schmidt (a local Horsham birder known for making some really wonderful local finds) had recently found large numbers of Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos. Josh had never seen them before, so we went for Chanith’s year tick and Josh’s lifer. We found a very friendly pair that allowed beautiful close observation- the male munching away on stringybark gumnuts and the female giving an occasional soft affectionate “cree!”. They are such spectacular birds, and put us in such a great mood for the rest of the day. Bonus, a calling Fan-tailed Cuckoo and Scarlet Robin nearby.
Mount Arapiles is well known for being one of the best rock-climbing spots in Australia, but it is also home to Gilbert’s Whistlers and Shy Heathwrens, both of which we found on a visit targeting those species on the nature walk, without too much effort, along with some bonus Brown Treecreepers, Diamond Firetails and Peaceful Doves. A really beautiful spot, the rugged vegetation has real character to it- the huge rocky mountain jutting out of the ground is quite the awesome backdrop.
After a quick drop in on the Horsham Sewage Water Storage Dam, which provided a few Musk Ducks and dozens of Blue-billed Ducks, we had lunch and went walking beside the Wimmera River in Horsham, looking for Chanith’s Blue-faced Honeyeater year tick. We did get some common LGA ticks, though dipped the Honeyeater. While scanning around, I spotted a late-staying White-breasted woodswallow perched high atop a dead tree on the far side of the river, a great bird and only my third I’ve seen in the state.
Our least interesting stop was a seemingly artificially filled lake; the best bird was a few flyover yellow spoonbills. This was quickly redeemed by our Horsham Golden-headed Cisticola on the way out though, and three stunning Brolgas on the other side of the lake, the feather of one I grabbed from the ground for my personal collection.
Given Wartook was also untouched by the Grampians fires, we spent a few hours around there. After seeing some Emus and Gang-gang Cockatoos, the main adventure of the day was unending weaving through tightly grown young trees towards a Grampians-autumn dispersal Crescent Honeyeater- another incredible Angus Schmidt find for the Horsham LGA. The bushbashing process itself fed us Striated thornbill and Scarlet Robin, and personally, I found it sort of fun. According to Josh and Chanith, the bird apparently distantly called a total of 2 times- both of which I missed, so unfortunately I do not have the tick myself. I waited by the pin while the others went to retrieve the car- until we realised we can’t actually drive to the spot, so we had to walk back through the bush to get back. We added Spinebill, Pied Currawong and Scrubwren on our lists on the way back, and heard a Restless Flycatcher on the Northern Grampians side of the border.
On the way out we stopped for my Red-necked Wallaby Lifer, which Chanith spotted out the window!
Tim Dolby apparently has an article somewhere about how great the Wartook State Forest is. We rocked up at the dam (which was dry) and had little to no activity, but it was saved by a single Yellow-tufted Honeyeater before we left. Thankfully, this is also an area that was spared from the 2024-5 Grampians fires.
Riding on the hard work of Angus once again, we tried to look for the Southern Emuwren he had found after much effort at the feet of the Grampians in Horsham LGA. The spot is also in theory, good for Chestnut-rumped Heathwrens. We didn’t find either. I may have heard one heathwren, but later doubted. The spot is very pretty- we were happy to find Brown-headed, Fuscous, and Black-chinned Honeyeaters, Babblers and Yellow Robins among other birds in uniquely structured vegetation.
Driving down through the southern Grampians, some of the highlights included a pair of wedge-tailed eagles sitting on the road, and later, more Emus.
After a stop at Subway for dinner, we rocked up at Budj Bim National Park- near Lake Surprise- for a hysterical Moyne spotlighting session. There was a man somewhere in the bush making very odd noises. Plenty of Koalas about, a single Boobook, but no Owlet Nightjars or Yellow-bellied Gliders.
We woke up and left Sawpit Free Campground the next morning and left for Portland!
The crew of the day’s boat was a bit smaller than usual, with two last-minute pullouts. The crew consisted of Myself, Josh, Chanith, Leo Norman, Duncan Henderson, Simone Belinda, Gina Hopkins, and a Jodie I didn’t get the last name of. This was the first trip where nobody on board threw up!
Chanith has written up a fantastic official report on the trip as he always does, which I’ll link here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fABk869RthvBAbI-vu_R-BYGbxbv0wqI/view
The way out had some surprisingly high diversity- not just the usual Gannets, Short-tailed Shearwaters and Shys, but also Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross and White-faced Storm-Petrel in inshore waters gave us high hopes for what the shelf had to offer. A distant Fluttering/Hutton’s Shearwater also made a distant pass. At the shelf, across our two burley locations, we had a total of 11 Great Albatross taxa, 4 Southern and 2 Northern Royal, 3 Gibsons, 2 Snowy Wandering Albatross, the first of which was a stunning white adult with a really nice big salt stain, the younger of the two a big mean bully at the slick, terrorising any Shy that got inbetween it and it’s burley. All of them landed in the slick at one point or another. Other highlights were the most Storm-Petrels I have ever seen on a boat, with dozens of Wilson’s Stormies and a fair few White-faced flitting around the boat. Chanith spent most of the day interrogating the Wilsons to see if any might be a New Zealand Stormie, admiring the great alberts, and cursing the number of Campbell’s Mollymawks that were severely outnumbering the nominate black-brows. My lifer Flesh-footed Shearwaters also made an appearance, as well as a few White-chinned Petrels, plenty of Great-winged Petrels (with not a single Grey-faced among them), and countless Fairy Prions- all scanned vigorously to see if there might be any other prions (known as whalebirds) hiding among them. At other points we were joined by the presence of a couple of Bullers and Yellow-nosed Mollymawks, and at our second drift, a gorgeous Snares Cape Pigeon. So far, the boat had been a really nice mix of late summer birds and early winter birds. After we ran out of burley, we enjoyed some of the sausages in bread that the skipper Jon had made for us before heading back to shore. Most aboard knew they should be satisfied with such a great haul, but being such a spoiled boat with so many trips having exceptional appearances, something felt missing, though the acknowledgement of that thought felt entitled. Josh even jokingly said something to the effect of “that’s it. We never get anything good on the way back.” That was until the upwelling spawned a GREAT SHEARWATER behind the boat on our way back, a true rarity on a country level, in the entirely wrong ocean. Leo, Josh and I saw the bird all at once, and absolute chaos exploded. I have never seen that many people that excited all at once, as I yelled GREAT SHEARWATER! At the top of my lungs and ran full speed at the cabin and screamed STOP THE BOAT!!! Gina, Simone and Chanith burst out of the Cabin. Chanith said his heart stopped when he heard the screams, got out, and there it was, right behind the boat. The look on everyone’s face at the realisation was priceless when I turned around, that moment I have frozen in my memory like I was in a freeze frame of the climax of a great movie or something. Chanith said later to Josh that it was the first time he’d heard him scream over a seabird. The bird made a super close show behind the back of the boat, then started flying away- “DO WE HAVE TOGS? I yelled.” Most people said no. We had lost the bird; no one had eyes on it as it was too distant now. We were out of burley. Then, I had a sudden idea. “Where are the sausages??!” I ran to the BBQ, grabbed a couple of snags and started rapidly throwing over little chunks, which incredibly worked to bring the bird back- soaring right back in- it even landed in the water behind the boat and gobbled down one of the chunks of meat before flying away for good! An unmistakable bird, the perfection of this bird and its plumage patterns has to be seen to be believed. At one point, I completely tripped over while running around the boat. Things I shouted in excitement will not be repeated. My would-be later shame was cancelled out by a hysterical Simone who told me “I want to always go birding with you!” Truly one of my proudest moments. Even Jon, who told us he initially thought someone had gone overboard with the reactions, got up from the wheel and captured some surprisingly good phone photos of the bird with a big grin on his face. Duncan definitely has some of the best photos of it though.
The rest of the trip back to land, we were all absolutely chuckling to ourselves.
On the way back to Melbourne, Leo caught a lift back with us, and while he and I were discussing our common ground in epic fundraising bikepacking trips, Someone spotted the long-awaited Narrawong Spotted Doves out the window, the Glenelg tick cherry on top of an incredible boat.
What a Great Weekend!