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| Rufous Treecreeper |
After a pleasant five-day stay in Perth (see following post) we travelled south-east through the Darling Range – seeing our first Grey Currawongs for the trip – to Dryandra Woodland, a wonderful swathe of wandoo woodland famed for its wildflowers, birds and mammals - especially the iconic Numbat.
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| Grey Currawong |
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| Dryandra Woodland |
Dryandra is the largest tract of native vegetation remaining in the the WA western wheatbelt. We settled in for a 3-night stay at the pleasant Congelin Camping Ground: a beautiful, peaceful place - such a contrast with the bustle and hustle of Perth. Soon, some smart Scarlet Robins were strutting their stuff. Our last night here was the first on the trip where we had a whole camping ground to ourselves.
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| Scarlet Robin |
We did a 22-km drive on our first afternoon along various tracks, travelling 8-15km/ph. I had seen Numbat here in the early 1990s but we wanted another - and a view better than my last, and of course we looked for birds and other goodies. I's a bit like going on safari in Africa, but numbats - not cheetahs or leopards - are the target.
On our second day at Dryandra, we visited the Dryandra Village and did 58km of driving various tracks; no numbats still but good birds included a pair of Painted Button-quail on the Ochre Trail, Western Thornbill, Red-capped Parrot and better views of Blue-breasted Fairy-wren than we had earlier near Cervantes (
see here).
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| Blue-breasted Fairy-wren: male coming into breeding plumage |
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Western Thornbill |
Other birds about included Brown-headed Honeyeater, Bush Stone-Curlew, Southern Boobook, Grey Currawong, Red-capped Robin, Jacky Winter, Restless Flycatcher, Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Inland Thornbill, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo, Dusky Woodswallow, Fantailed Cuckoo, Grey Shrike-thrush, Carnaby’s Cockatoo, White-browed Babbler, White-browed Scrub-wren and Weebill.
On our second full day in Dryandra, we spent the morning doing a 9-km hike along some of the reserve’s southern tracks. A Regent Parrot flew over the camp early in the morning before we headed off. We added Varied (Black-capped) Sittella and Western Yellow Robin. We had great but brief views again of Red-capped Parrot, a conspicuously shy bird.
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| Western Yellow Robin |
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| Dusky Woodswallow |
Rupert Murdoch apparently once owned Dryandra. He planned to turn it into a bauxite mine until Perth naturalist Vincent Serventy convinced him that the place should be protected.
In the afternoon of our second day I added Western Rosella after driving another 40km along Dryandra's roads, some of which were becoming quite familiar to me.
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| Western Rosella |
Mammals about included a few Western Brush-Wallaby and Western Grey Kangaroo. We were a bit early for the wildflowers – some nice flowers about but not the profusion we had hoped for.
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| Western Grey Kangaroo |
Some tracks skirted colourful canola fields on private farms. The Numbat had been on the verge of extinction - Dryandra once being its only refuge - when a concerted attempt to contain fox numbers bore fruit, and the animal came back from the brink. In the early-1990s, when I saw my Numbat, one Numbat was seen on average during every 10km of driving; by 2012, that had dropped to one every 90km. Apparently feral cat numbers rose after the foxes were put in their place.
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| Dryandra Woodland |
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| Canola fields adjoining Dryandra |
Now, more attention is placed on knocking off cats, and the Numbat appears to again be increasing its population. Still, our total of 120km of driving produced zero Numbats, although I saw two Echidnas – one of my favourites.
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| Echidna |
By the way, Rupert Murdoch once owned Dryandra and was going to turn it into a bauxite mine, but was persuaded by Perth conservationist Vincent Serventy that the woodland should be protected for posterity. A good thing too.
