Eulo bore

We camped overnight at the bore east of Eulo, along with a small sample of what Sal is calling for her sanity's sake the every man and his Ram crowd. To be fair, we turned up in the middle of the Cunnamulla Fella long weekend rodeo. We both felt a bit down, as the site has become a massive free camp footprint; so instead of sitting quietly, unobserved, waiting for Bourke's parrots to come to drink on sundown, we were watched by dozens of pairs of eyes, all sitting around in tight caravan/camper trailer social circles, each with a sizeable fire, music playing, voices at full pitch, and with occupants never setting foot outside a 5 metre radius of their camp rings. Oh well. Hopefully they aren't the ones responsible for all the emu roadkill along the highway...

Anyway, some birds persist. Around 5am we heard an Owlet-nightjar calling near our camp. On our morning walk, we saw Sal's first Mulga parrots - an extraordinary male and female, feeding on small seed in the morning light - possibly the most beautiful birds Sal has ever seen; certainly the most beautiful parrots. Nearby were her first Chestnut-crowned babblers, plumage colours reminiscent of White-browed woodswallows; large, charismatic, wary birds. Also sticking to their guns on their patches were Red-capped and Hooded robin pairs, Singing honeyeaters, a few Brown treecreepers, and a solitary Australasian grebe and Grey teal on the bore overflow, to whom we waved goodbye as we headed off past Eulo for quieter birding pastures...Read more