Old Coolibah on Longreach Common

An old Coolibah tree in the Iningai reserve, an area of Longreach's extensive town common fenced off with support from council, ag students and community members. This very old specimen was hard by a creek which was the dwelling place for aboriginal family groups in centuries past. Since European settlement, this area of common had been devastated by grazing goats and stock from the nearby stock route but due to the fencing is regenerating into woodland and grass meadows. Popular with the babblers and zebra finches, white-plumed honey-eaters, black-faced cuckoo shrikes, peaceful doves, jacky winters and weebills, we also heard brolgas and saw plenty of kangaroos. Bob and Scotty were our informative guides.

Darling River, Bourke

Despite the muddiness from recent rain, and the long term effects of drought still visible in the trees' health, this river (above the weir) shaped up as beautiful and supporting a fine array of birds. Most evident were the whistling kites, corellas, egrets (great and intermediate), a white-necked heron, a white-faced heron, a lonely yellow-billed spoonbill who perched on a dead tree beside the river near the tourist boat for a good hour and a half. There was a thrush at every creek and waterhole, martins and swallows and the ubiquitous black kite who flashes his forked tail just often enough to identify him.