BIRDING NW VICTORIA

The Mallee country

It's been a while since our last overnight trip to Terrick-Terrick National Park in March 2016. We were keen to visit new territory, with the possibility of new species. We decided to drive to Little Desert and Wyperfeld national parks in NW Victoria, the former 375 km from Melbourne and the latter, about 100  km further north.

Little Desert National Park, Nhill (6 & 7 Sept 2016)

Study in perspective....canola fields brighten the way
 

Excitement as we drove into Little Desert National Park.....Malleefowl, our target bird!

The park is not really desert but mainly semi-arid heathland

The featureless mallee where one can easily get lost. Mallee refers to a group of mainly Eucalyptus plants with multiple stems growing out of the ground

 

Sanctuary Picnic Ground, our favourite nature walk
Red Gum woodland 

Open habitat but still hard to see the birds!

                                           

Shrubby woodland understorey with tiny yellow flowers

Not many flowers about as it was still early spring

Yellow appear to be the dominant colour, perhaps due to the soil type?

Wyperfeld National Park (8 & 9 Sept 2016)

I was all for full-on camping for the whole trip to really be up close to nature and to experience the outback. However, Yian would not have it and a compromise was agreed upon. So after 2 nights of relative luxury at the Acacia Motel in Nhill, we moved to Casuarina Camp in Wyperfeld.

Enroute to Wyperfeld, we spooked a flock of Little Corellas from a roadside field

Welcome view of Wyperfeld. Took a short cut and nearly got bogged down in very sandy ground. It was very stressful driving slowly over the sandy track, all the time worried about getting stuck but luckily the 4WD saved the day!

Casuarina camp ground - well-earned rest after succeeding in pitching the tent in gusty wind 

 Yian, overjoyed to have survived the first night camping in the bush

The great outdoors, kopi-o and biscuits....this is the life!

We were the only souls in Casuarina, with browsing roos,

wandering emus,

Greater Bluebonnets

and the ubiquitous Galah for company

With a name like Snowdrift, we just have to go take a look

The massive, snow-white sand dune smack in the middle of flatlands 

Doing the tourist thing.....huffing and puffing up Snowdrift sand dune

Successful ascent!

Trekking along flower-lined track...not only hot but...

also bothersome, shooing away the hundreds of flies that followed us!

Wildflowers along the track.....small but beautiful

Happy to finally connect with the rare Major Mitchell's Cockatoo on our very last day

Pretty signages at the entrance of country towns welcome visitors  

One of the many country towns, name soon forgotten, on the drive back to Melbourne

One town remembered, Brim, for its giant murals on grain silos