Yowah

At our lunchtime stop in Quilpie the hot, dry wind made it uncomfortable to do anything outdoors, but we had a great lunch in a modern, air-conditioned cafe. Headed on to Yowah we struck a full scale dust storm, an event better experienced from inside the vehicles.

At Yowah we spent the night with friends, and in the early moring had the benefit of their efforts to provide water and food plants for the local birds. Finches and fairywrens took turns at the drain overflow, honeyeaters explored the bottlebrush and emu bush, parrots fed on the seeds of the acacia, and apostlebirds bossed each other around.

Before leaving town we explored the bore drain. An artesian bore provides much of the town's water and the overflow runs in a long shallow drain for some kilometres, ending in a densely vegetated pool. The wind had died down and it was pleasant to be able to walk.

>We saw lots of evidence of breeding activity. A pair of rufous whistlers perched beside their nest, and a hooded robin couple kept company on a bare branch.

On the way to Cunamulla we stopped at the Paroo River, near Eulo. Eulo contains a monument to a cockroach Destructo, who won a state of origin competition for NSW, beating the World Lizard Racing Champion 'Wooden Head' in a race. Unfortunately he was stepped on (by a Queensland riding boot) and killed - hence the monument. A number of different species of woodswallow were in the trees along the river, along with ringnecks, pink cockatoos and mulga parrots. Heron, egrets and dotterel fed in the shallows.

Bird list:

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater (pictured above)

White-plumed Honeyeater

Blue-faced Honeyeater

Brown Honeyeater

Yellow-throated Miner

Little Friarbird

Bluebonnet

Red-winged Parrot

Mallee Ringneck

Major Mitchell Cockatoo

Mulga Parrot

Little Corella

Galah

White-winged Fairywren

Hooded Robin

Restless Flycatcher

Mistletoebird

Zebra finch

Magpie Lark

Crested Pigeon

Willie Wagtail

Apostlebird

Brown Treecreeper

Welcome Swallow

Fairy Martin

Black-fronted Dotterel

Rufous Whistler

Halls Babbler

White-browed Babbler

Masked Woodswallow

Black-faced Woodswallow

White-breasted Woodswallow

Pacific Heron

Great Egret

Australian Raven

Whistling Kite

Australian Kestrel