After yesterday's break, I set out this moring to try and find the Black-eared Miner, one of Gluepot's specialities and my top target for my time here. Ihave been told basically to drive around and listen for a flock and then track the flock down. Normally this is fairly easy to do, but I have found over the last eight months that birding from my car is a bit difficult. The big diesel engine is great to get me where Ineed to be but it is anything but quiet and really, birding while it is running is difficult. I have found that in order to hear anything, I have to stop and turn off the engine. This isn't hard by any means but it means I miss a lot of calls between stops. I drove most of the morning and a good portion of the evening and didn't hear a single miner. This could have been because the birds weren't around or due to the engine noise. I was really quite shocked and disappointed but I will try again tomorrow. |
