Iwas up early again, though not quite as early as I had planned, and headed out to see what was coming in to drink at the small pool in the middle of the road into the caravan park. Yesterday, Ihad seen heaps of finches and a few dovs and even a Galah or two, but this morning there was very little. Not sure why, but not much at the pool itself. However, just down the road Ifound the flock of Star Finches. It really is quite beautiful to see a dead bush with a flock of nearly 50 Star Finches scattered through it. Eventually, I got a photograph of a nice male, but otherwise the birds were not very cooperative. When a raptor flew over and scattered the flock, Idecided to move on and see what else I could find.
My next stop was The Grotto, a large crater like gorge with a popular swimming hole in the bottom. Here, I hoped to see a Sandstone Shrike-Thrush that lives on the rock ledges of the gorge. When I arrived, I could easily hear the birds singing and I eventually found the bird. Strangely, the pair was sitting in a tree instead of on the sandstone ledges like they were supposed to be. This means that while I was able to photgraph the bird, it looks a bit odd having it in a tree. Nevertheless, I was quite pleased to see and photograph yet another new bird.
After an uneventful but pleasant walk down to the swimming hole, I once again returned to the road. My destination for tonight was Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungles. This parks is well known for the spectacular geological formations and I decided it was a place I didn't want to miss. The park is between Kununurra and Hall's Creek, 50 some kilometers off the Great Northern Highway. The last 50 kilometer unsealed track took a couple hours but was quite uneventful despite one very rocky creek crossing. Iarrived in the park early afternoon and found a campsite and went to find a place to photograph sunset.
Iwent to the traditional sunset viewing spot and got a few shots but then decided Iwanted to try and get somewhere else. Ieventually found a nice spot to take some images but unfortunately, I was too late and I had missed the light. Hopefully Iwill do better tomorrow. In any case, it is a gorgeous area and I will be doing a lot of landscape work over the next couple days.
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