I spent Saturday morning bird-watching with the BAWA crew at Flynn Road (The Lakes).  I added seven birds to my life list, taking the total to 184.  Here are the new additions:

Over the last week or so I have added three new birds to my life-list:

• Rufous Treecreeper (Climacteris rufa) – seen on the Wungong/Bungendore BirdsWA walk – thanks to those who found it;
• Western Thornbill (Acanthiza inornata) – I have seen these before but I can now reliably identify them thanks to John Graff;
• Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo (Chalcites basalis) – I found a single bird on the beach at Karratha – it was either exhausted or hiding from birds of prey as it was content to let me approach quite close.

This take the life list to 177 – my aim is to pass 200 by the end of the year.

I find it amusing how it will often take me a long time to find a particular bird for the first time, yet once I have found it I seem to find them everywhere. This has happened with:

• Australasian Pipits (saw my first near Dampier recently, have now seen them 2 minutes from the office in an area I had looked before);
• Western Spinebills (first seen in Pinnaroo a few years back, we now have a family of them frequenting the backyard);
• Australian Reed-Warblers (seen first on a BAWA walk, now I see them in the reeds everywhere);
• Brown Honeyeaters (for years I thought they were small Singing Honeyeaters);
• Common Greenshanks (seen first on a BAWA walk, now I see them all the time in Dampier).

I suspect that the same will happen with the Little Grassbird and a few other conspicuous absentees from my list.

• Australasian Pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae), seen in the Dampier and Karratha area;
• Horsfield’s Bushlark (Mirafra javanica), seen in the Dampier and Karratha area;
• Purple-crowned Lorikeet (Glossopsitta porphyrocephala), seen at both Gnowangerup and Wagin;

Western Wattlebird (Anthochaera lunulate , Wireless Hill Park, WA, Australia). This bird is endemic to Western Australia.

Went to Thomsons Lake last week with Martin Cake for a bit of a look.
With Martin’s expertise we saw all three of the common crakes for the area:

• Baillon’s Crake (Porzana pusilla);
• Australian Spotted Crake (Porzana fluminea);
• Spotless Crake (Porzana tabuensis).

My first new sighting for the year!

Red-eared Firetail (Stagnopleura oculata) – a small group (about 4) seen at Lesmurdie Falls. I managed to take some photographs but they were for identification only.

Lesmurdie Falls is local to me now – the birding there is quite good. There is still a fair bit of water flowing and most of the (unburnt) vegetation is thick and green. Also seen:

• Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides);
• Splendid Fairy-wren (Malurus splendens);
• Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera).

Red-capped Plover (Charadrius ruficapillus, Point Walter, WA, Australia).

I stumbled across a pair of Red-capped Plovers while walking to the end of the spit at Point Walter.  I was initially trying to get a better look at the birds further out into the river and didn’t see them until I was 2-3 metres away.