The second part of my mini-trip down south was a two night stay at Cheynes Beach. Updated trip report HERE.
Famously this site hosts the 'three amigos', Noisy Scrub-bird, Western Bristlebird and Western Whipbird, notorious skulkers that are extremely range restricted endemics to coastal heaths of SWA. I gave it two nights here to just focus on seeing these birds, I had success with seeing the first two but no sign of the Whipbird but luckily I had one singing at Mount Trio at Stirling Range, so mission complete.
On the mammal front, I managed to see two or three Honey Possums in the Banskias (another reason this area is famed for) but they were not easy and I would not have succeeded without the new thermal. They are not so active in the winter and the nights were cool too.
One of the highlights was the incredible spectacle of the bay full of Hump-back Whales, breaching and blowing and fin and tail slapping. There must have been at least 30 animals in the bay, the blows and breaching slaps audible continuously in the area including at night from the caravan- a nice sound to go to sleep to.
On the way back to Mandaruh I took a different route back and checked in at Porongurup National Park and Muir Lake Nature Reserve to look for the last endemics I need to find- Baudin's Black Cockatoo, Western Corella and Western Shrike-tit. I've so far managed to find 13 of the 16 SWA endemics but my luck ran out and I still need to find these three species.
A few photo highlights below.
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