Page:The Emu volume 8.djvu/229

 Offtcial ODrgau of the Jlustrnlasiiin ©vnithologists' Enion.

" Bir^s of a fezithcr.'

Vol. VIII.] 1st APRIL, 1909. [Part 4.

Notes on Birds Observed on the Pilbarra Goldfield, North-Western Australia.

in Port Hedland on the 5th May, 1908. My destination was Marble Bar, where I was to join an old friend, and together we were to try our luck once more at prospecting, or other work if deemed more expedient.

In order to see more of the country, and always with an eye to the bird-life, I elected to travel up with a camel train in preference to the more rapid, but to me uncomfortable, mail coach.

Port Hedland, with its network of creeks, backwaters, swamps, and mangroves, appeared a land of promise, but I had no time for more than a few walks along the open beach at low tide, where Curlews, Sandpipers, and Plovers were in small parties or flocks. They were rather wild, but I identified Limonites ruficollis, Tringoides hypoleucus, Tringa acuminata, and shot a Sandpiper I did not recognize. This I sent to the Perth Museum. I was inclined to refer it to a Heteractitis. In the mangroves I could hear a Zosterops, and I recognized several pairs of Artamus leucogaster. I had, in addition, glimpses of Herons and large Falconidæ. There was also a sprinkling of Gulls and Terns flying over the main creek.

Camel-drivers are notorious for starting at a late hour, and Afghan camel-drivers especially so. At sunset on our first day of travel we were but little more than 5 miles from Port Hedland, and not clear of the mangroves and mud-flats. During the night I heard the cry of the "Wēē-lo" (Burhinus), and in the early morning the call of the Curlew (Numenius), and I found myself at sunrise an object of considerable interest to a semicircle of inquisitive Ravens. In an adjacent mangrove thicket I could again hear a Zosterops, which I had little doubt was Z. lutea.

We made better progress next day, and reached the first hills at Poondina. These are conspicuous objects, even for miles out at sea, as I subsequently discovered. They consist of huge