This was one of those trips that starts with a rush. I rang my mate Tumby Tom the evening before. If the weather forecast was too bad, we were going to do some fishing, otherwise we were going to try to see grasswrens at the fabulous Mt Ive Station in South Australia’s Gawler Ranges.

Short-tailed Grasswren used to be a race of Striated Grasswren. It's now considered totally unique.

Our home at Mt Ive was to be the wonderful old Stone Cottage. On arrival, Skip, a lovely lady who is one of the managers, was attending to the local Flying Doctor. The brand new aircraft was made possible through a major donation by BHP Billiton. Camera-in-hand, we headed over to the dam where Frank Pierce had said Western Grasswren occur.  Alas it was windy and this made searching for grasswrens really difficult. The tell-tell high pitched calls are masked and even the faintest wave of grass stems obscures their movement.

The following day, after cooking breakfast in the shearers quarters communal kitchen we once again unsuccessfully tried for the Western Grasswren (grasswrens are really hard!)  So we decided to head to Read more

If you're looking for a few key places to go birding, these are amongst the best we'd recommend:

Flinders Ranges
Gluepot Nature Reserve
The Fleurieu Peninsula

Two new grasswrens for Australia
Sunday, May 15th, 2011