A recent drive from Perth to Karratha yielded four new birds for my lifelist:
- White-eared Honeyeater (Lichenostomus leucotis);
- Little Crow (Corvus bennetti);
- Torresian Crow (Corvus orru);
- Mangrove Grey Fantail (Rhipidua phasiana).
Separating the two crows required a fair amount of preparation (as far as I can see they look identical). I had located some mp3s of the calls of both of these birds (and also the Australian Raven for good measure) and loaded them onto my iPod touch. This enabled me to compare the live call to a few typical calls on the iPod. Thankfully the crows cooperated and treated me to textbook renditions of their voices.
I did the drive to help my brother-in-law Wes get his car back up to Karratha (he works up there at the moment).
Google Maps reports this trip as 1,547 kilometres. These four birds take the life list to 215.