Port Gawler

After leaving Adeliade, it was up to Port Gawler to get some of my real target species, Rock Parrot, Elegant Parrot and Slender-billed Thornbill. The road down to Port Gawler runs along the edge of the Penrice Salt Fields. Salt marsh dominates the area, with mangrove lined creeks running down to the bay. Out in the salt marsh plains, a couple of Slender-billed Thornbills appeared sporadically atop the salt bush, but then dissappeared just as quickly to feed down within the bushes. Luckily, one came close enough to get a descent photograph. Further along in the mangroves, i thought i'd wasted my time trying to chase the slender bills through the saltbush, when there were seemingly many more jumping around the mangroves. However these turned out to be Inland Thornbills, (a species i didn't expect to see in mangroves), and these appeared subtley different to the ones i've seen inland. The White-browed Scrubwrens were also very different to the ones i've seen in the past. These however are a seperate subspecies of scrubwren (Mellori), and they had very distinct striations on the breast. After heading back along the road, my attention again turned to the salt marsh area, where a number of neophemas where flying around. I think they where Blue-Winged Parrots, but i couldn't be sure. The area attracts 4 species of neophema to the area, so it makes deducing the ID very difficult. Port Prime provided much better views of the Neophemas and I could positively ID these as being Elegant Parrots. I read that quails and blue bonnets could be see on the road down to Port Prime, but all i saw was a couple of Crested Pigeons. The light was fading, and the night was near, so it was time to move on westwards.