Red Centre - Newhaven

Newhaven and the Red-Centre

September/October 2004

Part one- Newhaven

Tom & Marie Tarrant

Marie at the Gate

Early in 2004 we were invited to join the RAFOS Expedition to Newhaven Station in the Northern Territory approximately 350 kms NW of Alice Springs. Newhaven is one of Birds Australia's most recent acquisitions and with a size of 650,000 acres has an extremely interesting biodiversity, and a list of over one hundred bird species. (Further information regarding the reserve can be found here) The primary goal of the expedition was to add to the knowledge of Newhaven's bird-life using Birds Australia and RAFOS atlassing techniques.

Map of Newhaven

On arrival at Alice Springs Airport from Brisbane we picked up our Land-Cruiser 'ZZ' and proceeded to drive 200 kms up the Tanami Track (now almost completely sealed) to the Tilmouth Well Roadhouse. As the sun was directly due-west we decided to err on caution and spend the night at the roadhouse before driving the remaining 180 kms on unsealed road. Whilst relaxing outside the room a lonely Emu introduced himself, this was surprisingly, the only one seen on the trip.


Honeysuckle Grevillea	Flame Grevillea

The following morning we set off for Newhaven and realised that the reports of the desert record floral blooming were not far-fetched, since heavy-rain in May locals were reporting that it was the best in fifty years.


Black-faced Woodswallow	Red-backed Kingfisher

When we got to Newhaven we were met by the RAFOS team and were soon given training in the use of GPS for survey-work. For the next week all seven members undertook transects and area-searches in sectors that had not been covered by the previous groups. Two parties had already completed their work during September. (We mostly visited areas marked #1-9 on the map, #1 being Newhaven Station)


Team members & rangers	Accomodation

After our first night under canvas we were surprised how cool it had been, although this wasn't to last and for the rest of our stay days were hot (mid to high 'thirties) and nights fairly warm. Storms passed through at the weekend but we experienced little rain.

Whilst undertaking the surveys it was interesting to note how we would get very-few or zero bird activity in a transect and then find many concentrated in 'hotspots', although in general we found bird-life to be fairly sparse (compared to SW Queensland for instance) and parrot species were very hard to find.

Around the numerous bores Zebra Finch were the predominant species although Diamond Doves, Budgerigars and Crested Pigeons were usually around in fairly large numbers. Raptors such as Collared Sparrowhawk, Nankeen Kestrel, Australian Hobby, Black-breasted Buzzard, Little Eagle and Brown Goshawk could often be found here, although we missed the Grey Falcon which had been present the day before our arrival at Swan Lake. Once we came upon a group of Major Mitchell's Cockatoos and Mulga Parrots (at a different bore)

On several occasions we managed to discuss the park with the rangers, David & Christine Orchard and the manager Ian Hamilton, they were doing a sterling-job maintaining the reserve, creating fire-breaks and assembling all the information that was being gathered. Ian (who has subsequently retired from Newhaven) told us that there were many 'feral' animals on the reserve including Cattle, Camels, Cats and Rabbits but the biggest question-mark had to be the large-numbers of dingoes that were present....perhaps one of the reasons for the low-numbers of birds?We could certainly verify this and saw 35 camels at one bore and several dingoes, (although we didn't encounter cats). Ian also believed that in the past fires had caused large areas to be burnt-off too frequently and this might have be a factor in the paucity of numbers. He advocated the use of more fire-breaks to constrain this.


Camels	Australian Hobby with prey

In the weeks before the trip, we had gained information from several sources, and we were advised to visit the 'The Gorge' (#9) to look for several 'wish-list' species, Rufous-crowned Emuwren, Dusky Grasswren and Painted Firetail. We obtained excellent views of Painted Firetail but despite numerous visits failed to find the Grasswren, although the we did get a great look at male Emuwrens at a different location (#7)

Sadly as we were involved in the survey we found it difficult to combine this with 'digiscoping', but I did manage a few nice shots at different times. However, Marie managed to get some great coverage of the desert flora and most of these should be available on her website soon.


The 'Gorge'	Painted Firetails

The predominant habitat at Newhaven is Spinifex (or Triodia) It is usually the first plant to colonize an area after it has been burnt and is the favoured habitat of Grass, Fairy and Emuwrens. One species the Spinifexbird was seen regularly behaving in a manner similar to the megalurus grassbirds of Australia's grasslands. Also called Porcupine Bush it can be difficult to traverse through and after a day's surveying most people felt that their legs were 'pin-cushions'! Not only did the 'atlasser' have to contend with this but occasionally he would get caught in shrubs like the Holly Grevillea. Banded and Southern Whiteface were present in these areas, and honeyeaters frequently encountered on Honeysuckle and Flame Grevilleas.


Spinifex habitat	Holly Grevillea

Mammals and reptiles were seldom seen, probably as most species are nocturnal and we were not permitted to 'spot-light' in the evenings. However evidence of their presence could be seen in tracks in the dunes and around spinifex-clumps.

The only macropod that we saw at Newhaven was the Euro (Macropus robustus), Ian Hamilton claimed that he had probably seen less than a dozen different individual macropods in his year as manager of the station.

The Military Dragon (Ctenophorus isolepis) was undoubtably the most common lizard although another tree-climbing species was seen on a couple of occasions.

The only snake encountered was a blind-snake seen by Marie and several others of the group near sand-dunes.


Military Dragon (Ctenophorus isolepis?)	Central Netted Dragon (Ctenophorus nuchalis)


Hooded Robin	Brown Songlark (female)

Standing water is very difficult to find on Newhaven but there is a small lake named 'Blue Lagoon' near Gurner Bore to the west of the station (#2) This could be quite productive with species such as Hoary-headed Grebe, Grey Teal, Pink-eared Duck, Yellow-billed Spoonbill, Straw-necked Ibis, Red-kneed & Black-fronted Dotterel, and overseas migrants such as Common Greenshank and Curlew Sandpiper. A Bush Thick-knee was seen here (an NT rarity, although it wasn't recorded by us. ) In the surrounding areas Australian Bustard were fairly common and on one occasion we came across 9 -10 birds.


'Blue Lagoon'	Curlew Sandpiper

One of the major features of Newhaven are salt-pans, of which Lake Bennett is the largest, although very little was seen on the actual pan the surrounding areas were good for Crimson and Orange Chats, and Black-faced Woodswallows. Where freshwater came to the surface we found Red-capped Plover and passerines such as Zebra Finch, Pied, White-fronted and Brown Honeyeaters drinking.


Male Crimson Chat	Looking over 'Lake Bennett'

Another similar habitat in fairly-close proximity to the previous, was as flat but slightly-higher and dominated by wild-flowers and salt-bush. In the early-evening it was very beautiful and a great birding area. We saw many species here including Brown Songlark, White-winged Triller, Black and Pied Honeyeater, Crimson Chat and Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo.


Evening scene	Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo

During our 9-day stay at Newhaven we were fortunate to have been present during a very special event, a desert blooming not recorded for half-a-century. We also encountered just over 100 species of bird (....of which 4 were new for me!) unfortunately we were not so lucky with the Night Parrot (but that was probably because we were not allowed out after-dark!)

As the reserve has very few introduced grazing animals, it is a pristine example of a central-australian desert habitat, so I would recommend a visit to any birders, please remember to bring plentiful supplies of food and water as the nearest supply is at Tilmouth Roadhouse (180 kms away!) The reserve also closes for the hot summer months October to March.

I will close this chapter with a few more pictures, hope you have enjoyed this report....please visit our shorter one on the West MacDonnell Ranges.


Red-backed Kingfisher	Australian Bustard

Evening scene	Flower

Evening scene	Evening scene

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