Lake Argyle and the Search for Yellow Chat

There’s a gigantic lake in Western Australia encompassing an impressive 1,000 square kilometers. As with most lakes nowadays, it was created when a nearby river, in this case the Ord River, was dammed. (The dam was completed in 1971.) The river then swelled, became a lake, and caused major changes to the environment, including completely submerging a nearby property, Argyle Downs, and hence how the lake got its name. With its surrounding mudflats and grasslands, Lake Argyle is now recognized as an important bird area. The lake is so large that higher land areas have become islands inside of it. On one such island lives Yellow Chat. Does Yellow Chat deserve it’s own blog post? Who knows. But it’s going to get one.

Yellow Chat is a strange little yellow bird. A Brightly colored, terrestrial songbird of open and arid regions and salt marsh. Yellow Chat is scarcely seen. The distribution map in the book might make it seem that the bird is widespread, but the map is a bit misleading — Yellow Chat has a very patchy distribution across northern and western Australia with only a few reliable sites to actually see it. We had attempted to locate Yellow Chat at an old bore site when we did the Birdsville Track in the outback, but the bore had dried up and most of the reeds had died. Ross was on a mission not to dip any birds so we decided to go on a cruise up Lake Argyle to see them. It was pricey, at $700AUD for a four-hour private boat tour, but we figured it was cheaper than flying back to Western Australia someday, renting a car, driving to Kununurra (or Broome) and doing it in the future. We were already there so why not? There are public boat tours available for the general public to go out on the lake so we knew we had options, but these bird cruises only happen on set dates and they take up 6 hours (we only had a few hours in the morning to spare before our next flight).
While I still feel $700AUD is expensive just for one bird, I also feel like we had a great morning out on the lake and that every penny was worth it. We got a private ride up the scenic lake and a trek across one of the islands. We were also accompanied with a bird enthusiast boat driver, Greg, who knew exactly where to go and acted as a guide when we arrived.

The small island almost 30km down the lake from the boat ramp (I told you this lake was huge!) has been named “Chat Island.” It was here that Greg docked the boat. We didn’t realize that it was a wet entry to get to the island but we took off our sandals and hopped right in to walk to shore. The water felt refreshing and was very clear. Approximately 20,000 freshwater crocodiles or “freshies” as Aussies like to call them, call Lake Argyle home and we saw at least 5 as we walked to the shore. Don’t worry, freshies are docile and its okay to walk near them!

The morning we spent walking through the tall grasses of Chat Island was really enjoyable. Once you get to the right spot Yellow Chat becomes downright common and we got to watch an entire family group and then some. Greg estimates that there are 12 Yellow Chats on the island but we have to disagree — There’s definitely more than 12. We flushed two Flock Bronzewings, a pair which circled right in front of us in perfect light offering great views. Greg has been doing these bird cruises for 14 years and had only ever seen Flock Bronzewing one other time! This was a complete shock and a very good bird to see, especially because our last sighting was very brief as birds flew directly away. We also saw a handful of shorebirds on the island including Red-necked Stint, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Long-toed Stint, Red-capped Plover, and Wood Sandpiper.

On our way back towards the dock, nearly 4 hours later, we also checked a patch for Black-backed Bittern and while we missed the bittern, I got my lifer Cockatiel and lifer Gouldian Finch. Unfortunately the Gouldian Finch sighting was of a single, immature/female type bird which left me wondering if dipping the bird might have been better because no one wants to see a Gouldian Finch like that…
$700 might be a lot of money, but it really was a nice morning and I would recommend going if you are in search of Yellow Chat because the bird is basically guaranteed!

Ross booked this cruise on the same day that we were set to fly out of Kununurra to head to Darwin, so after our cruise we simply ate lunch at the dam. I liked that on this trip we set aside clear times to eat because we needed to be sure our 11 month old was getting enough calories. We had happened to mention to Greg that we were going to eat lunch at the park and I’m so glad we did because while packing up Roger to put him in the carrier and grab all of my other things, somehow I had left my Swarovski binoculars, arguably the second most important thing I needed to be responsible for, on the boat. Greg then delivered my binoculars to me while we had our picnic lunch! Thank you Greg for being such a stand up guy!

We didn’t have much else to do other than go directly to the tiny airport and await our flight to Darwin.

This birding occurred on August 19, 2023.
Here’s the checklist from the island: Yellow Chat.