Thanks for your kind comments Mike, much appreciated.
Im a birder first and photographer second, always have been. In that scenario, sometimes my photos are really record shots but there were enough opportunities to be left with some very decent ones!
Melbourne, Victoria - 3 nights Lakes Entrance, Victoria - 3 nights Merimbula, New South Wales - 3 nights Kiama, New South Wales - 3 nights Penrith, Sydney - 2 nights Blue Mountains, New South Wales - 3 nights Noosa, Queensland - 3 nights Glass House Mountains, Queensland - 3 nights O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat, Queensland - 3 nights Brisbane, Queensland - 3 nights Cairns, Queensland - 8 nights
Field Guide - Australian Bird Guide Concise Edition, Jeff Davies et al
We flew into Melbourne and drove just over 1k kilometres to Sydney over 12 days. After 3 days in the Blue Mountains and a couple of days in Penrith, we flew to Brisbane. After that, a further 12 days in and around Brisbane, before a final week or so in Cairns.
The weather was generally very favourable with very little rain. Cool in the mornings in Victoria but warming up nicely during the days. Getting warmer as we travelled northwards. Very warm in the Sydney and Brisbane areas and then hot and humid in Cairns.
As always, not an out and out birding holiday but birding pre breakfast for 1 to 2 hours then seeing whatever I could when we were out on our walks. I organised a day out with a guide on 2 occasions, firstly for the excellent Western Treatment Plant, west of Melbourne and secondly to visit the superb Atherton Tablelands, inland of Cairns.
Main Areas Birded :-
Western Treatment Plant - One of the premier birding sites in the country. Covers several square kilometres of, essentially, a sewage plant, although you wouldn't know that. Several pools, both large and small, areas of farmland, grassland, woodland and adjacent sea shoreline. My guide had keys to certain gates on tracks, so we had full accessibility.
Coastline south west of the WTP - centred around the town of Anglesea which included an area of heathland behind the town.
Noosa Everglades - including Lake Cootharaba. One of only 2 everglades in the world, albeit a much smaller version of the main Florida one.
O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat - south of Brisbane and close to the border with NSW. Part of Lamington National Park and an excellent rainforest area.
Cairns Esplanade - 2 km long mudflats with a tiny strip of beach along its length and an area of mangroves at the top end. Wader paradise.
Atherton Tablelands - Upland plateau a few kilometres inland of Cairns. Around 3k feet asl with much diverse habitat including rainforest, rolling hills, farmland, lakes and other native woodland.
Michaelmas Cay - part of the Barrier Reef situated 43km north east of Cairns and essentially a sand bar, say 350 x 75 metres in size. Never gets covered by the tide and several species of seabird nest there and which are not normally seen from land.
I wanted to get a good number of waders on my list. Most of those seen were at the WTP and from Cairns Esplanade including both Siberian Sand Plover and Greater Sand Plover. A Normann's Greenshank has over wintered here for a few years now but, unfortunately, hadn't arrived when it was time for us to leave. Hooded Plover are listed as Vulnerable, so it was nice to see a small number at a beach near Anglesea where a conservation programme is underway. Waders seen were :-
Two bonuses during the trip, as far as I was concerned, were sightings of both White-capped Albatross and Short-tailed Shearwater, from a vantage point high above a beach near Anglesea in Victoria. On the theme of seabirds, I'll list those seen on our day trip to Michaelmas Cay, on the Barrier Reef ;-
Black-naped Tern Lesser Crested Tern Great Crested Tern Sooty Tern Bridled Tern Brown Noddy Black Noddy Great Frigatebird Brown Booby
Switching to rainforest birds, the highlight for me was the sighting of a Noisy Pitta at the excellent Mary Cairncross Reserve, near Maleny in the Glass House Mountains, Queensland. A small but compact reserve with a trail and part boardwalk of only 1.7km, it has a lot to offer. Almost back at the visitor centre, it seemed like I was to be out of luck but, right in front of a group of loud school kids, it decided to walk across the track from one side to the other. It froze for a few moments with all the attention it was getting, before disappearing back into the rainforest. I'll list some of the rainforest birds throughout the whole trip :-
Noisy Pitta Albert's Lyrebird Superb Lyrebird Green Catbird Tooth-billed Bowerbird Regent Bowerbird Satin Bowerbird White-browed Scrubwren Large-billed Scrubwren Fairy Gerygone Large-billed Gerygone Australian Logrunner Eastern Whipbird Australian Rufous Fantail Paradise Riflebird Black-faced Monarch Australian Spectacled Monarch Russet-tailed Thrush
Finally, a list of the various parrots and cockatoos which were always a delight to see :-
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo Red-tailed Black Cockatoo Gang-gang Cockatoo Galah Little Corella Long-billed Corella Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Australian King Parrot Red-winged Parrot Crimson Rosella Eastern Rosella Pale-headed Rosella Red-rumped Parrot Double-eyed Fig-Parrot Little Lorikeet Musk Lorikeet Scaly-breasted Lorikeet Rainbow Lorikeet
There were many other highlights of what turned out to be a great trip. Various rails, crakes, herons, egrets, 10 species of raptor and 22 species of honeyeater. I never set out to chase any particular endemics or rarities (although I did see some), I just wanted a widespread list of birds.
I ended up with a trip list of 259 which I was very happy with, of which 153 were lifers.
I'll attach a few photos...Brown Falcon, Red-capped Plover, Gray-tailed Tattler, Great Knot...
