Australia part 2

After a week in Brisbane it was time to start a journey north towards Cairns - a drive of over 1600 km in our trusty Toyota Corolla! Don' t worry - we didn't do it in one go ..... we stayed in six different towns over our 10 day drive!

Our trusty steed

After an uneventful journey, we arrived at our first port of call in Noosa but getting to our accommodation was a nightmare as roads were closed all around the area for the Noosa Marathon which was taking place. We got settled in to our fabulous apartment (Sue was really pleased as it had a washer and drier so she could do some laundry!),  then went  for a look around the local area but apart from the usual suspects i.e. Noisy Miners, Rainbow Lorikeets and 'Bin Chickens', nothing new was seen. The following day we went to a couple of local sites and saw Dusky Moorhen and Swamphen but nothing new, so we tried a few other sites before we managed to stumble upon Weyba Lakes, which gave us Caspian Tern, a pair of White-bellied Sea Eagles which were being harassed by a local Osprey. We also finally had a great view of Laughing Kookaburra perched and also had close views of White-faced Heron and Osprey. Moving again tomorrow to  Hervey Bay for another four nights.

Laughing Kookaburra

White-bellied Sea Eagle

White-faced Heron

Osprey

Started our relatively short drive of 158 km to Hervey Bay, but couldn't resist stopping en route at a lovely park area (Lake Halford)which we passed as we drove through Gympie. There was a massive nesting colony of Cattle, Little and Great Egrets, and Australian Ibis, all looking superb in their summer plumage along with  Blue-faced and Brown Honeyeaters, Spotted Dove, Black Swans and lots of Australian common waterbirds - and also, lots of freshwater turtles.

 Freshwater Turtle

We decided to go to the Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens after dropping our luggage at the hotel; lovely gardens, but the only new bird we noted was Little Wattlebird.
The following day, we had arranged to meet up with The Hervey Bay Birdwatching Group at Walligans - what a great bunch of people they turned out to be! Unfortunately, the site wasn't very productive, with the only bird of note being the Little Friarbird.  The group felt quite bad that we hadn't really had much in the way of birding at this site, so a few of them offered to take us to another site nearby - Arkarra Wetlands which is only a small area but still gave us Fairy Gerygone and Plumed Whistling Duck, along with Pied Cormorant.

Plumed Whistling Duck

Day three and we decided to go The Golden Arches Restaurant for breakfast (McDonald's!) where we saw hundreds of roosting Grey-Headed Flying Foxes. Later, we went for a stroll on the pier and saw Brown Booby, White-throated Needletail and Fork-tailed Swifts before going to Hervey Bay Cemetery, where, we had been told, there was a large group of resident Kangaroos - but not on the day we went! However, it wasn't a wasted journey, as we bumped into a local lady who told us where we could find nesting Bee-eaters and also Cockatiel coming in to roost.  We were really amazed to see the Bee-eaters' nests on the ground right next to the footpaths as normally, they nest in banks....

Grey-headed Flying Foxes

Rainbow Bee-eater

Rainbow Bee-eater outside it's nest hole

Our fourth and final day in Hervey Bay and we'd seen an area called Dophin Point which seemed to have a few small lagoons. When we got there, we found they were actually all part of a lovely new residential area, with footpaths around the lagoons behind the rear gardens of the properties. Magpie Lark were in abundance, along with White-cheeked Honeyeater, Chestnut-breasted Mannakin, Peaceful Dove and our first House Sparrow. Must just say - some of the road names did make us smile - Sue's favourite being 'Lilly Pilly Lane!'  Back to the hotel to pack up (again) ready to move on to our next destination - Rockhampton, some 390 km away.

Magpie Lark

White-cheeked Honeyeater

 Set off early to Rockhampton as we were only there for one night and wanted to at least have a few hours to look around. Nothing of interest on the journey - apart from crossing The Tropic of Capricorn, and passing  through a town called Gin Gin, which Sue found amusing. She kept saying she wanted to live on Lilly Pilly Lane in Gin Gin!! On arriving at our hotel, we headed straight out again to Rockhampton Botanical Gardens and Zoo. We don't really like zoos, bet we thought zoo = food = birds,  but the zoo was not very nice with small cages and sorry looking animals, so we quickly left to explore the rest of the gardens which were excellent with a fantastic lagoon. A few waders on the lagoon, Black-fronted Dotterel, Red-kneed Dotterel and Black-winged Stilt along with sightings of Black and Whistling Kite, Whiskered and Caspian Tern and Pied Imperial Pigeon.

 Black-fronted Dotterel

Black-winged Stilt

Red-kneed Dotterell

Royal Spoonbill

Australasian Swamphen

Whistling Kite

Another long drive today (336 km) to Mackay, so another early start. Stopped for a coffee and bite to eat after a couple of hours and managed to bag another new bird hopping around the table - a very confiding Apostle Bird. As we continued our journey, Sue suddenly said 'Stop!' so I asked her what she had seen (She's quite good at noticing birds) She said it was some sort of crane, so I pulled over as soon as I was able, and turned around to go back. Sure enough - there were a pair of Brolga Crane in field of sugar cane stubble. Good find!  We also pulled off The Bruce Highway to have a look over a couple of roadside lagoons which turned up Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and lots of Marsh Sandpiper, along with a nice little group of Yellow-billed Spoonbill. We arrived at our motel in plenty of time to allow us to visit (you've guessed it!) the Mackay Botanical Gardens - another lovely parkland with a massive lake at it's centre.  We had all the usual waterbirds, Cotton Pygmy-goose being another trip-tick and Comb-crested Jacana - another new bird for me.

 Apostle Bird

Brolga Crane

Marsh Sandpiper with Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

 Royal Spoonbill

 Comb-crested Jacana

Straw-necked Ibis

 Skink species

Following our included breakfast, we set off for the penultimate stop to Airlie Beach, a mere 149.5 km away for a two night stay. We were there by 10.30 and decided that we didn't really want to do too much except recharge our batteries (and for Sue to do some more laundry!)  Despite this, we still managed a few new birds, but this time off the balcony and in the caravan park next door. We were just sitting on the balcony with a cuppa when we were delighted to find ourselves with 'guests' in the shape of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos landing on the balcony railings hoping for something to eat. We had some dry biscuits which they seemed to enjoy and were so used to humans that we hand-fed them. We also saw Helmeted Friarbird, Dusky Honeyeater, Olive-backed Sunbird and Great Bowerbird in the hotel garden during our two day stay, along with a White-Lipped Tree Frog.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Guests for breakfast

 Helmeted Friarbird

Dusky Honeyeater

 

Olive-backed Sunbird

White-lipped Tree Frog

Whilst we were chilling at the pool, the owner stopped to talk to us, and told us that the caravan park next door fed the birds every day at 1600 so we just had to go and have a look... The birds seem to know the time, as they started to assemble at about 15.50, and by the time the guy came out with the food, there were hundreds - mainly Rainbow Lorikeet; it was wonderful to see! We got talking to him - he was the manager (Brownie) and he had moved to this park from their sister park at Airlie Beach (our next stop) so was able to give us some info which just might get us the elusive Cassowary....  After asking if we could walk around the caravan park to see what other birds we could find, we saw Bush Stone-curlew and Radjah Shelduck.

Bush Stone-curlew

 Great Bowerbird

Radjah Shelduck

Rainbow Lorikeet having a ball

And so to our last stop before Cairns - Townsville - which, at 480 km was the longest stretch. We arrived early afternoon after a very long drive - which was not without a new bird though! We saw White-necked Heron in a ditch at the side of the good old Bruce Highway. 

After getting some lunch, we headed for Ingram which Phyll from Hervey Bay Birdwatching Group had recommended. This was a profitable little trip, giving us our only Blue-winged Kookaburra, our first Australian Oystercatcher, Dollarbird and a sub-species of Australian Figbird Sub-species ashbyl - all yellow underparts)

Next stop - Cairns!

Australian Oystercatcher

 Blue-winged Kookaburra

 Blue-winged Kookaburra

Hope you enjoyed reading about our journey from Brisbane to Cairns. The next installment will focus on the Cairns area. As always, thanks for stopping by! 

Down under

Hi and a Happy New Year to you all. Well, I've now sorted out a few of the 1800 images I took on our trip to Australia from 28th October to the 30th of November last year. We flew using Qantas from Heathrow to Brisbane via Singapore. After an uneventful flight, we picked up our hire car ready for our adventure in Oz. I'm not one for listing all species seen, but I'd just like to share some of the high-lights and images of our trip. We started off well - or so we thought! by entering the hotel address into the satnav. After driving for about an hour, we were nearing our destination and spotted a lovely recreational lake so, as it was still only 8.30 am, decided to have a look. The weather was drizzling, and our waterproofs were in our luggage but we decided to chance it anyway. Having never been to Australasia before, nearly all species were going to be new and exciting for us. Our first bird of the trip was Australian Brush-turkey, and walking around the lake it was nice to see a 'real' Black Swan. A few birds of note were Sacred Kingfisher; Welcome Swallow; Purple Swamphen; Olive-backed Oriole and Noisy Miner - which turned out to be probably the most bird of the trip! ..... or maybe that honour should go to the Rainbow Lorikeet!!

Australian Brush-turkey

Black Swan in it's proper country

As it turned out, we were nowhere near our hotel, and had to travel back into the city centre to find it! However, this turned out to be a very happy accident - what was to be the first of many, as we did see 26 species of birds around this lovely little lake! 

Little Pied Cormorant

Australian Pelican

Crested Pigeon

Across the road from our city hotel was a lovely park (parks are abundant in Queensland) 

We spent a few happy hours wandering around the beautiful grounds, adding even more species to our list including Rainbow Lorikeet; Australian Magpie; Magpie Lark; Crested Pigeon and Australian Wood Duck (aka Maned Duck) and our first Laughing Kookaburra.

Hardhead (White-eyed) Duck

Australian Magpie

Rainbow Lorikeet

Bell Miner

 We spent 6 days in Brisbane and had arranged for a couple of local birders to take us out for two of the days and show us around their local patches. (We had contacted the Queensland Ornithological Society prior to our trip, and Rae Clarke very kindly put us in touch with Vernon Kretschmann and Alan Boardman)  The guys took us out separately, having arranged between themselves to take us to different habitats. Thanks to them we saw birds which we could otherwise have easily missed owing to the areas visited. Vernon was covering all wetlands, and started by taking us to Tinchi Tamba Wetands. Again, birds of note were Little Corella; Mangrove Honeyeater; Straw-necked Ibis and three species of Fairy Wren. Tinch Tamba was a great site but too many mosquito's!!

 We then moved on to Dowse Lagoon Reserve where Magpie Goose and Comb-crested Jacana were noted, along with lots of Australian Grebe and Red-necked Avocet, and a Grey Butcherbird. Another great site providing lots more new birds.

After stopping for a late breakfast, we then moved on to Kedron Brook Wetlands and Sandycamp Road Wetlands. This is where we had the best views so far ot Superb Fairy Wren, along with Double-barred Finch - and  our first Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. Some other species we saw were Whistling Duck; Australian Figbird; Grey Teal and Striped Honeyeater. Great, Little and Cattle Egret were present at all four sites, looking magnificent in their summer plumage.

We had a brilliant time with Vernon who was very knowledgeable and showed us lots of new birds. Thank-you very much, Vernon - we added another 45 new birds with your help!

Double Barred Finch

Eastern Yellow Robin

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Grey Butcherbird

 Our second birding day with Alan was focusing on forest habitat. The going was much harder, as it always is in this terrain with the birds being quite elusive. Even so, we still managed to get some really good birds . He took us to some of the sites he birded himself, and boosted our count by another 27 new species. Birds of note were Red-Browed Finch; Lewins Honeyeater; Woompoo Pigeon (great call!); Russet-tailed Thrush and Green Catbird. He took us to a great place he knew in the Lamington NP for a fantastic lunch where we were joined at nearby tables by Satin Bowerbird, Eastern Spinebill and New Holland Honeyeater. What a way to enjoy lunch!!

After lunch, we continued birdwatching with Alan and had views of King Parrot, Golden Whistler and Eastern Yellow Robin. One of the highlights of the day was listening to Bell Miners calling to each other in the colony. Imagine 20 or 30 small bells tinkling, and you'll have some idea of the lovely sound.

Once again, a great day out with another great guide. Many thanks Alan!  Great time!!

Superb Fairy Wren

Straw-necked Ibis

Magpie Goose

Wompoo Pigeon

We also visited the Botanical Gardens wherever we stopped. In Brisbane we saw Hardhead,(aka White-eyed Duck) which is Australia's only diving duck along with Pied Currawong, Scaley-breasted Lorikeet and a large colony of grey-headed Fruit Bats roosting in the trees.

Crimson Rosella

Eastern Spinebill

Lewin's Honeyeater

Pademelon

Pied Currawong

Another place we had been told about and had researched before our trip was O'Reilly's in Lamington NP. It was almost 3 hours drive, but we decided it sounded too good to miss so, on our last day in Brisbane, we set off early to visit it. We were not to be disappointed, although the drive up to the Lamington plateau is on a slow and very winding road, climbing ever upward, with very sheer drops in some places but some amazing views! (The park is at over 1000 metres above sea level in some parts) Our first stop at the park was the restaurant for some much needed breakfast which we had on the veranda. From our table we had flight views of Regent Bowerbird, and also of Topknot Pigeons. After our meal, we walked towards the woodland trails, seeing Crimson Rosella, loads of Red Browed Finch and King Parrots. The birds were in abundance as people could buy food to feed them, which gave fantastic views of them. As we walked the woodland path, we noted Whipbird, White-browed Scrubwren, and a Pademelon, which is a small marsupial, standing only about 60cm tall and weighing 4 or 5 kg. Apparently, we were very lucky to see one according to a local couple, as they are extremely shy and nocturnal! The same couple put us onto an Australian Logrunner - another forest bird which is difficult to find. 

King Parrot

Galah

Masked Lapwing

Summer plumage Cattle Egret

(a plumage that some birders never get the chance to see in GB)

Great Egret

 We eventually had to tear ourselves away from O'Reilly's and head back to the hotel, but we still managed a few more birds to add to our species list in the shape of Pheasant Coucal, Grey Fantail and our first Galah......

Wandering Whistling Duck

Silver Gull

Little Corella

And finally for Brisbane - the Grey-headed Fruit Bats used to fly by our hotel every evening in their hundreds!

This ends the first leg of our amazing trip to The Land Down-under! The next installment will cover our drive from Brisbane to Cairns, just over 1,000 miles away

As always, hope you enjoyed part one of OZ and thanks for stopping by

It's been a while..........

I know it's been a long time since my last post in February -  no excuses - I've just been too idle to do anything, so I thought I would sit and do a post about what I have been doing for the last seven months! Well, just after returning from Singapore, Neil Hagley and I went down to Staines Reservoir near London to have a look at the American version of our Shore Lark - a really striking bird - and we had a really good view of it; whether it gets split or not,I'll leave that to the powers that be.

                                                                     Horned Lark

Apart from birding my local patch, nothing of note really happened in March and April - just waiting for migration to really kick in. The start of May and my mate Mark Lewis took me to a local site of his in Leicestershire for a couple of butterflies in the shape of  Dingy and Grizzled Skipper - two new species for me,  then at the end of May, the wife and I had a really nice day at Bempton Cliffs. Always nice to see a Puffin close by.....

Puffin

Every couple of years, the wife and I  spend a few days in June up on the north east coast, at Sea Houses, where we always make a trip over to the Farne Islands. If you want to get up close and personal to Arctic Terns, this is the place!  I have not posted any images as I have done a post on the Farnes already [see older post] Also in June, Pete Asher and I went to a site given to us by our good mate Neil Hagley, for a Small blue Butterfly;  if you want to know of any butterfly sites, Neil's your man!  Again, a great little site and another butterfly tick for the UK. There were also lots of Marble Whites there as well.

Marbled White

                                                                   Small blue

Small Blue

In July, my mate Ben Croxall messaged me to say that Jim Graham had found a Sandwich Tern at Cropston Reservoir;  I've dipped on this for a county tick on several occasions, as they normally only stick around for a short time before continuing their onward journey, but on this occasion it did the decent thing and hung around well into the afternoon so I could get there in time to see it.

Sandwich Tern Cropston Reservoir

Still in July, another mate, Dave Gray,  asked me if I'd go with him to Norfolk as he was picking up his new scope, so while we were there we called into the RSPB Titchwell reserve, where a Lesser Yellowlegs and been frequenting the fresh marsh. It was teeming with waders and ducks, hundreds of Godwits and more Avocet than I have ever seen together before in the UK; there were also a dozen Spoonbills showing well.  Dave eventually found the Yellowlegs in among the Godwits. After a preen, it flew right in front of the hide we were in -  not a bad couple of hours birding!

                                                                      Avocet

                                                               Lesser Yellowlegs

                                                                       Lesser Yellowlegs

August arrived with not much going on.  Andy Smith found three Great white Egrets at his patch at Thornton Reservoir so I thought I would go and have look. The reservoir is having work done on the outflow,so they have let the water level go right down which has given a temporary shore line almost all the way round - ideal for waders! I also noted six Common Sandpipers; I think Andy had seen well into double figures with this species

                                                Two of the three Great white Egrets

                                                             Great white Egret

Mid August, Dave, Steve, Steve's partner Emma and I all went on a sea safari with Orca, in association with Brttany Ferries, leaving from Portsmouth, sailing to Santander across the Bay of Biscay. These waters are renowned for excellent cetacean and bird watching. We had a great couple of days, with sightings of  lots of Common Dolphins, Fin Whale, Cuvier's beaked Whale,  Minke Whale, Tuna ans Ocean Sun fish; bird-wise, lots of Great Shearwater, but only a handful of Cory's. Probably the best bird noted was some very distant Griffon Vultures in Santander.

                                                                 Common Dolphin

A couple Fin Whales second largest animal on the planet

This was a great trip, which I can highly recommend, the only down-side being, the ship sails from Portsmouth to Santander, but returns to Plymouth, leaving you with a three and a half hour included coach trip back to your vehicle at Portsmouth!

In September, on the way back from visiting relatives in Devon, Sue and I took a little detour off the M5 in Gloucestershire to Rodborough Common in search of Adonis Blue butterfly - another species I needed for my British list. After half an hour or so of searching, we finally found a very worn male feeding on some vetch. It wasn't ideal weather looking for butterflies as it was so windy, but walking back to the car we also found a female that was in better condition than the male

                                                        A very worn Adonis Blue

A nice female Adonis Blue

Well, that's  really brought us up to date! We are now in October and there have been rarities up and down the country, but mostly on the Shetland Isles or the Scillies. The Azores has been getting peppered with American passerines, so when a White-rumped Swift turned up in Yorkshire at Hornsea Mere - a first for Britain - a possible twitch was on! It was found late afternoon, so getting there in daylight that same day was never an option; I was going to go on news the following day, but like most swifts, it didn't stick around, and wasn't seen again. It was only a couple of days later, however, that a Grey Catbird turned up at Land;s End in Cornwall. This was only the second time this American passerine has been seen in Britain, and so a twitch was duly organised,  and very early the next morning, I was en-route,travelling the 325 miles to see this stunning bird with John Waters, Brian Moore and Rosie Thomson. My images don't come close to doing this bird justice! A really good day, and many thanks to John for driving us all!

                                                        Grey Catbird

                                                                    Grey Catbird

Grey Catbird

Well, thats everything up to date, and I will try not to leave it so long next time to tell you about more of my exploits, as I do enjoy doing and sharing my blog with you. Hope you have enjoyed your visit and thanks for stopping by. Until the next time.........