Inskip Point, finally

Through no conscious choice, I had managed not to visit one of my main target sites for the year: Inskip Point. There are a number of species that are on the fringes of my search area, and Inskip Point has four of them, all rare and most extremely difficult to find. These birds are: Fairy Gerygone (at the southernmost extent of their range), Ground Parrot, Southern Emu-wren and Brush Bronzewing (all at the nothernmost extent, but not found elsewhere in SEQ). Throw into this mix a resident pair of Beach Stone-curlews and the easiest place in the world to find Black-breasted Button-quail and you have a must-visit site for a big year like mine.

On Wednesday this week I ducked out for the day with Andrew Stafford to finally do some justice to this birding location. We started extremely well, with a Grey Goshawk on the streetlights as we drove up the highway past Nambour. Our first stop for the day was at the Thomas and Thomas site for Ground Parrots in Cooloola National Park. I thought we were being extremely hopeful here, but we were looking for Ground Parrot, Southern Emu-wren, and Brush Bronzewing, all of which had been seen here recently. We had a fantastic morning at this site, with good views of a host of woodland birds, including Andrew's first White-cheeked Honeyeaters and Forest Kingfisher for the year.

In the heath we were extremely fortunate and flushed a Ground Parrot basically from our feet. This is a new bird for me, and #651 for Australia. I had such great views I didn't even need my binoculars to see the black streaking in the plumage. Sadly the bird flew off into the heath, so our sighting was only very brief. Later on we flushed a second bird which gave more distant but longer views. We did hear what we are sure was Southern Emu-wrens, but were unable to get close to them as the heath was completely sodden, with water flowing across the ground in most places. We did manage to find some Wallum Rocket Frogs and Wallum Froglets, which were a highlight of the morning for me, though nothing quite compares to the thrill of seeing a new bird.

From our success in the heath we moved to the sandy peninsula of Inskip Point. Within about ten minutes of arrival we were watching a pair of Black-breasted Button-quail scratching their circular platelets into the middle of the walking track. Honestly, it's ridiculous that such a shy bird could be so easy in just one place in their entire range. However, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so down they went as bird #311 for the year. One of the main reasons for doing this trip was the Sanderling reported from a few days earlier by Steve Murray, a bird I had for the year but Andrew didn't. We saw a handful of shorebirds out on one of the sandbars and, while dubious of the chances of them being Sanderling, we grabbed my scope out of the car and trekked back to have a look. And beyond all reason, the first bird I put my scope on was a Sanderling. I may have said a few bad words in my hurry to get Andrew onto the bird, but I needn't have worried, as there was not one, but five Sanderlings out on the sandbar, in various stages of colouring up for migration. Who knows if they will stay or go, as five is a very small number of sandpipers for a migration flock. Maybe they will overwinter in the area? Along the track on the way back to the car we also had crippling views of a pair of Beach Stone-curlews, which had finally deigned to make an appearance. They were on the landward side of the peninsula, tucked away in the mangroves, though Andrew picked one up in flight initially. While we were disappointed at missing Fairy Gerygone, which really should have been easy on the day, and Southern Emu-wren, which we must have only been metres from seeing at one point, we just can't be sad at how the day turned out! A lifer for me, four yearbirds all up (seven for Andrew), and a couple of new species of frogs, it is hard to ask for anything more than that from a site which is a three hour drive from my front door.

Total birds to date: 312

Photo 1: Wallum Rocket Frog, Litoria freycineti, Cooloola NP
Photo 2: Wallum Froglet, Crinia tinnula, Cooloola NP
Photo 3: Female Black-breasted Button-quail, Inskip Point
Photo 4: Pair of Beach Stone-curlews, Inskip Point

Lake Broadwater redux

So the last few months have been a bit crazy, and not a lot of birding has been done (well not by me anyway). In the interval between my last post and this one, I've launched a website (www.bird-o.com) in conjunction with Simon Mustoe, done a week's consulting work at Alpha, started working part time at Mountain Design, and continued with a bunch of other non-bird related activities. However, I did find the time to sneak out once at the end of April to check out Lake Broadwater again with my partner in crime, Andrew Stafford. You may recall the lake was bone dry on our first visit, but wow, what a change!

This time when we reached the lake, it was absolutely full to the brim. Walking around the edges we flushed many hundreds of frogs, mostly Ornate Burrowing Frogs, but also quite a few Cycloranas (probably novaehollandiae) and some Desert Tree Frogs. On the lake we had hundreds of waterbirds, and a pair of Australian Hobbies foraging for dragonflies over the water. We had come out to look for a pair of Freckled Ducks reported from the area recently, and while we had high hopes on arrival, we failed to find them. We did find every other species of duck you could hope to see in the area though, including about six Blue-billed Ducks, a Musk Duck, and even a Chestnut Teal looking a bit lost.

Moving on from the water we had a quick jaunt through the woodland walk to the south of the lake. Sadly, despite a lot of activity we had no woodland birds that were new for the year. We did flush a pair of Boobook Owls, a bird it was only a matter of time before we saw. In about twenty minutes we saw nearly everything we saw in the previous visit, better and more easily so there was some consolation there. For me it was especially nice to get good views of the Chestnut-rumped Thornbills as they were exceedingly difficult for me to get onto last visit.

From Lake Broadwater we decided to get a bit crazy and drive down to Inglewood to find Squatter Pigeons for Andrew. I had them a few weeks earlier over Easter, but I didn't mind going back to look for them again, hoping to luck onto something good in the meantime. It turned out to be a good hunch, as on the way through Cecil Plains we flushed a couple of small doves off the road. I had initially called them as Peaceful Doves, but Andrew wasn't convinced to we returned to check. This was extremely fortunate as there were three Diamond Doves in the tree beside the road! Diamond Doves are not unheard of in SEQ, but they are quite rare and were not on my list of birds I thought I would get. Needless to say we were both quite excited by the find.

By the time we reached Inglewood it was getting fairly late. We ducked into town to have a quick go for Spotted Bowerbirds, but again they were conspicuously absent. I think I've given up on this site after three visits and will make a special trip to the western edge of Sundown National Park for them now. Heading back to Mosquito Creek Rd we cruised slowly looking for dark pigeons. Andrew was a little skeptical of our chances, as it was nearly sunset now, but this was bang on the time I found my first one, so I was hopeful. In the end I was right, and we had crippling views of a pair of Squatter Pigeons on the road and wandering past the car in the last light of day. We even got to observe the behavior they must have been named for as the birds "squatted" down into the grass. They looked for all the world like pigeon-shaped rocks when they did that, it was a fascinating thing to watch.

With one of our two targets for the day seen, and a nice consolation for missing the Freckled Ducks, we headed back to Brisbane in the dark.

Total birds to date: 308

Photo 1: A poor record shot of a Diamond Dove, near Cecil Plains
Photo 2: A Squatter Pigeon on the road, Mosquito Creek Rd
Photo 3: Squatter Pigeons with one "squatting", Mosquito Creek Rd

Port of Brisbane shorebird count: Sanderling

Another photo-less blog entry, because I managed to get in a shorebird count at the Port of Brisbane before work. Normally I would have expected a new bird to be something like Red Knot, which I fully expect to turn up at some point this year. I confess I was really hoping for a Dowitcher, but that bird has probably flown for this half of the year. I'll have to wait til October to try for both these species again. However, among the beautiful breeding plumaged Pacific Golden Plovers and Sand Plovers, I managed to spot one bird I really didn't think I'd get this year: a Sanderling. These birds are highly uncommon in SEQ for two reasons - one, they are only here in very small numbers, and two, their habitat is open oceanic beaches, which are both hard to get to, and mostly fairly flogged by pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the region. Meaning actually tracking down a Sanderling here is a non-trivial task. Finding one at random in a place that has been surveyed for 20 years is, apparently, a better way to go. In fact, my bird was only the second record ever for the site. Fortunately I wasn't the only birder to get a look at the bird, which was being spectacularly difficult by walking through complex terrain and staying hundreds of metres away. After a morning of fleeting glimpses and frustrating views, we finally managed to see it in the open and get a good look at the bird, or at least good enough to see how much paler and larger it was than the surrounding stints, which was enough for a positive ID.

So anyway, I was pretty amazed to see one, and even more relieved to have another of the unlikely birds for the year ticked off. One step closer to 350!

Total birds to date: 306

Cotton Pygmy Geese

After being lucky enough to finally get Forest Kingfisher for the year, it was good to hear from Andrew that on the same day he had found Cotton Pygmy Geese near Woodford, and they might still be there. So I made a run up there with my mother. We had two goals - find the geese, and look for Richmond Birdwing butterflies at Mt Mee. Heading out to Mt Mee, we got their about an hour before sunset - making me a bit nervous we wouldn't make both of our targets. As we walked around the area looking for butterflies I had basically given up when all of a sudden a large butterfly cruised by over the road. "There's one!" I yelled out and sure enough a female Richmond Birdwing spent the next few minutes gliding around the canopy around near the road and carpark. Yes I'm being deliberately a bit vague, as this critically endangered butterfly must be a target for collectors and I'd rather exact directions not be stored on the Internet forevermore. Suffice to say a midday visit to some of the better rainforest habitat in the area could produce some good luck!

The Pygmy Geese were looking less likely as we made a dash for Woodford. We got to the pond Andrew had the Geese on days before just as the sun went down. I spent a frantic five minutes looking around the edges of the pond, checking every bird, and finally, I despondently headed for the car. At which point my mother found the pair and pointed them out to me. Somewhat embarrassing for me, but honestly, I was just happy to have this uncommon species in the bag for the year!

Species to date: 305

A big Easter: the final chapter

I'll compress the last three days into one post, mostly because the Sundown NP trip was quite disappointing. The following day from Girraween I wanted to check out something else the ranger had mentioned - there were Southern Emu-Wrens in Girraween just like my grandmother had told me, and though they hadn't been seen since 2002, the ranger gave me the last known location for them and directions for how to get there. So I drove around to Bald Rock NP, on the NSW side of the border. I was taken by surprise at the $7 entry fee, but fortunately had enough cash on me to cover it. I hiked off down the border track, mostly seeing interesting butterflies and reptiles, with the occasional dirt common bird on the way. I finally made it to the heath area around lunchtime, the complete wrong time to look for Emu-Wrens. I had a thorough walk through the area - the heath is all pretty new, with fire having wiped it out back in 2002, so as long as not all the bird perished in the fire, there is a good chance they are still there. It is a big enough area to support a small population, and there are apparently other heath areas in that part of the park to check too. I will have to organise an expedition there sometime to establish if they are still there. On the way back to the car I had Crested Shrike-Tits foraging down low, always a good bird to see, even though I had some the day before.

The next day was spent entirely at Sundown NP, but in the north end. We looked for Turquoise Parrots all day with no luck - there is some significant irony in the fact that the supposedly easy species is the one I missed AGAIN, and the two very difficult ones were, in the end, fairly easy. I did manage to find Speckled Warblers and Inland Thornbills in the woodlands near Beehive Mine, and heard what I think was a Little Bronze-Cuckoo calling, as well as a definite Superb Lyrebird near Red Rock Gorge, which was a big surprise to me but are known from the area apparently. On the way out of the park we had a Fan-tailed Cuckoo giving great views calling from by the road, and I had four Wedge-tailed Eagles cruise over, one that didn't have a tail!

The next day I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I headed off in the dark hoping for owls on my way back to Coolmunda. I was planning to look for Spotted Bowerbirds at Inglewood and have another crack at Mosquito Creek Rd and Durakai. My long drive in the dark produced only two night birds, one Tawny Frogmouth, and one unknown that was probably also a Frogmouth. By dawn I was on Mosquito Creek Rd, nearly at the state forest section. I had more Speckled Warblers around the car as the forest got light enough to see, and I moved back slowly along the road looking for anything interesting. As the sun came over the horizon I got my wish. I stopped to look at a kangaroo bouncing through the field. It stopped near the rising sun, and as I panned across, there on the other side was an Emu standing proud in the grass! A coat of arms sunrise! Emu was another bird that is common elsewhere in the country but very difficult locally, possibly even moreso than Squatter Pigeon, which is at least resident in the area, though rare. This was to be my second-last new bird for the trip.

Inglewood was beautiful in the morning light, but though I searched for a good two hours, had no luck on Spotted Bowerbirds. I did find more Plum-headed Finches, making me wonder once again how it took me so long to see my first ones! Coolmunda Dam was a complete waste of time, with a few pelicans and NO DUCKS! Obviously someone forgot to tell the waterbirds I was coming, but this is the worst I have ever seen the dam for birds. Still plenty of water, but possibly too much fringing vegetation for comfort.

Durakai was a hub of activity, though it was more of the same birds from day one. A Scarlet Honeyeater immature male was interesting, and briefly evoked the possibility of female Black Honeyeater til I saw the hint of red. I desperately searched for Regent or Black-chinned Honeyeaters, but sadly no luck. I had one last throw of the dice to make for new birds on the way home.

I went back to Brisbane via Toowoomba instead of Cunningham's Gap, and visited a friend of mine, Mick Atzini in the Upper Lockyer area. We had a good walk along his creekline, where last week there was an Oriental Cuckoo, and several weeks ago he had Red Goshawk fly past. Sadly, we had no such luck, but driving in to his place, I did, finally, get a Forest Kingfisher. I thought "cool" and thought no more of it, as this is a common species in coastal QLD. When I told Mick he got pretty excited - turns out it's the first record he knows of from the area for 15 years! My final new bird of the trip, and it turns out to be a vagrant! Mick took me to some interesting places, including one that used to be reliable for Red-chested Button-Quail (10 years ago!) that I'll have to check out towards the end of the year.

I slowly made my way home after a huge day, and a huge trip. I'm pretty chuffed with myself - Squatter Pigeon, Superb Lyrebird, Southern Whiteface and Emu are all very hard birds on the local scale, and Scarlet Robin and Pallid Cuckoo are must-get migrants that I was a little worried about, though I did expect to get both for the year.

Total birds to date: 304

Photo 1: Emu at Mosquito Creek Rd, near Inglewood
Photo 2: Plum-headed Finch preening, Inglewood

A big Easter: Girraween (#300!)

The next morning I woke bright and early to pick up a bird I'm almost ashamed to have on my year list: Common Blackbird. I had some good gen that there is a small population of them along Quart-Pot Creek running through the centre of Stanthorpe. I walked the entire length of the creek with no luck until I reached the far western end and came across a very English looking garden by the creek. I peered over the fence and sure enough a Blackbird flew off a path in the garden into the trees. A bit more waiting and I saw a few more birds playing around in the bushes. On a subsequent visit a few days later, I managed great views of a male foraging in leaf litter. The embarrassment at specifically looking for this bird is that not only is it a feral, but I've advocated for their removal from SEQ a few times, so to go looking for them makes me squirm a little inside. But hey, they are here under their own steam, and can be legitimately ticked so they were bird #296.

From Stanthorpe I headed out to Old Wallangara Rd for a second bite of the cherry. This area was very good to Andrew and I earlier in the year, with birds like Diamond Firetail and Hooded Robin, but I thought maybe it had a little more to give, and boy was I right! On arrival at the site I had a flurry of birds moving around the area, starting with a group of Hooded Robins chasing each other from tree to powerline to fence to ground to tree again. Diamond Firetails were common and vocal, with Double-barred Finches also making an appearance. A pair of Southern Whitefaces suddenly appeared, a great new bird for the year, and they foraged for the rest of the morning in the same area, giving great views.

At this point I would like to point out a rule I've followed since being a guide at Broome. That rule is always put your binoculars on a bird, even if you're sure it's one you've already looked at. Today this paid off bigtime, as I put a robin in my bins I was sure was one of the Hooded Robins, and it turned out to be a male Scarlet Robin - a very early winter migrant to the area. While I was confident of getting these in June, actually having it on the list is a relief as it's one I couldn't afford to miss. High over the fields some Wedge-tailed Eagles cruised by, and White-plumed and Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters played in the nearby trees. Suddenly another surprise - two cuckoos started calling. The first, in clear view in the fields, was a Pallid Cuckoo - a late stayer. The second, a Fan-tailed Cuckoo that I had to go searching for, an early winter arrival. I can't say I've had these two species calling together before, but both were new for the year and finally raised my total to #300 for the year!

My time at Old Wallangara Rd was over, but there was one more surprise left for the day. My goal on this weekend was quite simple: Turquoise Parrot, Squatter Pigeon, Superb Lyrebird. One easy bird (the parrot) and two very hard ones. The Squatter Pigeon had already come my way the previous day, and I'd missed the parrot in the morning when I hoped to get it, but I had all afternoon to try and track down a Lyrebird. I'd been gathering gen over the previous few months to try and work out how I would see one on the QLD side of the border, a difficult feat most people agreed. The best advice I could get was "ask a park ranger", so armed with this intent I had lunch at the picnic grounds in Girraween and waited for the ranger station to open for the day. The news wasn't great - nothing calling, no real sites to check out. As an afterthought, I was told to check the Underground Creek track near Dr Roberts Waterhole. I figured I had an afternoon to kill so I may as well at least try. Walking through the forest I saw lots of interesting birds - Striated and Brown Thornbills were common, and New Holland and White-eared Honeyeaters were making a racket. A single call had me hunting for a possible Western Gerygone, but I couldn't find it and wasn't 100% sure that it wasn't a White-throated, so I eventually moved on.

Walking along the track I reached the Underground Creek site without finding anything else of note. On the way back I noticed a section of leaf litter that had been thoroughly worked over. Thinking that was promising for Lyrebird I hung around there for a little while. While I was waiting, I heard a Grey Shrike-Thrush calling in the distance. Except, it wasn't really doing it right, with lots of gaps between calls, and a few other things that didn't really sound quite kosher. So I thought hey, why not check, it *could* be a Lyrebird. So I walked up the little gully the call was coming from, and as I got closer, I started to hear some different calls interspersed amongst the Shrike-Thrush - Crimson Rosella, Satin Bowerbird, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo and others, all classic Lyrebird mimicry fodder. I started to get pretty excited at this point, but I was presented with a conundrum. The rules of my year say I have to see the bird, and this one was calling from dense low scrub. There was basically no way I could manage to get close without scaring the bird off. As I started on my chosen course, expecting failure, a Lyrebird ran through the undergrowth to a point just metres in front of me, raised its tail, and began to dance and sing. It was electric! I had seen Lyrebirds perform before, and had better views of the show (this bird was quite obscured by bushes, though I could see its tail quite clearly), but I have never been so close to a Lyrebird performing, and I could hear every little click and whirr, chirp and squeak the bird made. I sat frozen for ten minutes while the bird performed. Another male was singing nearby, and what might have been a female or another young male foraged for food nearby. The whole experience was just magical, one of those moments that stay with you forever.

After it was all over I headed back to the picnic area and made my way down Junction Track hoping for a lucky sighting of Chestnut-rumped Heathwren, but no such luck. No matter, I'd made it to 300 birds for the year, knocked off a major and very difficult target, and had a memorable experience to boot! What a day!

Total birds to date: 302

Photo 1: Southern Whiteface pair, Old Wallangara Rd
Photo 2: Hooded Robin male, Old Wallangara Rd
Photo 3: Hooded Robin pair, Old Wallangara Rd
Photo 4: Scarlet Robin male, Old Wallangara Rd
Photo 5: Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, Old Wallangara Rd
Photo 6: Superb Lyrebird

A big Easter: Brisbane to Inglewood

So I spent a good deal of Easter this year birding (no real surprise there), and I had a fantastic run of luck while doing it. As the areas I visited are wildly different, and spread over several days, I'm splitting the blog post for Easter into three sections.

On the first day of Easter (the Thursday for me, it's great being your own boss!), I headed off after lunch towards Stanthorpe, sort of. The sort of is that I intended to make a run via Durakai and Coolmunda Dam on my way, which is a diversion of over 100km. Still, the birding at those places is great, and I still needed a few things from the area. Of interest on the way was a White-bellied Sea Eagle just before Aratula, feeding on something (possibly a turtle?) at a little wetland on the roadside. I also stopped at a dam on the right of the highway just outside of Warwick on the way to Durakai, as Andrew Stafford relates he once had an Australian Shelduck there, but sadly, no mega-rarities on the day I was there. At Durakai, things were very quiet. I had several groups of Speckled Warblers making their way around the little dam at the far end of the forest, and lots of dry woodland specialists like Brown Treecreeper and Little Lorikeet milling around, but nothing really great in the area.

Moving on, I arrived at Mosquito Creek Rd (marked as Mosquito Rd in Google Maps) near Coolmunda just before sunset. In that special golden light you get at the end of the day I drove down this dirt road for a magical twenty minutes as an array of rare and interesting birds flew by. My first big bird on the road was a single Squatter Pigeon. Now this is the exact bird I was there to see, but at first I wrote it off as a dark Common Bronzewing. But something tickled my brain and said I should go back and check it. It flushed off the side of the road and sure enough, it was a Squatter Pigeon - my first ever for the SEQ region and a big one for the year list. In the Brigalows lining the road a few Yellow-throated Miners competed for space with Noisy Miners, one of those fringe areas where both species occur together. From there I headed further down the road as flocks of Red-rumped Parrots and Bluebonnets moved along the road verges in front of me. In all, I had over 50 Bluebonnets, and extraordinary total given their supposed rarity in the region. The grassland in this part of the area is at present quite amazing - waist high and lush, I was sure I was going to find Emu, Bustard and all manner of other things out in the fields. Sadly, this wasn't to be on this visit, however I did find some large flocks of finches, including over 20 Plum-headed Finches, and a small number of Zebra Finches associating with them. White-winged Fairy-Wrens and Singing Bushlarks were also quite common in the area.

In all this was a very special afternoon, and though I had to make a dash for Stanthorpe to get there in time for dinner, I was very happy with the day.

Total birds to date: 295

Powerful Owl

So as I write this, I have a Powerful Owl calling from a tree in my front yard. Words can't describe how happy this makes me, for a number of reasons. Reason one: I didn't have Powerful Owl on my year list yet. Reason two: I didn't have Powerful Owl on my area list yet, let alone my yard list. Reason three: Powerful Owls are awesome! This is one of those weird curve balls nature throws at you sometimes. There is no habitat for Powerful Owls in my area. We do, however, have good connectivity via Cubberla Creek all the way to Mt Coot-tha, where there has been a resident breeding pair of Powerful Owls for many years. Regardless, I would never have put this bird on a list of possible species that could turn up in my area. Honestly I would have expected to get Barn Owl before I got Powerful Owl. Nonetheless, I have photos of a Powerful Owl in a tree in my yard, and I can still hear it calling outside. Amazing!

Total birds to date: 294

A slight diversion

So, this was meant to be my big post, about reaching 300. I had it all planned out. I was driving to Townsville with a friend of mine, and on the way I was going to see Grey Goshawk at Coolum, Black-breasted Button-Quail and many others at Inskip Point, and basically have knocked off 6/7ths of the year's list by March. Sadly, the weather had other ideas. Our drive up the coast was so miserable we had to cancel both Inskip Point and Eungella and just head straight for Townsville. Now don't get me wrong, I love birding around Townsville, but Eungella holds a special place in my heart, and Inskip is still within my 250km area so I was a little dirty about it all to say the least. Still, I did get some good birding in at Paluma, north of Townsville.

I went up there for a day with local birder Duan Biggs, who despite being an international guide and quite a skilled birder, is still missing a couple of local birds. Our target for the day, if you can call such difficult birds targets, was Red-necked Crake. There had been one seen within the last week, and Duan felt it was his time to find one, having stood metres from calling birds in the past without seeing them (a frustration I know well from trying to find Rufous Scrub-birds). Despite a valiant effort searching, we failed to find a crake, though we did hear one calling, thus adding to Duan's frustration. On the way we did manage to find most of the local endemic species - Bower's Shrike-Thrush, Tooth-billed Bowerbird, Grey-headed Robin, Chowchilla, Macleay's Honeyeater, Victoria's Riflebird.

Actually, speaking of Riflebirds, we saw something pretty amazing while we were there - a lek of juvenile male Riflebirds practicing their displaying. Apparently young males often congregate in groups to practice their mating dances, with one taking the part of the male, and another pretending to be a female. Then they swap. Our birds were using the cross-bars on powerpoles to display, and in all I counted eight birds flitting around and doing silly dances. It was pretty amazing! Also amazing was having a male Superb Fruit-Dove land in a tree above us and sit in the open feeding for a while. You may remember back to my pathetic but "good enough" views of Superb Fruit-Dove from near Yandina earlier in the year. Well prior to this trip I'd never really had much better views. Once at Julatten I had a male fly overhead but not perch, a couple of times at Eungella I identified birds by call and then saw them 30m up in the canopy, but certainly not what you would call a "life view". Well I can now say I've seen a male Superb Fruit-Dove in the wild as well as I'm likely to ever see one, and I'm pretty happy about that. Another highlight was the abundant and bold Noisy Pittas in the area. These are birds that are easy enough to see around Brisbane, in fact I saw mine for the year at Lacey's Creek back in January. However, easy to see and easy to see well are not the same thing at all. At Paluma at one stage I had a Noisy Pitta bouncing along a driveway only 10m away from me, completely in the open. It hung around for about 30 minutes while we watched the lek of Riflebirds and got bored of seeing the pitta so well. Actually, I lie, I would never get bored of seeing a pitta that well, but it wasn't the Red-necked Crake, so we eventually moved further on.

A point of interest for me was that Duan was surprised by the presence of Satin Bowerbirds in great numbers. I was a little surprised to see one - I don't believe I had seen one in my previous visits to the area, and I was aware they were pretty rare in Eungella so figured it would be the same here. Well, in the course of the day we probably saw more than 30 Satin Bowerbirds, all females and young males, no males in adult plumage at all. We even found two bowers with blue objects and attendant males doing mimicry and dancing. Duan said he had once before seen Satin Bowerbirds in the area, but they were quite rare, so I'm not sure what is going on there but it could be of some interest.

A few days after Paluma, Duan gave me a ring and said he wanted to do some wader watching, which I was all for, seeing as how waders are kind of my specialty. The target for the day was Wandering Tattler, but we started by looking for flocks of roosting waders near the mouth of the Ross River. Turns out the day we went was a pretty major tide, and while we did find a flock of about a thousand birds, they were on a sandbank so far away as to be unidentifiable. On the bright side, while we were there a radio station promotional car stopped and gave us a doughnut and an iced coffee for free, which was pretty awesome. Our next tactic was to head to the breakwater for the river mouth, and walk along the groyne. This proved to be highly successful. We started out with great views of a pair of grey-morph Eastern Reef-Egrets, and some young Striated Herons. As we walked further down the groyne we started seeing Green Turtles, mostly youngish ones, maybe half the size of adults or smaller. Finally, as we neared the end of the breakwater we got lucky and flushed three Wandering Tattlers which gave their diagnostic calls immediately, saving us the effort of trying to puzzle out their other, more difficult ID features. We had prolonged views of the birds resting within less than five metres away from us, easily the best views I've ever had of this species, though we had to be pretty careful to get views that good. Our day was topped off by a close fly-past of a Brahminy Kite, and a group of three Sooty Oystercatchers, plus more Turtles on the way back. In all a very satisfying end to a wonderful if brief trip.

Total birds to date: STILL 293

Image 1: Immature male Victoria's Riflebirds practicing displaying, the H-Trail, Paluma
Image 2: Male Superb Fruit-Dove, the H-Trail, Paluma
Image 3: Noisy Pitta, the H-Trail, Paluma
Image 4: Wandering Tattlers, Ross River breakwater, Townsville

Swamp Harrier, Common Sandpiper

Today, on the spur of the moment, I decided to have a crack at a couple of local birds not on my list yet. Last week, on the Broadwater trip, Andy Jensen had told me that he had a Swamp Harrier and a Common Sandpiper being seen regularly at his local patch, Kedron Brook. This, interestingly, is the same place I had the Grass Owl at the beginning of the year, but I have never been there during daylight before.

I gave Andy a call about 4pm and asked if he was interested in having a look around. He was already out in the field, having a look around on the off-chance of a Black Bittern turning up, so was quite happy to meet me at the wetland and show me where he had the birds. When I got there Andy was there, and chatting with local birder and guide Roy Sonnenberg plus his guest. They were there having a look for Lewin's Rail (apparently seen twice at the site this year so far) and of course for the famous owl. We had a quick chat and then set off across the sodden field.

Now at this point I should mention that I haven't owned gumboots (wellingtons/galoshas, etc) since I was about ten, but being out with Rob last week in the mud at the wader roost really pointed out the usefulness of this bit of birding kit. Rob said I could pick up a cheap pair from Big-W, though I ended up getting a $20 pair from Kmart. Well today they paid for themselves, as wading across that former grassland (current lake) would have ruined my expensive boots or any other shoes I chose to wear on the day. So armed with gumboots, camera and binoculars we set out. We didn't have to wait long, with a young male Swamp Harrier gliding across the back of the field, and then shortly after an adult female flushing from nearby the track we were walking down. We reached the back of the field and walked along the muddy channel at the far side. The very high tide was a little disheartening, but about 15 minutes into the search, Andy called out that he had a Common Sandpiper on the far bank. And another. Then I picked up another two. In all we had four Common Sandpipers on this small stretch of creek bank, all together. This was pretty extraordinary as they are a species I wasn't positive I would see this year, didn't even have a potential site to look, and had never seen in south-east QLD before. I'm aware they aren't as rare as I am making them out to be, and I know people who have sites they swear by that I have always failed to find birds at. All I know is it's now on my list and I'm very happy about it. And lets not forget, Common Sandpipers are one of the most charismatic of our waders, with their bobbing tails and short, erratic running. It was good to see them again, regardless of their place on my year list.

Total birds to date: 293

Stradbroke Seawatching

So not having learned my lesson from the failed seawatch attempt at Pt Cartwright a few weeks back, I responded to an invitation from local birder Colin Reid to head over to North Stradbroke Island for the day to look for seabirds from Pt Lookout. If you wanted to take a car over to the island, it would make for a very expensive day, however there is a fast catamaran across that is quite cheap as a return ticket, and is met by a bus that takes you all the way to the lookout at the northern tip of the island. Using this method of transport, we had a very pleasant journey out and back, and from that side of things the day was highly successful.

As I drove to the ferry in the morning, rain was pouring down nearly the whole way to the terminal. By the time I reached Cleveland, I was ready to turn around and go home, but as I pulled up the rain had cleared and the horizon was looking promising. I figured I should give it a go, as Colin, Rob Dougherty and Stuart Warren were all heading over. At least I'd have good company if it was miserable. By the time we stepped off the bus at the point, it wasn't raining at all, and in fact, apart from a brief shower, we didn't have any rain for the four hours we spent looking. Of course, as soon as we left the weather moved in and it started raining again. It was almost like someone was watching out for us!

In terms of what we saw on the day, it was a huge success. I didn't really know what to expect in a morning, but we managed to find three year birds for me. The first was a pale morph Arctic Jaeger the cruised by at speed, and later in the day came in a little closer for some better views, along with a brief visit from an intermediate Pomarine Jaeger. We had a near-constant stream of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters going by all day, and at one point a Fluttering/Hutton's type Shearwater too, though the hoped-for Streaked Shearwaters didn't appear. At one point we had a Bridled/Sooty Tern cruise past about 500m offshore, but we couldn't see it well enough to confirm an ID. The stars of the day though were the noddies. All through the hours we spent there we had a small but constant trickle of both Black and Common Noddies, both new for me for the year. It was great to get good looks at both as they cruised past flying against the wind, because it gave me a chance to really get to know the ID features. My previous experience with the two species was from snorkelling trips, where I got so close to the birds I never had to try hard to make an ID. From a distance, in windy conditions, it is a lot harder! Our final great birds of the day were a flock of seven Wandering Tattlers, including one in partial breeding plumage. They were calling near-constantly for a few hours, kicking up a fuss and flying between rocky pillars. A great, sustained view of a good bird.

On top of all the great birds we had hundreds of Bottlenose Dolphins cruising back and forth around the point, surfing waves and breaching, and quite a few Green Turtles and a few HUGE Loggerhead Turtles surfacing right off the rocks. Colin even had an eagle ray breaching at one point. The day was so successful we are going to have to go back in winter for another go. Another bonus of going back at that time of year is the Humback Whales will be back by then, playing around offshore and breaching. Something to look forward to!

Total birds to date: 291

Photo 1: Black Noddy
Photo 2: Common Noddy
Photo 3: Arctic Jaeger, courtesy of and (C) Rob Dougherty
Photo 4: Bottlenose Dolphins

Double-banded Plover, Collared Kingfisher

So today I braved a tsunami to go birding. Ok, sure, that's a slightly creative take on what actually happened, but there was a tsunami alert for the coastal areas, and Rob and I were heading out to go wader watching anyway, so technically its true. The tide for the day was already planned to be massively high (by Brisbane standards anyway, around 2.6m without the "tsunami's" assistance), and the flocks of waders on the coast were huge as they sought refuge where they could above the tide mark. Rob and I managed to find a particularly good group of birds, the largest I have ever seen outside of the Port of Brisbane (which is not publicly accessible). All up there must have been well over 5000 birds. We were mainly looking for Asian Dowitcher, a very rare bird locally and one I don't really expect to get for the year. Sadly, today I was right, with nothing presenting itself. We did have a small flock of Black-tailed Godwits in amongst the thousands of Bar-tailed Godwits, and a pair of Grey Plovers were also good for the site. The stars of the show, however, were the birds in breeding plumage. By early March, many of the migratory shorebirds are ready to start migrating, and one of the first things we noticed on arrival at the site was the Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers in stunning breeding plumage. As the day progressed we saw Pacific Golden Plover and Curlew Sandpipers in partial breeding plumage, and a couple of Bar-tailed Godwits resplendent in their blood-red plumage. After spending an hour going through each bird at the site carefully, we finally admitted there probably wasn't anything rare at the site. Having made this admission, I promptly found a Double-banded Plover (#287) in non-breeding plumage, just to prove me wrong. Now these birds aren't really that rare in Brisbane, it's just that right now they are meant to all be in New Zealand. I'm not sure whether this was a very very early non-breeding arrival from NZ, or a bird that decided to stay in Aus instead of migrating home (how unlike a Kiwi!), but either way it was a big surprise to see one in February.

Moving on from the wader watching, we headed to the boardwalk at Wynnum to try for Collared Kingfisher (#288) - a bird I had missed to now. We spent a bemusing ten minutes looking around the area without hearing any, before first hearing a pair by the track on our way out, and then seeing one right at the exit before leaving. We also stopped by Fuller's Oval to see if we could luck onto something rare, but the wetland is so full there was no chance. Still, two new species for the day was most welcome, and seeing the high tide and the huge flocks of waders was great too. I didn't take my camera out to the wader roost due to the intensely muddy conditions, so photos shown are from other areas we visited.

Total species to date: 288

Photo 1: Juvenile Dollarbird, Fullers Oval
Photo 2: Brahminy Kite, Wynnum

Thornbills and Bluebonnets

One of the things I need to do this year to achieve my goal of 350 species is to get out to some of the peripheral areas in my region. This includes a place called Lake Broadwater, a wonderful reserve south-west of Dalby. I planned to head out there with a number of local birders, armed to the teeth with scopes to look for waterbirds at the lake. Sadly, unlike every other waterbody in south-east QLD, Lake Broadwater is bone dry, and several of the target species we were planning to see on the long trip out there were impossible. Despite this disappointment, we did manage to see quite a few great birds on the day.

We started out with a couple of lazy year ticks on the drive through the Lockyer Valley, with a flock of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (#275) perched by the highway, and a Spotted Harrier (#276) cruising slowly over grasslands as we whizzed past. Stopping for some fuel at Dalby gave us Yellow-throated Miners (#277), another easy (but expected) year bird, as well as being our first of many honeyeaters for the day.

When we reached Lake Broadwater, a quick stop at the lake itself confirmed the futility of trying for waterbirds - there was only a tiny little bit of water left at the boat ramp and the rest of the lake was just gone. So without wasting any time we headed down to the belah and cyprus forest south of the lake to look for our target dry country species. Within a minute of stopping we had Yellow Thornbill (#278) and Inland Thornbill (#279), and these two species were possibly the most abundant birds for the day. A Red-capped Robin (#280) male flitted over the track, giving us our next target for the day. This was the first of quite a few Red-caps for the day, with at least eight pairs being seen during the day, sometimes associating with Eastern Yellow Robins. The circuit walk produced some great bush birds as well as some surprises. A frustrating encounted with a bird that looked like it might have been a Western Gerygone led us to a feeding flock of birds, including Brown and Scarlet Honeyeaters. Further down the track we had a very young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo being frantically fed by Yellow Thornbills, with Rufous Whistlers and Grey Shrike-Thrush calling loudly from the area.

Our group got split up for a little while as some of us chased butterflies and others pressed on down the track. While I was split from the group, I found a White-eared Honeyeater moving through the trees, our only one for the day. Getting back to the others, we found out they had seen a Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater (#281), a difficult bird in SEQ and one I wasn't sure where to look for. I spent a frustrating few minutes looking for it, before one of the others called me from further up the track and pointed another one out in a clump of mistletoe. Our next wave of birds was all small birds, an amazing cluster made up of Speckled Warblers, Weebills, and Yellow-rumped, Yellow, and Inland Thornbills. Then someone saw our last target bird for the day, a Chestnut-rumped Thornbill (#282), somewhere in the flurry. Somehow, everyone but me managed to see this first bird, and I was left to trudge around dejectedly checking all the little birds in the area with no luck. Fortunately, someone came to my rescue again, and found a little flock of them moving through the bush about 100m from where we started looking. Feeling like a bit of a chump, but very grateful to see this difficult SEQ bird, I hurried over and got great views. All the karma I got for seeing the Black Cockatoos at 100km/h from the car was surely used up by now.

A quick stop back at the lake to eat lunch meant I had a chance to wander through the long grass trying to flush quail or button-quail. Sadly, this produced nothing except a few Singing Bushlarks, a bird we had at Coolmunda Dam earlier in the year, so after this we moved on to the Jandowae area. On our way we had a great encounter. Driving through an area of particularly lush grassland we saw a couple of small brown things scurry across the road. Screeching to a halt, we piled out of the car looking for what had to be a quail of some kind. Sure enough, we flushed a beautiful Stubble Quail from the grass, and then another. I had some more great views of this bird in flight. I was jealous when a few minutes later, Laurie and Andy managed to see one on the ground wandering through the grass, but it was a new species for both of them so I was also very happy for them.

Jandowae is famous in this region as being the home of Painted Honeyeater, a long-shot bird on the day, but one that we have to get this year to reach our target. While there is very little woodland left in the region, the back roads near Jandowae have some remnant Brigalow forest running along the roadside reserves, in some cases heavily loaded with mistletoe. It is the mistletoe that attracts the Painted Honeyeaters, along with some rarer birds such as Black Honeyeater having been seen occasionally. However, on this trip, it wasn't the right time of year for such things, and it was more of an exploration as neither Andrew nor I had been out here before and we wanted to get our bearings. It did produce a couple of new birds for the year, with White-winged Chough (#283) finally putting on an appearance after being strangely absent til now, and Singing Honeyeater (#284) being fairly common in the area. We also lucked onto a small flock of Zebra Finches (#285) which was great, though we would have got these in the Lockyer Valley had we needed to. Our final new bird for the day was found as we were driving home in the late afternoon, with many parrots flying around the road, including Pale-headed Rosellas and Red-rumped Parrots. In amongst these, we found a pair of Bluebonnets (#286) that flushed off the road, and we managed to get some great views for Andy, who hadn't seen them before.

In all it was a great day with 12 new species for me and 11 for Andrew (the Spotted Harrier was one he'd already seen). While the day didn't go remotely as planned, we still got a lot of dry country specialties that we had to get at Broadwater, and we managed to scout out where to go in Jandowae for later in the year.

Total birds to date: 286

Photo 1: Grey Fantail, Lake Broadwater
Photo 2: Satin Azure, Lake Broadwater
Photo 3: Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Jandowae
Photo 4: Singing Honeyeater, Jandowae

Black Kite

Just a short one today. I was driving along the Western Freeway, through the Indooroopilly section, and saw a Black Kite cruising over the road. This is a very unusual record for Brisbane, so I was pretty happy to see it. We're likely to see many more Black Kites out near Lake Broadwater this weekend but it's nice to get them closer to home for the year.

Owlet Nightjar

Today I got two text messages about rare birds in SEQ, but I could only follow up on one of them. I decided to chase an Oriental Cuckoo that had been reported in the Samsonvale area in north Brisbane. Andrew and I ducked out there in the afternoon with visions of Oriental Cuckoos dripping from the branches. Sadly, after a few hours of being shown around by local and top birder Tom Tarrant, we now knew just about every place in the area that was good to look for them, but hadn't actually found any. We did get some great views of White-throated Needletails, a large swift that migrates to Australia for summer. We also dipped on a few common things that we really should have got. We totally missed Forest Kingfisher (again), and Andrew managed not to see the elusive Cicadabird despite Tom and I seeing one, and several calling from near the road but not showing themselves.

Our saving grace for the day came from another local and great birder Roger McNeill, who has a B&B up in the foothills of Mt Glorious. Roger has an Owlet Nightjar that lives in a hollow outside his house that spends its days sunning itself. If on the off-chance it has ducked into its spacious hollow for a kip, it responds politely to a knock on the tree by poking its head out to see what the fuss is about. That was the theory a few weekends ago when Andrew and I came out to try and see the little blighter. Sadly that day we walked away frustrated, but to our relief, today we dashed in on sunset and our little Owlet Nightjar friend duly poked his head out of the hollow like the cutest little mupped you've ever seen. A new bird for the year, and one that neither Andrew nor I had a reliable spot for at the beginning of the year.

Total birds to date: 274

Pelagics: Gould's Petrel, Black-winged Petrel, White-necked Petrel

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... our first pelagic for the year. I have a love-hate relationship with pelagic birding - I love it, it hates me. Well, actually, to be more specific, its mostly just the Southport pelagic that hates me. You see, I get seasick. Sometimes. Actually, mostly just off Brisbane. In the boat that we use for the Southport pelagics. Its true, I don't seem to get sick anywhere else, or in any other boats. So signing up for the February pelagic this year, I knew there was a chance it would end badly for me. The week leading up to the pelagic was ideal. There were two storm cells approaching the region, one from the north over the ocean, the other from the south, also over the ocean. The prevailing wind was from the south-east, originating in the seas north of New Zealand. All this combined to mean that seabirds would be concentrating in the ocean off Brisbane, culminating on Friday night, the day before the pelagic, when conditions would begin to ease, allowing us to get the boat out. And that's how it panned out. Winds were 10-15 knot south-easterlies, swell was 2.5 - 3m. It was pretty rough, for Southport, and with the nasty cross-currents that the area is known for the boat was tossed around a bit like a cork in a washing machine. Or at least that's how it felt to my stomach. Needless to say, two seasickness tablets had little effect, and I was sick as a dog all day. That about covers the "worst of times", however, despite this challenge, the perfect lead up produced a near perfect day bird-wise. We had everything we could have hoped for and more, with 3 lifers for me, and 13 year birds all up, all of them difficult to get any way other than on a boat.

We started the cruise out well, with the occasional Pomarine Jaeger mixed in amongst the Wedge-tailed and Flesh-footed Shearwaters. We had one Hutton's Shearwater do a flypast on the way out. When we reached the continental shelf things started to get really exciting. Our first petrel of the day was a Black-winged Petrel, a good rarity for Australia and my first lifer for the day. This was joined by a second, and then by a Gould's Petrel, another cookilaria-type petrel, and my second lifer for the day. The action didn't stop, with Tahiti Petrels joining in the flurry, and then a flypast from a Kermadec Petrel which fortunately approached on the side I was throwing up over, because otherwise I probably would have missed it.

After about half an hour of watching the cookilaria petrels circle the boat, we decided to head over to a flurry of activity we could see about a kilometre away. This turned out to be a flock of a few hundred shearwaters, but sadly, the petrels didn't follow us over. We did start to pick up oceanic terns, with Sooty Tern being almost common through the day, and later on a single Bridled Tern making a pass by the boat. A Great-winged Petrel did a couple of fly-bys of the boat before disappearing - another good local rarity. Through this section of the day I missed several White-necked Petrels that passed us well back from the boat. We finally ran out of time and started heading back, and I was feeling pretty good about two lifers and a whole bunch of year birds. But the excitement still wasn't over.

On the cruise back we finally had a White-necked Petrel cruise close by the boat, affording another photographic opportunity, and my third lifer of the day. Further on, we had Lesser Frigatebirds circling over the water near a pod of offshore Bottlenose Dolphins and some Common Dolphins, all of which came and rode our bow wave for a while. The Bottlenoses, nearly twice the size of the Commons, chased the little guys away pretty quickly, but they did put on enough of a show for me to confirm Common Dolphin as a cetacean lifer for me. Not done yet, the day had one more surprise in store, with a White-tailed Tropicbird coming off the ocean near us and making a near-complete sweep of tropical pelagic species that can be seen off Brisbane.

Andrew managed to get one back on me, as I had seen Wedge-tailed Shearwaters in my disastrous sea-watch a few weeks ago. This brought our totals back to within four of each other. It does mean I'm pulling out of the March pelagic - the massive success of the bird list we came away with, coupled with the debilitating sea-sickness mean I don't want to step on a boat until winter, preferably late winter. We'll see how we go.

Total birds to date: 273

Photo 1: Black-winged Petrel
Photo 2: Gould's Petrel
Photo 3: White-necked Petrel
Photo 4: Common Dolphin

http://southportpelagics.wildiaries.com/trips/286

Long-billed Corella, Peregrine Falcon

I ducked into the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland yesterday afternoon with a few administrative things I had to do there, but also with a mind to finding what is probably my second most contentious feral bird for the year. Long-billed Corellas have been around and breeding in the western suburbs of Brisbane for many years, certainly longer than the ten required to meet the standard twitchers' guidelines. It still feels a little wrong to include them on a list. I suppose this is because they are a native Australian parrot, found wild in the border country between South Australia and Victoria. Because they are a native, and clearly an escapee, I think introduces a mental barrier to ticking them that doesn't exist for something like a House Sparrow, whose native range is in Europe. Nonetheless, in this quest for 350 species I can't afford to be too choosy, and if I say Long-billed Corella isn't allowed I would really have to drop Common Starling, Common Myna, House Sparrow and Nutmeg Mannikin from my list also, plus wouldn't be able to add Common Blackbird when I find one. That's 6 species off the total, which I can't afford. I of course left one feral out of that list, one which I'll address in another post. That feral is Northern Mallard, the most contentious feral on the list and one I may or may not add for different reasons.

I'm not sure how difficult most people find telling Little and Long-billed Corellas apart, but the two species make very different calls if your ears are tuned in. I found my first Long-billed Corellas in a flock of a few hundred Littles within five minutes of stepping out of my car. It was a mum feeding a baby, with dad in a nearby tree looking on, so in some ways that helped alleviate my twitcher's guilt as it was proof that they are breeding in the wild up here. I completed all the other things I had to do and was heading back to my car when all the Noisy Miners in the area started clamoring. For those of you who have birded the east coast of Australia, you would know that Noisy Miners make great raptor alarms, and sure enough, a dark shape was cruising overhead. A dark shape which quickly resolved into a Peregrine Falcon, a new bird for the year and my first for the St Lucia area! So a simple afternoon doing some administrative tasks turned into a two-bird day, possibly my last in the Brisbane suburbs. It's all uphill from here...

Total birds to date: 260

Black Bittern, Brown Goshawk

This morning I went for a walk through my local rainforest rehab plot to see what might turn up. Sadly, the council were mowing the park, so the noise prohibited birding by ear, and also meant it was unlikely I'd luck onto a Bush Hen. Butterflies were going crazy in the are, with hundreds of Blue Triangles flying around, as well as lots of other species present in smaller numbers. In the rainforest plot I did manage to see my first Golden Whistler for the season, and a family of Varied Trillers (dad, mum and several immatures) were chasing each other through the trees, calling like mad.

I came to the park for two species, and with Bush Hen being out of the question, thought I'd try my luck at Black Bittern. Heading up the creekline through the forest, I flushed something from down low which got my heart racing. When it perched in the canopy I realised it was a young Brown Goshawk, a year bird for me, but certainly no equal to bittern in terms of excitement. But all was not lost, as another hundred metres up the creek I put up a mid-sized dark bird from the edge of the water - Black Bittern! This is only my second record for the site. They move to the coast during the winter months, so I'm hopeful it might stick around for the season, but I guess we'll see.

After heading back out to the grassy area I skirted the new plantings and picked up a Leaden Flycatcher, another unusual bird for the area. All in all, a highly successful morning.

Total birds to date: 258

Photo 1: Varied Eggfly
Photo 2: Common Flatwing
Photo 3: Scaly-breasted Lorikeet

Wildiaries trip report

Shining Bronze-Cuckoo and Varied Sitella

Andrew and I headed out to Samsonvale this morning to get some birding in and hopefully clean up a few easy and not so easy bush birds that can be found in the area. Before we began, Andrew wanted to see the Nutmeg Mannikins I found earlier in the week. Thinking this would be a quick and easy get for him, we headed up there early in the morning, only to have to wait 45 minutes before they finally came out in the open enough for a positive identification. Such is birding! At least Andrew came away with a new bird for the year. Samsonvale was surprisingly slow when we got there, and didn't really pick up all morning. We ran into Steve Murray at the cemetery on Gold Scrub Rd, another local birder, and he said he had only found 38 species since 5:30am. With Steve we headed off to look for some bush birds, and the first interesting thing we found was a White-throated Nightjar walking across the path in front of us! This was a very unusual find - not only are these birds nocturnal and shouldn't have been active, but the bird was walking and I've never heard of them doing this before. Sadly it flushed off the path without us managing to get a photograph (one step too close, very frustrating) and we weren't able to chase it into the bush. The nightjar was not new for the year of course, with out good views of the bird at JC Slaughter Falls earlier in the year, but it was the first time Andrew and I had seen one during the day, and it was a lifer for Steve, so it was probably a highlight of the day for all of us. Our next interesting find was Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, a new bird for both Andrew and I for the year. Apart from this we had some nice bush birds but nothing particularly interesting or rare. We stopped for lunch at the Buzz-Stop Cafe in Samford, owned by friends of Andrews, and once again, the food and conversation was great.

After lunch we dropped in on Roger McNeill, a friend of mine from the US who now lives in the foothills of Mt Glorious, near to Samford. He is running a B&B service out there, and his property is amazing, with birds like Painted Button-Quail and Spotted Quail-Thrush possible on the block. But today we were here to see an Owlet Nightjar that has been "reliable" in a hollow near his house. Of course, even though it was there yesterday, it was conspicuous by its absence today, so Roger has agreed to let us know when it turns up again. All was not lost though, as Roger led us down the hill near his place to look for bush birds, and we lucked onto his local Varied Sitellas, a bird that is not unusual near Brisbane, but is highly nomadic and often hard to find on purpose. We had one final surprise on our way out. Roger gave us instruction on where to try for Painted Button-Quail, and though we didn't find those, we managed to come across a very young Emerald Dove, only Roger's second record for the property. The bird was so young it still had buff lines and spotting in the wings and the metallic emerald colours they are so well known for were not fully developed. All in all this was a good day of birding, though not as productive as we'd hoped.

Total birds to date: 256

Nutmeg Mannikin

When I woke up this morning, the birds around the house were unusually vocal, so I decided on the spur of the moment to go for a quick ride to check out what was in the area. I had in mind to check a particular spot that last week had a lot of seeding grasses. It is one of only two places I know in Brisbane to look for Nutmeg Mannikins, also known as Spice Finches. These birds are introduced to Australia, brought from tropical south Asia as cage birds and readily escaping and surviving in the Australian environment on the east coast. They used to be common in Brisbane, and still are in parts of their range such as Mackay. However, I only have a handful of records from the last few years so I was extremely happy when a few pairs flew in while I was watching the grass-heads. They were surrounded by Chestnut-breasted Mannikins - another unusual bird for the area, and Double-barred Finches. Nearby a Striped Honeyeater was calling - my first record for the Mandalay area. In all I had 58 species of birds in less than an hour, so it was a very productive morning.

Total birds to date: 254

February 2nd: Wedge-tailed Shearwater

Over the weekend, several birders in SEQ took advantage of the wild winds brought on by an ex-cyclone to go sea watching. I thought I would take similar advantage and ducked up to Caloundra and Coolum for the afternoon. Sadly, I didn't do anywhere near as well as others did on my sea watching, with only Crested Terns and a few Wedge-tailed Shearwaters to show for my efforts. I did see one probable Jaeger way off in the distance, but too far to even be sure it wasn't a Common Noddy. While sitting at Point Cartwright at Mooloolaba watching for seabirds, I did have one spectacular sighting, a snake I am fairly sure was a Taipan. I've sent shots to a reptile expert I know and hopefully I captured enough information to confirm an ID. I certainly wasn't going to pick it up and count underbelly scales! On my way out from Pt Cartwright I also saw a Varied Triller, bird #250 for the year. For me this seems like a real milestone, as I'm now at the point I consider the halfway mark. The next 50 species will be fairly easy, though take much longer than the first 250. The last 50 though, will be incredibly hard, so it is really at 300 that the real slog begins.

I ducked up to Point Perry and Point Arkwright at Coolum but had no more luck on the seabird front. I did find a white-morph Eastern Reef Egret, a bird we missed earlier in the year, so that was a nice surprise. I've resolved to have another go at sea watching if conditions present themselves, but I will probably head to Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island with other birders as more eyes will hopefully have more luck. At Coolum I ducked into the heathland to pick up an easy White-cheeked Honeyeater, and then ducked out to the Bruce Highway via Yandina to have a go at Grey Goshawk, which is often on the power lines in this area, but was sadly absent today.

My final stop for the day was to head down towards Toorbul. Not to the wader roost - it was low tide. I was heading down to a little wetland just before the wader roost where I had been told Brolga might be possible. Sure enough, as I pulled in four Brolga were flying over the wetland, obviously heading to roost somewhere. What luck to arrive just as they took to the air. A few minutes later and I would have dipped on them.

So with a few new additions I've finally broken the 250 mark.

UPDATE: Heard back from my friend - the snake is an Eastern Brown Snake. Apparently the brow and neck aren't right for Taipan.

Total birds to date: 253

Photo 1: Wild weather at Pt Cartwright
Photo 2: Unknown snake at Pt Cartwright
Photo 3: Unknown snake at Pt Cartwright

January 31st part 2: Stubble Quail (Coolmunda Dam & Durakai)

The decision to head to Coolmunda Dam turned out to be a fantastic one. On the road there we stopped a few times and picked up some new year birds: Apostlebird, Jacky Winter, and for me a White-winged Triller that Andrew missed. The reason Andrew missed this bird was he was watching a very young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo that was being fed by Fairy-Wrens (poor things!)

Further down the road still, we came across what looked like Singing Bushlarks. We actually never got to confirm this, because as Andrew stepped out of the car he flushed a covey of Stubble Quail. Fortunately for me, they flew straight towards me and I was able to track them through the air for a good 20-30 seconds. This was fortunate as I had never seen Stubble Quail before, and it gave me ample time to see all the features on the bird I needed (it was a female, if it had been a male it would have been instantly apparent what I was looking at). We tried for a while to find them again but had no luck. Nonetheless, I had great views of the bird, and after quickly referring to my field guide was happy that Stubble Quail was not only a new bird for the year, but bird #650 for Australia for me. Andrew also found a Swamp Wallaby that looked like it might have been hit by a car, but it was feeding and mobile and we would never have got anywhere near it to try and catch it. Hopefully it lives, but I suspect it will become another sad victim of Australia's wildlife road toll.

Coolmunda Dam was every bit as amazing as I remembered. Last time I was there we had Freckled Duck on the lake. Even though these were sadly missing on the day, there were amazing numbers and diversity of waterbirds present. Before we even reached the lake though, we came across some great birds in the grassland on the road in. Singing Bushlarks were calling from the fenceline, and as we stopped to watch these, we had White-winged Fairy-Wrens pop up and put on a show. Neither Andrew nor I had seen this species of fairy-wren in SEQ before, so it was a real treat to watch a breeding plumaged male strut his stuff on the fence near us. While we watched these great birds, we had Plum-headed Finches moving through the grass as well, and Grey-crowned Babblers on the fenceline. A flock of Cockatiel flying over completed the picture, another reminder that we were in a completely different habitat to anything near Brisbane. On the lake the only new species we found was Australasian Shoveler, but there were many Musk Ducks (more than 10 anyway) and a single Black-tailed Godwit was probably the most unusual find. Without the time to investigate the lake closer, we headed off, but on another visit we will have to walk the edges to see if we can find some more shorebirds.

Our final stops for the day were Cement Mills Rd and Durakai State Forest. The area around Cement Mills Rd is basically the only place in SEQ where we have any chance of seeing Squatter Pigeon, so we figured we would have a stab at finding one in the last light of the day. Sadly the wind and rain finally got the better of our birding and we didn't manage to find any. We did get a nice consolation prize of Rufous Songlark, and yet again more Plum-headed Finches, this time feeding on the roadside and even at one point on the road itself. On our way into Durakai we had our final two new species for the day with Australian Raven (which we had probably seen driving at speed before now, but we finally managed to stop and confirm the identification), and Common Bronzewing. Durakai was dead quiet apart from a pair of Leaden Flycatcher parents feeding a young bird. As the light began to fail we decided to call it quits for the day and tallied up all the amazing things we had seen in the space of only a few hours.

Total birds to date: 248

Photo 1: Singing (Horsfield's) Bushlark at Coolmunda Dam
Photo 2: Grey-crowned Babbler at Coolmunda Dam
Photo 3: Plum-headed Finch at Cement Mills Rd