A.W.Birder: Always on the lookout for fine birds...: Queensland Wildlife

Showing posts with label Queensland Wildlife. Show all posts

Thursday, 13 October 2016

Queensland Birding

I had a brief (4 day) stop-over in Brisbane, Australia on my way over to New Caledonia and managed to get some good bird and wildlife watching in with my mates Rob and Colin. We headed up into Lamington National Park (the Binna Burra section) for a night of sub-zero camping (it felt that cold anyway) where the clear highlight was actually seeing the Endangered (and incredibly secretive) Rufous Scrub-bird. We also had Paradise Riflebird, Regent and Satin Bowerbirds, Marbled Frogmouth, Logrunner and lots more.

Other sites nearer to Brisbane yielded White-eared Monarch, Masked Owl, Spotted Quail-thrush and a trip over to North Stradbroke Island gave good looks at Beach Stone-curlew and brief Wandering Tattler. However the highlight here was breaching Humpback Whales, porpoising Inshore Bottle-nosed Dolphins, and Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins.

All in all a great few days - a big thank you to Rob and Di for letting me stay with them yet again, and to Rob and Colin for a fun few days birding and camping.

Beach Stone-curlew

Paradise Riflebird

Spotted Quail-thrush

White-eared Monarch

Wonga Pigeon

Inshore Bottle-nosed Dolphins

North Stradbroke Island

Brisbane Sunset

Up near Binna Burra

Saturday, 5 December 2015

Queensland Birds and Wildlife 2015

After I'd finished the Birding Ecotours Australia tour I spent a little over a week in Queensland, based at my friends Rob and Di's in Brisbane.

I was fairly tired and not feeling great so didn't do a great deal all the time and just had a few walks and days out birding here and there, but did get a few evening walks in around Brisbane after Rob and Di had finished their days at work. For my last weekend in the country Rob and I headed north along the Sunshine Coast to Inskip Point where we camped out and spent a couple of days looking for (successfully in the end) Black-breasted Button-Quail among other things.

Saw some fantastic birds and wildlife, even with the limited effort! Bird highlights included: Black-breasted Button-Quail, Eastern Grass Owl, Greater Sooty Owl, Australian Owlet-Nightjar, Tawny Frogmouth, Southern Boobook, Powerful Owl, White-throated Nightjar, Large-tailed Nightjar, Grey Goshawk, Pacific Baza, Buff-banded Rail, Laughing Kookaburra, White-throated Needletail, Channel-billed Cuckoo, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove (spotlighted at night!), Rainbow Bee-eater, Mangrove Honeyeater and loads more!

Wildlife highlights included: Green Turtle, Yellow-faced Whipsnake, Golden-crowned Snake, Water Dragon, Lace Monitor, Eastern Striped Skink, Green Tree Frog, Wallum Froglet, Wallum Rocketfrog, Bush Rat, Koala, Black-striped Wallaby, Common Brush-tailed Possum, Common Ring-tailed Possum, and Squirrel Glider.