6 weeks in Australia - December 2023/January 2024 (1 Viewer)

[Richard G]

It's only taken me 12 months, and I haven't done a major trip report for the forums before. However, having seen Paul's report on his trip which happened just before mine, and seen the use of eBird trip reports I thought I'd give it a go

Firstly, this wasn’t a birding specific holiday, more of a family holiday with some wildlife spotting thrown in as extra. I’m sure we could have seen so much more but we had to see family plus Jayne, my wife, isn’t a hard-core birder and is a photography widow!! However, we were able to combine family activities with seeing some iconic Aussie wildlife.

We have had this trip planned for the previous 2 years when our son, Dom, decided that he was going to apply for a Masters course at a university in Queensland. Jayne & I approached our respective employers at that time to pre-warn them that we’d like to request extended holiday leave (my holiday year runs Jan-Dec so I could combine 3 weeks from each of 2023 & 2024, and I was giving them plenty of advanced warning so resourcing could be planned by my manager!!)

A bit of background – my wife Jayne was born in Brisbane to £10 Pom parents in the 60s, but the family returned to Leeds when she was 3 years old, giving her dual British & Australian citizenship. As a result, both Dom & Tasha (our daughter) were also eligible for dual citizenship via parental inheritance, and they successfully applied just after Covid happened.

Both kids have got Aussie passports. Jayne also must have one if she returns to Australia – even though she’s got dual citizenship she can’t travel there on a British passport & a (free) tourist visa. So, we have now ended up with possibly the world’s most expensive passport as to get hers renewed we had to apply in person to the embassy in London (the appointment coincided with Coronation weekend – very inconvenient!!) and we had to send notary public certified documents to the records office in Brisbane as she’d got married since her last passport expired. I could simply get into the country on my own passport & a tourist visa which was free and approved within 2 hours of applying!!

Logistics

Most of the travel arrangements were booked through Trailfinders who were excellent, and I would recommend and use again in a heartbeat. Our needs were quite complex – Dom was already in Queensland, so we needed flights out for me, Jayne & Tasha. We then wanted internal flights for all four of us while we were there, plus car hire, and a couple of hotels arranged. It was only Jayne & I returning to the UK at the end of the 6 weeks as Tasha was staying on in Sydney as part of her own degree course at Plymouth University.

We hit a stumbling block after booking it all as Dom found out his course timetable meant he couldn’t join us on some of the extra parts of the trip we’d planned. However, Trailfinders were great and could rearrange things, and gave Dom his own credit for using his internal flight tickets on other flights at other times.

Accommodation was a mix of staying with family, hotels booked with Trailfinders, AirBnB and a couple of directly booked trips for 2 or 3 nights each.

 

[Richard G]

Itinerary

I’ll detail below the trip highlights. All the bird listings can be found at the end where I’ve linked to my eBird trip reports.

17 December – 27 December – Stayed with Jayne’s cousin, Gwen, and her family in Dakabin which is a suburb in north Brisbane.

I had a list in my head before the trip started of birds I hoped to see whilst we were in Australia – top 3 being Kookaburra, Tawny Frogmouth & Cassowary. By the time we arrived Dom had been in Brisbane for 6 months and had already been to several sites to see where would be best. I should also mention that his degree from over here is in Herpetology, so he was in the right place for some decent reptile sightings.

Prior to Christmas we did day trips to Osprey House reserve, Tinchi Tamba wetlands (first sighting of Eastern Grey Kangaroo here – classic Aussie mammal tick 1!!), Tangalooma, Mount Gravatt (within 5 minutes of setting off on our walk Dom pointed out a Koala – Aussie mammal tick 2!!), Whites Hill Reserve (another 6 Koala plus Channel-billed Cuckoo) and Sandy Camp Wetlands (Rainbow Bee-eater, Comb-crested Jacana, Leaden Flycatcher and Forest Kingfisher being the highlights, amongst others).

Back to my list in my head – within hours of waking up on our first day a Kookaburra landed in Gwen’s garden (tick 1). Gwen’s property is quite rural, so I was able to wander and see lots of species without going very far. Highlights included Galah, Pale-headed Rosella, Red-backed Fairywren, Fairy Martin, Pacific Koel, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Olive-backed Oriole and Sulphur-crested Cockatoo.

Tick number 2 on my list in my head came when we went to Mount Gravatt (see above about finding Koala). Bear in mind we were only a few minutes into a walk – was trying to get shots of the Koala (never know it might be the only one we saw) and the rest had gone ahead. Dom comes running back up the path to get my attention to join them – there sat on a branch no more than 5 metres from the path was a Tawny Frogmouth. Bearing in mind these are nocturnal, we were lucky to see it in the middle of the day. Later, we saw a further two, again just sat in a tree in the middle of the day.

27 December – Day trip to Australia Zoo (Dom seems to have this as a standard day out for anyone who visited him!!). We then headed up to Hervey Bay for a direct booked trip

28 December to 30 December – 3 nights on Fraser Island (now known as K’Gari). We booked this trip as Dom wanted to see Dingo (which we were successful in seeing) and used a company called Fraser Dingo who do 4x4 trips on the island. Jayne & I were the oldest on the trip and we were probably old enough to be every other participant’s parent!! An interesting trip and not often you have the opportunity to do off-road driving. Not much in the way of birding on this type of trip but we did see Dingo, Lace Monitor and Bandicoot as non-bird sightings.

31 December – An early morning visit with Dom to Kumbratcho reserve also in a Brisbane suburb. Had hoped to see Noisy Pitta here but dipped on this visit and another visit at the end of the trip. Dom also took me to another suburb, Griffin, which is just like any other housing estate throughout the world. However, unlike any other housing estate, Griffin has Bruce, a Brolga, who likes to wander the streets and is normally to be found on various front lawns.

I’ll also throw this in here not as a birding report but just to say the Aussies know how to organise a New Year’s Eve event. We spent the evening in the town centre, felt totally safe, a spectacular firework display & free public transport away from the event.

 

[Richard G]

2 January to 5 January – O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. This was a place I’d found when doing some trip research with the aim of photographing a male Regent Bowerbird. Never got the photo I wanted, but did see a few & one landed on our villa balcony while I was doing so macro stuff, so had the wrong lens on!!

Loads of Australian King Parrot and Crimson Rosella around the main reception area. We also saw Satin Bowerbird at various points.

The resort is very geared to environmental management and the rangers know their stuff. Dom & I did a dawn bird walk but this wasn’t aimed at birders specifically. We also did a night session with a reptile expert which was awesome – on this trip we saw Leaf Tailed Gecko, Southern Angle Headed Dragon, Small Eyed Snake, Trapdoor Spider, Boobok Owl & at least 6 species of frog. Lots of rainforest trails to walk which we did on our own and probably saw more wildlife this way.

5/6 January – Couple of nights on the Gold Coast. Dom had to leave us on the 5th to return to university. Not the best part of the trip as the weather was rubbish & Jayne unfortunately had a bout of diverticulitis which meant we spent most of 6th January at a medical centre. One part of the trip which was easily forgotten

7th January – Returned the hire car at Brisbane airport, then Jayne, Tasha & I caught an internal flight to Proserpine for a week in Airlie Beach. Picked up another hire car at Proserpine. Some stunning birding here, particularly down the Glen Isla Road (see eBird list) but highlights were Brolga, Australian Bustard & Brahminy Kite. Glen Isla Road ends at a viewpoint for Saltwater Crocodile and we saw a monster one here.

I headed out solo one day to Conway Beach and walked part of the Great Whitsunday Walk. I’d been given specific information about this site, and it proved worthwhile as a Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher flew across the path and perched up being very obliging for photos. It was here I also saw a Silvereye, Pacific Emerald Dove and Spectacled Monarch as highlights.

We spent one day out with a local diving centre so Tasha & I could have a couple of dives on this part of the Great Barrier Reef.

On 13th January the girls decided they wanted a spa day so I headed out to try some sites based on information given to me by Kerry at Birdwatching - Fishing Faust Unfortunately she wasn’t able to provide a guided trip but she freely gave me info over email, and it proved so worthwhile. At Lake Proserpine I saw Black Swan, Hardheads, Green Pygmy Goose and Red-combed Jacana.

Later in the day I drove to another site Kerry advised me about, Gunyara Road. Here I saw Emu, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Black Kite, Brown Falcon and Striated Heron all from the car.

 

[Richard G]

14th January to 20th January – This part of the trip nearly didn’t happen. In our plan, this stage of the trip was to drive up the coast from Airlie Beach to Cairns. Unfortunately, just before we arrived in Australia, Cairns and Far North Queensland was battered by a cyclone, causing widespread damage to infrastructure and major flooding. British councils & the government should take note – Queensland has contingencies in place for this sort of thing, and roads were reopened and infrastructure fixed within a couple of weeks of the cyclone hitting. The news on the TV was full of local authorities asking for tourists not to cancel and still come to the area, and we did, but knowing we may need to make a quick exit. There were a couple of things that we’d booked that were cancelled – we couldn’t go on the Kurunda railway (the cable car still ran) and we had a freshwater croc cruise cancelled (full refunds given for both). We also noticed that the visibility on the GBR when we dived it later in the week had been impacted.

The drive took about 8 hours (a minor trip by Australian standards), and we called in at the James Cook University campus in Townsville for a look around. We could only drive round the grounds, but we were met by dozens of Agile Wallabies.

My main reason for doing this part of the trip in this way was so we could visit Etty Bay Beach, a site known for close encounters with Cassowary. Unfortunately, when we arrived a group of locals had already decided that they were going to have a beach party with loud music blaring. We did get a brief view of a Southern Cassowary at the beach, but it was away into the rainforest before I could grab a decent shot of it. At least we’d seen one so tick 3 in the top 3 was achieved.

Driving away to head to Cairns proved much better – we encountered a second Cassowary right by the roadside, so a quick pull in and photos were obtained from a safe distance (being totally aware of the reputation these birds have). We then saw a third bird in a garden of one of the houses (what a great garden tick that is!).

We pulled into Cairns just as dusk was falling & hundreds of Sulphur-crested and Red-tailed Black Cockatoos were flying into roost, perching on top of telegraph poles along the main road. Such an impressive site.

15th January was a tourist day with us going up to Kurunda via the cable car system. No birding up there but the scenery was stunning and some of the waterfalls were showing the aftereffects of having cyclonic amounts of rainfall dumped into the river. When we got back to the apartment, I headed out for a walk along Cairns Esplanade (although the tide was wrong, so a lot of the waders were quite far out). Still managed to see Varied Honeyeater, Bar & Black Tailed Godwit, Great Knot, Curlew Sandpiper & Sacred Kingfisher.

Walking along the Esplanade was great as a visiting birder. You could walk & talk to local birders who were more than willing to help with IDs and provide local knowledge, or generally just chat birding.

16th January we had a drive up into the Atherton Tablelands to a couple of spots recommended for possible Platypus sightings – sadly not to be. It was raining quite heavily so I suspect this may have kept them hidden. We also visited a spot Dom recommended for Tree Kangaroo but again no luck (I’m detecting a theme here!!). We did however have close views of a Buff-banded Rail.

A walk along the Esplanade after we got back saw Red-necked Stints amongst the shorebirds, plus a local birder kindly took me to show me where there was a roosting Nankeen Night Heron.

17th January saw us heading out early with Seastar Cruises out to the Great Barrier Reef, and particularly Michaelmas Cay. Seastar are one of only two companies that can land passengers here. Michaelmas Cay is one of the biggest seabird colonies on the GBR and the first stop of the day cruise. Primarily aimed at snorkelling & diving, they accommodated perfectly once they knew I was a birder/photographer. Imagine a tropical version of the Farne Islands. 6 species of Tern (Greater Crested, Little, Caspian, Bridled, Sooty & Black-naped), plus Black & Brown Noddy, Brown Boobie (ironically not a lifer as I’d seen the one at Teesmouth!!) plus one I’d hoped to see – Greater Frigatebird. A second reef stop-off after lunch allowed Tasha & I to go for a dive, highlight here being a Black-tipped Reef Shark (other than a Basking Shark this is the first shark species I’ve seen in nearly 40 years as a diver).

Another touristy day on 18th January with a guided tour of the Atherton Tablelands. Billed as a waterfalls tour, we did see some wildlife. A new one at the lunch stop for me being Bridled Honeyeater. A couple of stops saw the guide point out a Green Ring-tailed Possum and Boyd’s Forest Dragon. The latter is only found in this area and made the herpetologist of the family very jealous as he’s not seen one 😊 Coming back down to Cairns another Cassowary decided to just wander across the main road in front of all the traffic. Managed a safe stop for some photos, but we had a mad dive back into the bus as it got curious.

19th January saw us out on the reef again on a hastily booked trip. No diving this time as we were flying again within 24 hours so snorkelling only this time. Did get the opportunity to have a wander round Green Island for a bit, usual suspects there being Black Noddy. Did stumble across an Orange-footed Scrubfowl which was a new species, plus a Lesser-crested Tern sat on a buoy on the way back into Cairns Harbour.

20th January was check out day for a flight down to Sydney that afternoon. Had hoped to check out Cattana Wetlands but it tipped it down so we sacked it off & headed for the airport ☹

 

[Richard G]

Sydney was Jayne, Tasha & I being tourists for a day or so before we moved Tasha into her accommodation at Maquarie University where she was staying for 6 months on a placement from Plymouth.

We did go on a tourist trip with Perfect Days Sydney which had a few bits of wildlife spotting. We stopped off for a wander in Kangaroo Valley where Jayne found a Red-bellied Black Snake just chilling on a log. Totally unfazed by people wandering by, which you would be if you were one of the most venomous snakes in Australia. The main focus of the trip was a BBQ evening meal at Bendeela Camping Grounds where we hung around until dusk and waited for the Common Wombats to emerge from their dens.

24th January was slightly emotional as we left Tasha in Sydney, and Jayne & I headed back to stay at Gwen’s for a couple of days.

To get us out of the house for a bit we headed out for a drive on the 25th and came across the Mary Caincross Reserve just outside of Maleny. A small rainforest reserve saw us find Black-faced Monarch, Wompoo Fruit Dove, Catbird & Large-billed Scrubwren. The star attraction here though are the Pademelons (another species of marsupial) and we saw 3 or 4 throughout the rainforest.

26th January was Australia Day so after a family get together at the local, Jayne & I said our goodbyes & headed back to Brisbane Airport for the long journey home. It was an excellent 6 weeks meeting new family, seeing new places & wildlife.

I added 180 life ticks to my bird list and goodness knows how many mammal & reptile ticks. I’m sure we’ll be back at some point in the future. As a post-script to all of this, Dom heads back to Brisbane on 15th January 2025 to start a full-time position with an ecological consultancy firm which he’s been after since he got back to the UK in August. It is likely that Tasha will be heading to Townsville for her Masters in Marine Biology in 2026.

I’m not very good at listing every single species we saw on every trip out, but the links below are to my eBird trip reports, split over 2 as eBird will only allow a maximum of 30 days per report.

Part 1 - Australia - Dec 2023/Jan 2024 Part 1 - eBird Trip Report

Part 2 - Australia - Jan 2024 - Part 2 - eBird Trip Report

I'll add some photos as replies below.

 

[Richard G]

Some of the Aussie mammals seen -

1. Eastern Grey Kangaroo
2. Koala
3 & 4 - Dingo on K'Gari
5 - Agile Wallaby, Glen Isla Road, Proserpine
6 - Flying Fox, Cairns Esplanade
7 - Green Ring-tailed Possum, Atherton Tablelands
8 - Pademelon, Mary Cairncross Reserve, Maleny

 

[Richard G]

Reptiles & Amphibians.....

1. Bearded Dragon, Dakabin
2. Orange eyed Tree Frog, O'Reilly's
3. Land Mullet, O'Reilly's
4. Leaf tailed Gecko, O'Reilly's
5. Southern Angle Headed Dragon, O'Reilley's
6. Lace Monitor, Proserpine
7. Baby Saltwater Crocodile, Proserpine
8. Monster Saltwater Crocodile, Proserpine
9. Boyds Forest Dragon, Atherton Tablelands
10. Red-bellied Black Snake, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
11. Just a friendly warning sign, Proserpine

 

[Richard G]

Selection of birds from around the property in Dakabin...

 

[Steveho]

Looks ike a great time,been to australia once but just a family holiday ,hope to get there again sometime this year.

 

[MKinHK]

Sounds like a fabulous trip. Your shot of the backlit dingo on the beach is a cracker!

Cheers
Mike

 

[Richard G]

Sounds like a fabulous trip. Your shot of the backlit dingo on the beach is a cracker!

Cheers
Mike

Thank you. Having seen your Sydney photos I really appreciate that comment.

 

[Richard G]

For some reason, the order of photos in the mammal & reptile posts has sorted itself so it doesn't match the list I put in the post, and I don't appear to be able to edit those any more!!

 

[Paul Chapman]

For some reason, the order of photos in the mammal & reptile posts has sorted itself so it doesn't match the list I put in the post, and I don't appear to be able to edit those any more!!

It does that to me occasionally. Glad to see that it isn't personal.

All the best

Paul

 

[Richard G]

"Bruce" the Brolga - suburb of Griffin

 

[Richard G]

My Facebook Memories reminded me it was exactly 12 months ago today since we were on Michaelmas Cay out of Cairns. Possibly some of the best birding of the trip.