Grey Goshawk-ing on the Great Ocean Road
It was clear that this was a stunning bird – its angel-like flight pattern of spreading it wings, its bone white feathers, its bright yellow talons, and its mesmerising stare.
Parrot Hunting in Central Victoria
Within five minutes and 100m of the office, a pair of Turquoise Parrots flushed from the floor, an Echidna waddled past us, and a Rainbow Bee-eater kept flying past hunting insects – it was all happening!
Also-rans: 2017 birding roundup
2017 was a busy year (aren’t they always?) so I didn’t get around to writing trip reports for every bird outing. That’s not to say that we didn’t do a respectable amount of birding though, because looking back at the photos, we had some fantastic experiences! Here is my promise to you, Constant Reader: shorter…
Budgie Trillers in Kamarooka
Long weekends in our house mean one thing: birding road trip! So when reports of a pair of Budgerigars along Camp Road in Kamarooka coincided with the AFL Grand Final weekend, we knew where we would be spending the Saturday. By 8:30am on the cloudy morning we were already driving up and down Bendigo-Tennyson Road…
Wonderful Whale Watching
Almost two hours in, the boat slowed suddenly, and someone called out “whale at 2-o-clock!”. Finally, we spotted our first Humpback Whale of the day. We spent the next half an hour tracking the beast as it came up for air, swam under the boat, and reappeared on the other side.
Neighbourly Spotlighting
We continued to scan the trees near the billabong, and one of the kids shouted “Possum!”. We all trained our torches on the branch and I thought to myself, “what a tiny Possum – perhaps it’s a joey”, until it dawned on me that it was actually a Sugar Glider. That’s right folks: a Sugar Glider, in suburbia!
Gold Coast Bird Watching
As we followed the winding road higher and higher into the mountains, our guide suddenly called out to the driver “STOP!”. We quickly pulled over to a clearing overlooking a valley, and she said “Pheasant Coucal! Look there”, pointing to a tree not 4m away from the bus.
“Such is (bird)life” at the ‘Poo Farm’
The Western Treatment Plant is perhaps the premier birding site in Victoria, Australia, with more than 280 species being recorded, and it’s definitely one of our favourites. We try to visit it at least four times per year (once per season), usually prompted by reports of relatively rare birds. (Here is a blog post about the ‘poo…
Superb parrots in Wunghnu
Imka and I are originally from Trinidad and Tobago: a twin-island republic in the southern Caribbean. The larger island of Trinidad is approximately 5,000 sq km in area (roughly 100km by 50km), and the longest stretch of freeway is 45km long. So imagine how awestruck we were when we had just moved to Australia and made our…
Yarra River Birding
After reading multiple reports over the past fortnight of Azure Kingfishers being spotted along the Yarra River, I was determined to see one, and so planned a multi-stop birding day out in bushland within an hour’s drive from Melbourne’s CBD. The weather forecast called for a 50% chance of a light drizzle in the morning,…
Birding Lovers 