Tawny Frogmouths

Today we all went to the Mornington Peninsula and drove to some wetlands the name of which I can't remember. We got out of the car. It was about 4 o'clock. We looked around and saw two tourists photographing something. We looked closer and gasped. 3 TAWNY FROGMOUTHS WERE RIGHT NEXT TO THE CARPARK!
Now that the story is over, look at the pictures!

Strange Bird

I was lying down after a normal day at home when my dad woke me up with the shout of "Chanith! There's a new bird IN OUR FRONT GARDEN!" I rushed outside and this is what I saw.

Can you guess what this is? I'll give you 20 seconds. The answer is below by the way.

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This bird is a strangely mutated common or Indian myna with a bald head!

We watched it for a while and had the idea to go outside and photograph it. The bird flew to the other side of the road. We took the photos you can see above and then waited as the bird came a bit closer and ran across the road. After that it was getting cold so we ran inside.
A nice sighting!

A Visit to Altona

Yesterday I was a little bored so I decided to (after asking my dad) go on a birding trip. I looked on the web and saw that common terns had been reported on some rocks in the ocean along the Altona Esplanade. I decided to go to Altona and check out the terns if they were there, then look at a new birding spot in the area called Newport Lakes Reserve that apparently had good birds.
First we drove over to the spot. There were silver gulls, pied oystercatchers, female chestnut teal, little pied cormorants and even a few red-necked stints on the rocks, but I could not find the common terns, if they were indeed there. As the wind blew we got back into the car as sparrows chirped and drove to the Reserve.
On the way, I spotted a dark brown bird, reminding me of the skuas and jaegers I had seen pictures of, flying above a carpark. We stopped the car and got out, cameras at the ready. It was no skua and jaeger but a bird I had already seen before- a juvenile Pacific Gull.

The juvenile Pacific Gull among some commoner silver gulls

Nearby was a smallish body of water. Many birds were flying around and swimming in the water. Most of these birds were chestnut teals, little black cormorants or welcome swallows. As we got back into the car we spotted a greenfinch, a bird that has been introduced to the Melbourne area from Europe.

The greenfinch

After driving around a bit more we came to the Newport Lakes Reserve. As we got out of the car we could hear some birds singing. We stopped at a flowering shrub where I spotted a few wattlebirds. There were soldier beetles almost everywhere in the reserve. We came to the lakes and saw Australasian grebes, coots, black swans, Pacific black ducks, purple swamphens, little black cormorants and even a feral mallard duck. Welcome swallows were flying around, snatching up insects. We crossed the lake on the stones set in the middle and got to the track on the other side. We spotted another swamphen but not much else. The birds were pretty disappointing, but we did arrive late in the day. After we walked a bit more to the auditorium where red-browed finches are supposed to be common (we didn't see any) we had to go. 

All in all, it was a pretty average day of birding. 

BIRD WEEK DAY 5- THURSDAY

I woke up early again for the Duck Creek Road bus trip, to have another try for the spotted quail-thrush. We did not see the quail-thrush, but we did see collared sparrowhawks, red-browed treecreepers, leaden flycatchers and heard white-naped honeyeaters.

 A red-browed treecreeper
After returning to the resort and having breakfast, we then went on the 9-kilometer Stockyard Creek Walk. The first part of it went through a bit of Luke's farm, before coming to a dangerous cliff where we had to slowly and carefully walk along the edge. While walking, we saw a koala and a yellow-faced honeyeater before the track started to widen out.

 A koala
Then, a short distance along the track, we stopped at some trees where there were many different birds. We saw two varied sitellas, a spangled drongo, two cicadabirds and a female paradise riflebird!

 A cicadabird

A female paradise riflebird. The male is glossy black.
Finally, we made it to a ridge and had some juice and some apples for morning tea. We walked a short while along the ridge to look for the white-throated nightjar which apparently had a nest on the ridge, but we couldn't find that so we walked down until we got to a rainforest part of the track. In the rainforest we saw spectacled monarchs, topknot pigeons, pale-yellow robins, white-eared monarchs, little shrike-thrushes and wompoo fruit-doves. We also heard a noisy pitta, but couldn't spot it.

A spectacled monarch

After that, we walked 2 kilometers through an open pasture until we got to our bus. In a fruiting tree next to the bus were barred cuckoo-shrikes, australasian figbirds and a juvenile olive-backed oriole.

We then went back, had dinner and went to bed.

BIRD WEEK DAY 4- WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday we woke up late so we decided not to do the Early Morning Bird Walk. We wandered around the resort, going a short way along the Border Track to spot an owlet-nightjar before heading back to the resort for breakfast. At 8 am we left on the bus for the Western Lagoons Trip.
After getting down the mountain, we stopped at a park in the town of Canungra for a toilet stop. While there, we saw noisy friarbirds, pied butcherbirds and a blue-faced honeyeater.

 An immature pied butcherbird

A blue-faced honeyeater

After the toilet stop, we drove on until we came to the first few of the lagoons we were going to visit. They had only a few birds- pacific black ducks, hardheads and an eurasian coot. We stopped again at another lake to see the red-backed fairy-wren. A tawny grassbird was also seen, but it flew into the grass just a second after it was spotted.

A dollarbird that was seen perched on a wire beside the road

The female red-backed fairy-wren

We then headed to another lake with a few cormorants. In a lake nearby that lake, there were heaps of plumed whistling-ducks. In the bush around the lakes were many different birds. We saw a black-fronted dotterel crossing the road, as well as brown honeyeaters, double-barred finches, sacred kingfishers, yellow-rumped thornbills and even a pheasant coucal in a tree!

 A double-barred finch perched on a fence

A brown honeyeater

Then we went off to another few lakes. At the first two of these lakes, there were royal spoonbills, red-kneed dotterels, black-fronted dotterels, black-winged stilts and Australian wood ducks, as well as cisticolas and even a white-throated honeyeater!

A white-throated honeyeater sucking nectar from a flower

We stopped at another lake with far-off glossy ibis before finally stopping in Beaudesert for lunch. At the park in Beaudesert, among more common birds was a striped honeyeater and many little friarbirds, as well as a tawny frogmouth.

A little friarbird

Before going, we stopped at two more lakes. The first had straw-necked ibis, wood duck, chestnut-breasted mannikin, latham's snipe, little black and little pied cormorants, superb fairy-wrens, black-faced cuckoo-shrikes, common blackbirds and some other birds. The second had a jacana, some grebes, a white-faced heron and a few brown quail at the other side of the lake. All in all, we saw lots of birds. 

Bird Week- Day 3 Tuseday

I woke up at 6 am again for Tuseday morning and departed on the 1 and a half hour trip to Bradfield's Farm. At the farm, I saw a pied butcherbird flying after some sulphur-crested cockatoos. The pied butcherbird then got chased by some noisy miners. We left the more open space of the farm and went along a more forested part for yellow thornbills. Not only did we see yellow thornbills, a spectacled monarch and a crested shrike-tit also showed up!

The male crested shrike-tit
After returning from the farm trip, we had a quick 5-minute breakfast before going on the bus to the Gold Coast to look for waders, seabirds and mangrove birds. As the bus started up, I got a photo of a brown cuckoo-dove in one of the trees around the front of O'Reilly's.

The brown cuckoo-dove

We went down to the Gold Coast, where we departed on a small boat, to go out to the many sandy islets and spits in the Gold Coast's waters to look for waders, then to go to South Stradbroke Island for mangrove birds like the collared kingfisher and mangrove honeyeater. Almost immediately, we passed a sandbar with crested terns, pelicans and silver gulls on it, as well as a few little pied and pied cormorants. These were common birds throughout the trip. Someone with keen eyes spotted a striated heron on the other side of the river mouth. 

 After looking at the striated heron and some more terns and red-capped plovers, we stopped over at an island formerly known as 1 tree island. This island was currently hosting big flocks of terns and some waders. Though at first it seemed to me that all the terns were great crested terns, our guide Ian pointed out a few gull-billed and caspian terns with his scope on the island. The wader flocks were made up of only three species- whimbrels, eastern curlews and bar-tailed godwits. There were also pied oystercatchers, silver gulls and pelicans on the island. For a better view of these birds, we landed on the island, breaking my camera in the process. I managed to convince dad to let me use his camera, a big SLR.

 A cropped image of gull-billed and caspian terns

A flock of whimbrels, eastern curlews and bar-tailed godwits fly off

As the boat finally landed, we saw a pied oystercatcher on its nest. In one of the trees was an immature pied butcherbird. We walked on and used Ian's scope to look at the waders and terns from far away without scaring them away. We also saw an australasian pipit in the grassy center of the island. There were heaps of harmless blue jellyfish around the island, scattered amongst the sand and in the water. As we reached the boat, we saw a huge flock of little black cormorants and silver gulls feeding. We got back in the boat and headed for South Stradbroke, getting a look at flocks of common terns and little terns a long way away from the boat. The boat landed on the island. We walked around the beach where we had landed, looking for a pair of beach stone-curlews Ian said nested here. After failing to find them, we walked to a mangrove forest. In the forest of mangroves we saw far away grey-tailed tattlers, and a pair of rather tame bar-tailed godwits, as well as eastern great egrets and little egrets. After looking around for a while, Ian managed to get his scope on a mangrove honeyeater that was too quick for me to photograph.

 The bar-tailed godwits
After looking at the honeyeater we went to the other side of the mangroves to try and see collared kingfishers and mangrove gerygones. We scanned the mangroves apprehensively. Then we heard a kingfisher call from nearby. It called again. Then we heard the three words. "I found it!" Ian quickly got a scope on it and I managed to take a lot of photos.

 Collared kingfisher
After looking at that, we went over to another part of the mangrove swamp, where we saw a leaden flycatcher and an olive-backed oriole.

A male leaden flycatcher

 Can you see the oriole?
We walked on from there, looking for the beach stone-curlews. We walked through a lot of the island, seeing the swamp wallabies which inhabited the island and a knobby dragon lizard. Finally, we stopped at a clearing and Ian whispered...

BEACH STONE CURLEW!

After returning to the mainland and driving back, we had dinner and went to sleep, ending a fabulous day full of new birds.

O'Reilly's Bird Week- Days 1 and 2- Sunday and Monday

I managed to convince my dad to let me skip 5 days off school for the first 6 days of the O'Reilly's bird week at O'Reilly's resort. At the bird week, birders from around the world come to see the birdlife of O'Reilly's and O'Reilly's guides lead many field trips to birding spots all over the surrounding part of south-east Queensland, from Beaudesert to the Gold Coast. On this blog I will post what I saw on each day of the Bird Week.
We arrived at O'Reilly's on Sunday, flying in from Melbourne and then driving along the mountainous, winding, sometimes one-lane road to O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat. When we got to the retreat, we got to room 35, where we were staying, put our bags in the room and went for an introductory talk where we were introduced to our team leaders, the O'Reilly's guides and owners of the retreat, Tim and Peter O'Reilly, as well as the guides Carmen, Duncan, Glen, Bill and Ian. After the talk we went on a walk. We saw satin bowerbirds, eastern whipbirds, lewin's honeyeaters, brown gerygones, white-headed pigeons, regent bowerbirds, Australian brush turkeys and even one crested shrike-tit which flew down in the bush before I could get a photo of it while walking to the Lost World Spa. Then a bus took us to a place called Moonlight Crag, where we had afternoon tea. As it got dark, one of the two buses stopped at a place where the marbled frogmouth apparently occurred to try and spotlight for it. The guides gave us the choice to spotlight for the frogmouth or go back to the retreat. I obviously chose to stay for the frogmouth.
The track was very dark, with various steps. When we got to the end of the track, the guides brought out a big torch and shone it around the trees, looking for the frogmouth. We saw that it wasn't there. One of the guides, Ian, decided to try and play the frogmouth's call to try and get one to fly in. He got his tape and played the call. We switched our torches off and the track descended into darkness. We looked at the sky. OOM, OOM, OOM, OOM. The tape played. We waited for a few seconds, then we heard a response. OOM, OOM, OOM, OOM. Something flew overhead. We played the tape again. Something flew overhead again, landing in some trees. Someone got a spotlight and...

MARBLED FROGMOUTH! Then we went to the dining room, had dinner and went to sleep.
On Monday we woke up early at 6 am for a birding walk. We went out to the front of the guesthouse, where we were greeted to the usual birds of O'Reilly's- Regent bowerbirds, satin bowerbirds, crimson rosellas, king parrots, pied currawongs and Australian brush-turkeys, all almost tame. As you would know if you read one of my older posts about O'Reilly's, the birds around the guesthouse grounds are so tame that they will eat out of your hand and even jump on your heads and in your hands if you are holding anything remotely resembling food.

Male (top) and female (bottom) regent bowerbirds

After some time, the team leaders came and told us we had a variety of options for our bird walk. We could either go on the Booyong Walk, the Border Track or another walk the name of which I cannot remember. We decided to go on the Booyong Walk with the guide Duncan. We saw grey shrike-thrushes, Lewin's honeyeaters, eastern yellow robins and similar birds like the ones we saw last time we were here in July. We also saw a few birds that were either not around or not as noticeable in the winter. These were the large-billed scrubwren, golden whistler, rufous fantail and black-faced monarch, among others. At the old botanical gardens there was even a female paradise riflebird feeding with the green catbirds. Of these new birds, I only managed to get a photo of the whistler and the catbird at that time.

A juvenile golden whistler in the rainforest.

Can you see the green catbird? The catbirds at the botanic gardens were quite easy to see and photograph for catbirds, and I got a few photos like this.

After we finished the walk, we were given another choice- Go to the Wishing Tree Track, or leave on a bus heading for Balancing Rock, stopping at places to see birds like yellow-faced honeyeaters and Lewin's rails. I decided to go on the Wishing Tree Track, because earlier at yesterday dinner one of the guides, Glen, had recommended the Wishing Tree Track as a place to see paradise riflebirds. Since I hadn't spotted the female riflebird from the morning, I decided to go to Wishing Tree.

At the start of the track, a large-billed scrubwren and a brown gerygone greeted us, letting me finally get a good picture of the scrubwren. Some way down the track, one of the birders with us named Drew stopped us and held a finger to his mouth. We slowly looked down into the rainforest on one side of the path, and just in there was a...

 ALBERT'S LYREBIRD!

The photo of the large-billed scrubwren from the start of the track

The rest of the track was also rather productive. We made a detour to look for noisy pittas near a creek. We didn't see the pitta, but we did see but not photograph black-faced monarchs and even a pale yellow robin. After looking near the creek, we came back up and got back to the main track. We made another detour to look at a huge tower going up into the rainforest canopy. Next to the tower was a satin bowerbird's bower.

After looking at the creek and the tower, we got back to the main 4 kilometer track downhill. Eventually, the track reached a place along the creek I knew from experience you could see lots of glow-worms at. O'Reilly's actually runs glow-worm and spotlighting tours here. I went on one of these tours and got good looks at some glow-worms and a few ringtail possums. In the day, the site seemed to be a good spot for wildlife. Near the seats where people sit down to look at the glow-worms, our guide Ian showed us a black-soled frog that was crawling around on the ground. We continued walking along the trail, to the end where a bus was going to pick us up. A short way along the track, we saw a red-bellied black snake with its head buried in the leaf litter.

 The black-soled frog found crawling around in the leaf litter

 A red-bellied black snake
We continued along the track to a big grassy area, where the creek flowed into a big puddle edged with wild watercress. In the trees were various birds. In one of the fruiting trees I spotted a brown cuckoo-dove, but that quickly flew away before I could get a photo. In some of the other trees I saw eastern spinebills and black-faced monarchs, and I spent the rest of the time waiting for the other group who were also going along the track to come for the bus taking photos.

 An eastern spinebill

A black-faced monarch

After eating lunch, we went on a bus to a eucalypt forest called Duck Creek Road. At this forest we tried and failed to see the two spotted quail-thrushes that supposedly have territories in the forest. The only new ticks we picked up were scrub ticks. After returning from the quail-thrush attempt, we went spotlighting. We drove down the mountain road, stopping at a tawny frogmouth's nest. The torch was not strong enough for me to take good photos. We stopped again at a brush-tailed possum, where someone with a stronger torch came. 

 After this, we stopped near the guesthouse to try and spot the sooty owl, the most sought-after owl in Queensland. We searched the trees near the road first with our torch. No bird. Then we got the tape recorder out. We played the sooty owl's call, a long, drawn-out whistle. We waited half an hour, then played it again. Without Tim and Ian, we probably wouldn't have stayed on. Then, we heard a call from the bushes. A spitting, hissing, rough call that I could not describe with words. Ian said "that is the sooty owl." After another half hour of searching for the owl in the cold night, someone shone the torch and said those three words. "We've got it."

And there it was!

We had dinner afterwards, then fell asleep, still thinking of the majestic sooty owl. 

A visit to the Western Treatment Plant

On Father's Day my dad and I went to the Western Treatment Plant for the Oriental Pranticole that was reported at one of the lagoons on Thursday. First, we drove to the lagoon just inside Gate 2, where the pranticole had been sighted. We met a few more birders who were also looking for the pranticole. There were a few white-fronted chats, two eastern great egrets, a little pied cormorant and a little egret in the lagoon, but no pranticoles.

After exploring Gate 2, we quickly drove to Beach Road to look for banded lapwings. Part of the road was rather wet, and we saw a white-necked heron, a white-faced heron and two masked lapwings. The drier part of the road was full of birds of prey. 2 black-shouldered kites and 2 brown falcons were perching on trees next to the side of the road.

 A black-shouldered kite against the light blue of the Australian skies

 A brown falcon

 An eastern great egret perching on Gate 2

A little egret feeding in the lagoon.

After dipping on the lapwings and pranticole, we headed home with some nice photos of birds, but none of the bird we were looking for. We'll be back for those lapwings!

Birding Gold Coast- Days 3 and 4

We woke up early, ready for a second try at the owlet-nightjar and lyrebird on the Border Track. We quickly got ready and rushed to the Border Track. To skip the long sentences-
Our First Try- FAIL- All that was seen were logrunners and the other usual birds
Our Second Try- HIT!- Not only did we get a glimpse of the lyrebird (but not a pic), we also spotted a rose robin and more logrunners on this try!
Our Third Try- HIT! We finally spotted that pesky owlet-nightjar! Plus, we heard the green catbird!
In other words, we managed to see one of the star birds of O'Reilly's, plus two bonus lifers!

 A painting of the display of the beautiful Albert's lyrebird

 Can you see the owlet-nightjar?

After our successes, we drove back to the Gold Coast. The road was long and winding, but since it wasn't raining we managed to survive, birding along the way. As we were driving in the eucalypts, something big and black flew into a nearby tree. It could only be one thing- Glossy black cockatoos! 

The glossy black cockatoo. This is a male, females have yellowish spots on their heads. 

 After that, we kept our eyes peeled, and soon spotted pretty-faced wallabies!

 After we got through the winding roads, the landscape was mostly farmland. Black-faced cuckoo-shrikes were everywhere. Just then, we startled a beautiful parrot. PALE-FACED ROSELLA!

This is a bad photo of a beautiful bird- the pale-faced rosella!
Soon we got to our hotel in Surfer's Paradise, and ate at the Revolving Restaurant. My mother got sick on oysters. I think she got shellfish poisoning. She's still crying about it here at home!

DAY 4
We woke up at 5:55. Like a military commander, I got the others to wake up. We had whale-watching! What really got me excited was the chance to see seabirds, and the 100% whale sightings guarantee! We were not dissapointed- when we got past the rough water, 5 whales started swimming around the boat! One even breached! They were all southern humpback whales, with a few common bottlenose dolphins swimming near them. Flying in the ocean were Australasian gannets, as well as a lifer, a WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER!

I'm pretty sure this is a wedge-tailed shearwater. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

 As we got back in to the Gold Coast area, we could see heaps of great crested terns, little pied cormorants, silver gulls and white-faced herons on the sandy spit. A fitting end to this great trip.

Crested terns and silver gulls.