BIRDING THE GOLD COAST- DAY 2- EARLY MORNING WALK

We recently went to the Gold Coast to birdwatch for my birthday. On our first day we spent two and a half hours driving from Surfer's Paradise to the wonderful O'Reilly's resort, in darkness and heavy rain, on a wildly bending road. We arrived at the resort in darkness, had dinner and slept. This story begins from waking up at 5:40 AM for the early bird walk. 
We started the day by waking up and getting ready. At 6:30 we went out for our early morning bird walk. Despite the rain, our guide put out a feeder for the birds. Almost immediately heaps of male and female regent and satin bowerbirds, along with a Lewin's honeyeater and a pied currawong, flew up to the feeder.

 The splendid black and gold of the male regent bowerbird

 And the beautiful dark blue of the satin bowerbird

Joining this pied currawong for breakfast!

We continued on, walking down the first part of the border track. Bad conditions forced us to stop, but not before we had seen white-browed scrubwrens, yellow-throated scrubwrens, southern logrunners and eastern yellow robins. We decided to try and spot more birds in the other part of the resort. Eastern whip-birds, Australian brush turkeys, wonga pigeons, crimson rosellas and brown thornbills joined the list, as a red-necked pademelon, a relative of the kangaroo, hopped by. We soon ran off for breakfast, ready for our private guided tour- but that's another story.

 A red-necked pademelon out on the lawn at O'Reilly's.

Another common resident around the guesthouse is this Australian brush turkey.