BIRDING GOLD COAST- DAY 2- PRIVATE GUIDING

Before going out to guiding, we stayed back and wondered around the discovery center. Outside was a beautiful wonga pigeon that I managed to photograph.

 After that our guide, Glen, came. He was amazing. He just called and all of the birds we had so much trouble trying to photograph in the rain just came right up. Eastern yellow robins, Lewin's honeyeaters, white-browed scrubwrens, yellow-masked scrubwrens, brush turkeys, grey shrike-thrushes, wonga pigeons, they all came up.

 Eastern yellow robin

 A Lewin's Honeyeater

 A grey shrike-thrush, common in forests in most of Australia.

A yellow-masked scrubwren on the path
We ventured deeper into the forest along the Border Track, hoping to see a rare Albert's Lyrebird. About halfway along we came across a logrunner's nest. At one point the track forked, and we took the right-hand fork. We soon reached a tree. It was supposed to have an Australian owlet-nightjar in it. The nightjar was either in another hole or just hiding. We came to a loop, where the fun started. We met the world's only tame eastern whip-bird, Mister Whippy.

Mister Whippy on a vine. This guy was so tame he even landed on my hand!
We continued walking, along the tree-top boardwalk. When we got to the ground we saw some logrunners scratching about for food. Glen got them to move into the light so we could photograph them. There were both male and female logrunners.

A female logrunner. The males have white throats

Unfortunately, we didn't see any lyrebirds. After lunch at the cafe, we watched a short documentary about the Albert's lyrebird. We also saw the flight show. We were mobbed by hordes of crimson rosellas and Australian king parrots. At a feeding table there were also red-browed finches. 

Eventually, we all drove to the Old Python Rock track, where a tame male lyrebird called 'George' had once lived. Now that George had died, there were 5 not-so-tame lyrebirds hanging around. We heard a lot of mimicking. The lyrebirds mimicked birds like the paradise riflebird and eastern whipbird, but we never managed to spot one. Never mind. But we still weren't done! After relaxing in the room, we ate dinner and headed to the 6:30 spotlight tour. Rain meant that we didn't see much. However, we managed to see the ever-present glowworms, a ring-tailed possum and a brush-tailed possum. 

A brush-tailed possum caught on camera

We had a great time on our second day at O'Reilly's.