Birding the Top End: Day 3

This was our first full day of birding around Darwin.
We had heard from Luke the day before that Buffalo Creek was a good site for rainbow pittas. Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the area early in the morning.
First we walked down to the beach, where we found a group of birds roosting on the sand. Silvergulls made up the majority of the flock, but Caspian terns, lesser crested terns,  eastern reef egrets and a lone far Eastern curlew were present as well. As the sun rose, we moved to exploring the nearby bushland.
A variety of small birds flitted through the trees, among which I tentatively identified lemon-bellied flycatchers and dusky myzomelas. A forest kingfisher briefly got me excited thinking it was a little kingfisher before I managed to identify it. A white-bellied cuckooshrike posed photogenically in the nearby carpark, a great bowerbird and a yellow oriole perched briefly atop a tree stump, and many bar-shouldered doves were seen. As we continued walking around, a Brahminy kite was spotted watching the water for prey.

WHITE-BELLIED CUCKOOSHRIKE

FOREST KINGFISHER

Having searched the area from about 6 to 9.30 with no luck, we were about to give up when my dad suggested we make one last circuit of a short trail going through some of the area's monsoon forest. Aside from two Northern fantails in the canopy that disappointed me by not being mangrove grey fantails, the area seemed devoid of anything new, until my dad excitedly whispered "pitta! pitta!" There in the undergrowth in front of us was our target, a lone rainbow pitta just as stunning as I had imagined it.

RAINBOW PITTA

The pitta walked across the trail and disappeared into some undergrowth. I thought that by walking further down I might flush it back ahead into a clear area or get some looks at it from the beach, so I walked onto the beach. This proved a horrible mistake, as the pitta immediately decided to walk back along the path while I was away, before vanishing into an even thicker area of monsoon forest. To this day my dad has not stopped reminding me that he had managed stunning views by staying still on the path, even filming a video of the bird on his phone which he occasionally uses to annoy me.
Thrilled with our success, we drove a little further down to Casuarina Coastal Reserve. Here a massive flock of red-tailed black cockatoos immediately captured our attention, before we walked down to the beach. Several little terns were feeding offshore. A massive flock of chestnut-breasted mannikins flew into some nearby grass, but if there was a yellow-rumped mannikin among them it was completely missed by me. A pair of rainbow bee-eaters were perched in a small tree, and a family of grey-crowned babblers was foraging on the beach. As we drove out, we managed good shots of one of Darwin's infinite black kites perched on a branch.

RED-TAILED BLACK COCKATOO

GREY-CROWNED BABBLER

BLACK KITE

Our final birding site for the day was the mangroves along Tiger Brennan Drive. Unfortunately it was about midday by the time we got to these, and it was absolutely sweltering. Likely as a result of this, the only species seen in the mangroves were brown honeyeaters and yellow orioles. As compensation, we did observe an aerial dogfight between a distant Eastern osprey and a white-bellied sea eagle, ending in the sea eagle perching triumphantly atop a boat's mast. A brahminy kite was also seen soaring overhead.

BROWN HONEYEATER

WHITE-BELLIED SEA EAGLE

We rested for the remainder of the day.