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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Oct 24, 2013 - 05:19am PT
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Hi all,
Here I am. Sorry for the hiatus in posting photos. I’m just coming up for air after we left the group and flew to New Zealand for the last leg of our trip. Once we joined the group, the birding was almost non-stop other than travel. We started in Cairns and birded in North Queensland for about a week. The birding was fabulous with much more tropical rainforest than we had anticipated. Before we left Cairns we saw Bush Stone-curlews (or Thick-knees). Yvonne finally figured out that these birds were responsible for the strange wailing calls we heard in our room at night. There were 30+ in the cemetery.
We spent a couple of nights at Cassowary House and were able to see the namesake bird. It’s not actually a sure thing, since the male was on the nest and the female only occasionally visited. Fortunately, she showed up just as we were leaving.
She was quite imposing and regal, if a bit primeval-looking. We were warned not to leave the door open and let the dogs out as they could be killed. Apparently a large German Shepard is no match for a Cassowary!
We saw our first Bird of Paradise here, Victoria’s Riflebird. This young male was practicing his display skills.
We also saw two members of the Megapode family, Australian Brush-turkey and Orange-footed Scrubfowl. These interesting birds incubate their eggs by maintaining composting litter mounds.
Another fascinating family are the Bowerbirds. The males of these species construct elaborate bowers that serve as “performance spaces” for courtship display. The Great Bowerbird bower uses a lot of white objects for the base, such as stones, shells and bones. This one chose some interesting objects for decorations.
There were loads of other birds including numerous parrots, doves and honeyeaters. My camera died during this period, so I had to use a backup for several days. I purchased a new camera body in Cairns so I would be back in business for the next segment of our trip: Papua New Guinea. This was an amazing destination. It was like stepping back in time. We first spent a couple of days birding near Port Moresby in the lowlands. Here are a few birds that we saw here. This included the national bird of PNG, the Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise.
A Barred Owlet-nightjar was just visible in its hole
A pair of Papuan Frogmouths were more visible than usual.
The real experience began when we went to the Central Highlands at Kumul (Bird of Paradise) Lodge for three days. There were several more Birds of Paradise. For the trip we saw 10 species. Most of these afforded limited views, but two species come in to the feeders at Kumul Lodge, so we saw these exceptionally well.
Even so, the actual highlight for us was seeing and hearing a New Guinea Woodcock as it did its “roding” display overhead in the forest at night. This is a very little known species. Our local guide Max found a nest in his orchid garden last year. This may be the first ever found.
After 6 days in PNG we flew to Brisbane for 5 more days in Queensland and around Sydney. My final total for Aus-PNG was 336. An sizable number are endemics. In fact, of the 700+ species in PNG upwards of 430 are endemic.
We are now in New Zealand for about 10 days. The land birding is disappointing with the almost all of the species so far being introduced. It should get better as we head south as far as Stewart Island. The seabirding on the other hand is great. We took a 4-hour boat trip out from Kaikoura, north of Christchurch. The shelf drops off right away and as a result, albatrosses and petrels are seen after about 10 minutes. I’ll try to catch up with photos of this and of the last segment of the Australia-PNG trip.
I've uploaded a bunch of photos here. They are in a rather random order and I probably won't add captions until I get home:
Australia Birds
Papua New Guinea Birds
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Oct 24, 2013 - 10:42am PT
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That was awesome Tony and worth waiting for!
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Oct 24, 2013 - 11:37am PT
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Fan-freakin-tastic stuff, Tony!
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Oct 24, 2013 - 11:38am PT
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Amazing Tony..keep them coming.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 24, 2013 - 11:46am PT
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Tony, pure awesomeness! Interesting that New Guinea Woodcock nests off the
ground. And Bowerbirds? I know, life isn't fair. Too bad some little kid
is missing his hand grenade.
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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Oct 24, 2013 - 01:28pm PT
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Wow Tony! thanks for taking the time to send us poor earth-bound folks those great photos so our imaginations can soar. Well worth the wait. Did you get to hear the Superb Lyrebird sing? their tails are pretty superb, but their song is even more superb. Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise! now there are some folks who really know how to pick a national bird. Good luck in kiwi-land, and enjoy those pelagics.
I'll predict Dave's next fantastic warbler (starting to run out of choices!) - Worm-eating.
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FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
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Oct 24, 2013 - 01:37pm PT
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Dang so many great pictures from all of you.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 24, 2013 - 11:42pm PT
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I just discovered a very cool site:
http://www.Xeno-canto.org
It is a Site for sharing bird calls all over the world.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Oct 24, 2013 - 11:54pm PT
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dee ee. your got your nerve, dominating a thread! :D
PS--Nice warbler shot!
Turkey season coming, guys...
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Oct 25, 2013 - 12:59pm PT
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Only a couple to offer from my hike today at Walden Ponds near Boulder.
Beautiful Song Sparrow and a lovely Northern Pintail.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Oct 26, 2013 - 06:08pm PT
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Snow Goose hybird?
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john hansen
climber
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Oct 27, 2013 - 01:08pm PT
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Red billed Leiotrix
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Oct 28, 2013 - 10:51am PT
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Wow, really cool pics Tony...
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BrassNuts
Trad climber
Save your a_s, reach for the brass...
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Oct 28, 2013 - 01:14pm PT
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Super cool OZ bird pics! And a nest in a boot!! Great stuff all.
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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 29, 2013 - 12:55am PT
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From the sunny! commute today:
Autumn is here:
and, every fall I have to re-figure out at least the juveniles:
first winter White Crowned(?), although I tried to turn it into a lot of other birds. In the sun the crown looked much more rufous.
And just one more in celebration of the sun that is supposed to go away for good in a little over 24 hours. (edit: not really for good, but a weather system is moving in)
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Oct 30, 2013 - 02:22am PT
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A few from Beijing last week. Click them for larger versions.
and from today
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Oct 31, 2013 - 03:07pm PT
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All he surveys is fair game, mice included.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Oct 31, 2013 - 03:11pm PT
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Had a really beautiful morning out at Walden Ponds this morning.
Here are a few.
Heading to Bosque del Apache tonight for three days. Should be great birding.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Time to bump the bird thread.
Common Loon
California Gnatcatcher
Brandt's Cormorants
California (Brown) Towhee
Red-tail Hawk
Long-billed Curlew
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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We’re now at the Christchurch airport on our way home from the last leg of our trip. I finally have sufficient bandwidth to post some more photos from the last part of the Australia and from New Zealand. We did see both Lyrebirds and also heard them, but in each case they were far off, so we didn’t get the full experience. These are the largest and second largest passerines in the world.
As dee ee reported, the Crimson Rosellas and Australian King-parrots at O’Reilly’s were quite friendly. They were remarkably gentle in landing and perching on us. My expression resulted from trying to focus the camera, not fear. Really.
It took a lot of tries to get the fanned tail of this Rufous Fantail.
Dave probably saw this Satin Bowerbird bower. They prefer blue objects to decorate.
We were lucky to see a Koala in the wild as well as several up close in a rehab facility near Brisbane.
This Tawny Frogmouth with chick was pretty cute.
I was amazed to find out that kingfishers, including Kookabarras, use termite nests to nest in.
Almost the last bird for Australia was a White-bellied Sea-eagle.
I’ll try to load some NZ photos during our wait in Auckland.
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