Kings Park - Central Perth

The park is located on the edge of the CBD and very accessible by both foot and public transport. Not only does it cover a wide area, there are a range of habitats although dry bush/ forest dominates most of the park. Definiately worth a walk around to become familiar with some of the birds in this part of the world!

Birds included:
laughing and turtle doves, galah, rainbow lorikeet, a. raven, singing honeyeater, magpie lark, tree martin, welcome swallow, darter (on swan river), black duck, wood duck, moorhen, coot, grey butcherbird, red wattlebird, a. ringneck (parrot), weebill, inland thornbill, western spinbill, red capped robin, white cheeked honeyeater, kookaburra, white-faced heron, western gerygone, yellow rumped thornbill, silvereye, grey fantail, little pied cormorant.

Perth - Rottnest Island

Rotto, as it is affectionly known by the locals, is a small island off Fremantle, and easily accessible from both Perth and Freemantle. The trip from Perth sails down the Swan River and gives the opportunity to see Perth from a different angle as well as add a few more species to the day/ trip list.

I was able to see pied oystercatchers, cormorants, some very distant waders, black swan and darter as well as two bottlenose dolphin although were saw several of these in Fremantle as well as another pod off rotto.

The name is derived from the early dutch explorers who upon encountering the quokka, thought that they were large rats and called the island 'rats nest'.

Rotto is also a very popular day out so bewre weekend trips and until recently was the only place in Australia where you could see peacock. However, they have reportedly removed the pea hens, which would suggest that the remaining peacocks no longer constitue a viable population. Pheasants can alse be seen but I saw neither during my trip and to be honest, wasn't that bothered!

Sea watching to the island didn't produce anything spectacular except gannet and bridled tern on the return journey. Birds on the island included:

rainbow lorikeet, pied, little pied and little black cormorants, caspian tern, rosate tern, bridled tern, pied oystercatcher, black swan, a. pelican, a. magpie, willie wagtail, silver gull, crested tern, a. shelduck, black duck, grey teal, welcome swallow, a. raven, banded and black winged stilts, white fronted chats, white-browed scrub wren, red-capped robin (males are stunning), singing honeyeater (inc some at fremantle terminal), red necked stint (inc two in partial summer plumage), grey plover, banded lapwing, (eastern) osprey, nankeen kestrel, laughing turtle dove, spotted turtle dove.

-- Edited by Iain Johnson on Thursday 3rd of June 2010 01:22:12 PM

On the second day I visited the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, on the south-east outskirts of Melboune and close to where my cousin lives.

A mixture of habitats including dry bush, some dry forest and open parkland.

Australia grebe, purple gallinule, wedge tailed eagle, black duck, chesnut teal, aussie magpie, bell miner, wood duck, rainbow lorikeet, superb fairy wren, brown thornbill, yellow faced, white eared, white plumed, white naped and new holland honeyeaters, eastern yellow robin, (eastern) shrike tit, grey shrike thrush, golden whistler, grey fantail, willie wagtail, dusky woodswallow, tree martin, welcome swallow, goldfinch, red-browed finch, silvereye and striated pardalote.

Other birds seen in and around Melbourne included grey butcherbird, pacific gull, crested tern with purle crowned lorikeet behind the holiday inn at Melbourne airport!

-- Edited by Iain Johnson on Wednesday 2nd of June 2010 11:25:01 AM

On my way back to the UK, I also stopped off in Australia, firstly Melbourne and then Perth, before arriving in Singapore.

Melbourne Botanical Gardens, located in the centre of Melbourne and very easy to reach via public transport and also on foot, especially walking down the River Yarra.

little grebe, dusky moorhen, coot, hardhead, little pied cormorant, wood duck, great cormorant, nankeen night heron (apparently a good site to catch up with this skulker) common myna, bell miner, fantail, great egret, australian magpie, magpie lark, brown thornbill, silvereye, white-browed scrub-wren, welcome swallow, black duck, chesnut teal, spur-winged plover and red wattlebird.

Altona Meadows

relatively close to the city centre but need a car to access really. There are some additional wetlands nearby but these close at dusk.

Straw necked and white ibis, white-faced heron, little black and little pied cormorants, scarlet robin, stubble quail, silver and kelp gulls, pied oystercatcher, masked lapwing, willie wagtail, crested pigeon and new holland honeyeater.

I also went on a night tour with steve (and my mum who was also over for the wedding) looking for a range of owls and white throated nightjar.

On the way into the Bunyip State park, we saw Australian King parrot and Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo, which are stunning.

Pulled up in the area for the nightjar and watched the sun go down to the sound of cuckoos and monkeys!! Well, thats what it sounded like! it was actually Kookaburras and South BooBooks (owls).

Eventually the nightjars started calling, which is like a manic laugh out of a horror movie and mum spotted one flying over the clearing. And that was it!!

A couple more nightjars called but we saw absolutely nothing else for the rest of the night although there were plenty of boobooks calling as well as the occasional owlet nightjar.

I went over to Australia for a week, the main reason being my couson's wedding, but I also organised a full day's birding with a guide called Steve Davidson, who runs a guiding company called The Melbourne Birder. A web search will bring up his website for those who are interested. Or let me know and I'll put you in touch. Steve, picked me up at 6am, on what was going to be a blisteringly hot day, approx 39 degrees! I've never gone birding in such hot conditions before, with the possible exception of Dubai. Steve was on time but I managed to over sleep, despite setting two alarms neither of which went off, and jumped out of bed at 6.05 am to discover steve waiting outside. So I wrapped myself in a towel and went out to say hello!! We visited four sites: Bunyip State Park - a wet forest Werribee Sewage Treatment Works - as the name suggests ...... The You Yangs State Park - dry forest/ bush The Brisbane Ranges - similar to the You Yangs (altho Steve might correct me on this when he reads it). I'm not going to list the 123 species we both saw (Steve clocked 6 additional species plus there were another 12 or so that we only heard) as I can't do justice to it in this blog and it would also spoil the joy of visiting these areas and experiencing the birds first hand. However, the number of absolutely stunning birds that we saw was unbelievable, e.g. Superb Fairy Wren, Diamond firetail, Beautiful firetail, red-browed finch, rufous fantail, golden whistler, common bronzewing, superb lyrebird, dusky woodswallow, zebra finch, the list goes on........ We even managed to see a major rarity in Hudsonian Godwit! It was one of the best days birding I've ever had, and not just from the point of view of seeing 123 species (of which around 80 were lifers), steve is a top birder and had all the calls nailed and an extremely nice guy, so much so that I felt I was out for a day's birding with a mate! He was also genuinely gutted if I didn't get onto a new species before it disappeared. steve eventually dropped me off at 8.30pm and would happily have stayed out longer but I was facing entry into the silent meals club, australian sub branch! So from my perspective it was well worth the money (around 200 pounds).