Merry Christmas

The weekend before last news came through of a vagrant wader just up the road on the north edge of Newcastle. You guessed it folks - an Asian Dowitcher #521! After the repeated dipping in Cairns the birding gods smiled down on me and I was able to add it belatedly to the list. Happy days.

Stockton Sandspit - Tick!

As we reach the end of the year hopefully the pandemic is now well and truly behind us. Hopefully La Nina is also now behind us - at least for a few years anyway - and let's hope it's all back to normal from next year. 

Wishing you all a merry Christmas and all the very best in 2023.

The tropical north

The road to Cooktown

Hot on the heels of my sister, Mum and Dad also managed to pay us a visit in the spring as, finally, also did the Covid which Mum kindly brought down from Scotland with her! Luckily we were only side-lined for a couple of days and were able to head up to tropical North Queensland as planned.

A selection of North Queensland frogs - It's good for frogs up there!

After a few days at the legendary Kingfisher Park birdwatchers' lodge up in the Cairns hinterland we headed north over the river into the Daintree rainforest wilderness before ending our stay in Cairns itself.

Saltwater Croc at Ingham

The 'Big Gumboot' at Tully - Australia's wettest town apparently

Kingfisher Park and surrounds delivered Graceful Honeyeater #516 (now known as the Cryptic Honeyeater by most folks), Northern Fantail #517, and the skulking and highly sought after Red-necked Crake #518. The local Platypus and a hefty Northern Brown Bandicoot also put in appearances.

Snorkelling on the reef

The Daintree is known for the Cassowary and, although Dad, Emily, and I encountered one on the first morning on our way to snorkelling on the reef, we didn't find one with Mum until the very last evening when we saw three in the space of a few minutes.

Fiddler Crab

Cassowary

An Asian Dowitcher has been hanging out on the mud-flats of the Cairns esplanade for quite a while now and, although it was reported during our stay, extensive searching failed to turn it up. During one of our searches a local bloke on a bicycle gave us details of the nearby daytime roosts of a Rufous Owl #519 and Papuan Frogmouth #520. Pretty solid compensation.

Rufous Owl

Papuan Frogmouth

Nesting Bush Stone-curlew

My folks gave us a night-vision wildlife trail camera while they were down and so now I have the equipment to uncover the mystery of the holes that appear in my back lawn from time to time, what's flattening the grass at the bottom of my in-laws' yard, and is it really wallaby poo next to my letterbox. Watch this space...

A night at the opera

Back to the bird-fields

Echidna in the front garden

Well the international border was finally opened again a few months back and so I was able to see family again after a depressing couple of years of isolated exile. Kath wasted no time and was down here at the end of August.

Bondi

Sadly we're still suffering the unprecedented effects of three La Nina years in a row. This meant a very un-Australian amount of rain on the east coast and so we were forced to travel inland a bit in search of finer weather. We ended up spending a few days in country NSW in Orange which was a pretty random selection but proved dry despite the freezing cold.

Into the red dirt

Orange is also just about close enough to get in a (fairly long) day trip to the mallee country west of Condobolin. The first issue out there was the sand roads and their deep mud-traps after all of the rain. Thank goodness for the 4WD which saved us from certain bogging and being stranded in the middle of nowhere for goodness knows how long. Thankfully Kath kept cool among the swarming flies and plotted a safe route out through the trees, of which a few had to be removed! I'll therefore forgive her for a rather enthusiastic close approach to a passing deadly snake. I'm fairly sure it was a Mulga Snake but I wasn't getting too close to the head end for a full diagnostic assessment.

Home of the heathwren

Anyway, amid my panic at the situation into which I had blundered, I was able to pick off a pair of Shy Heathwren #515 and a first addition to the list in a very long time.