Cairns to Kingfisher Park

Mim took off for Sydney this morning. She's going to tour around the city for a couple of days and then fly home. We covered so much ground and saw some pretty incredible sights and birds. Gonna miss her.

Brian and I had a lot of business to take care of today. First thing was going to the Campervan rental place and finding out that they had issued us an upgrade. Initially we were supposed to have the same van as Mim and I had. But they had put us in a regular RV size camper. At first we were kind of bummed and then I saw the bed. A real mattress! The other van had a real thin foam pad for a bed and every morning I'd get up and my back would hurt, so this could be a major improvement.


Once we got everything figured out we pulled out and went back to the BnB, retrieved our things, and off to the supermarket we went. The supermarket was okay. We were able to get some organic peanut butter and jelly, some good fruit and veggies, and multi-grain tortillas. The one thing we couldn't find was any kind of bread that was worth eating. Oh well, we'll suffer, someone has to.

We stopped in a Lake Barrie to look for the Tooth-billed Bowerbird. We took a walk on the Rainforest Trail and saw Wompoo Fruit-Dove and heard the Victoria's Riflebird calling almost the entire time we were on the trial. The birding here was good at times but most of time everything was high up in the trees and impossible to see. We did happen to see about fifty Great Crested Grebes on the lake. On the way out we saw a couple of Pacific Bazas. For a complete list click here.

We arrived at Kingfisher Park just about the time it was getting dark. The owner, Andrew took us to see and fifteen foot python and a Forest Dragon before we even checked in. I thought to myself, this is going to be good.

                                                              SCRUB PYTHON (Brian Bullick)

The next day we got up before first light and had some coffee and granola and then hit the trail. The Kingfisher Lodge sits at the base of Mt. Lewis. It is surrounded by farmlands and lot of cattle. The lodge is basically a postage stamp size of rainforest refuge surrounded by cattle pastures.

                                                         LAUGHING KOOKABURA

                                                             RAINBOW LORIKEET

There's a clearing in the middle of the rainforest. It's circular in shape and basically you are surrounded by the edge of the rainforest. The Yellow-spotted, Brown, and Macleay's Honeyeaters were feeding on the blooms of this huge flowering tree. They were joined soon by a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets and Spangled Drongos. Then thirty or so Metallic Starlings came in and were picking up some dried pieces of vine from another tree and flying off with it to use in their nearby nesting colony. They were soon joined by fifty more and then forty more and so on. They were calling frantically as they went about their business. And then just like that they all flew away and once again you could hear the honeyeaters singing.

                                                                   NOISY PITTA
We ventured down to the creek and sat still for a while. We were hoping to see a platypus, but it was not to be. Soon a Little Shrikethrush came in to bathe. She was followed by a Spectacled Monarch and a Pale-Yellow Robin. We noticed some movement down stream where we found an Azure Kingfisher. Walking back to our camp for some lunch we came across a Noisy Pitta. He was very cooperative for the paparazzi.

Next to our camp was an Australian Brushturkey. They are probably the most conspicous birds around the campground. Australian Brushturkeys do not incubate their eggs in the same fashion as most birds. What happens is the male builds a mound in his hard earned territory for which he has fought off several rival males. The mounds can be huge. This one was about four feet in diameter and three feet high. .

                                             AUSTRALIAN BRUSHTURKEY (Brian Bullick)

So why do they build these mounds? Well, over a period of time a female will come along and give his mound a good inspection. If it suits her fancy, she may or may not mate with him. She may just lay some eggs on his mound. Nevertheless he'll go right to work covering up those eggs. Once he gets them covered they'll be incubated by the heat of the decomposition of that material. When the eggs hatch, the young Turks are on their own and they had better watch out for that Scrub Python we saw this morning.

What's really sad is the male brushturkey can become so exhausted by his work on the mound that a usurper will take advantage of his fatigue by challenging him and defeating him in battle. He'll then take over his mound and go about doing what all of us guys do, you guessed it yard-work, or as I like to say "hedge-trimming". I know what you're thinking and the answer is yes, another male may displace the new king when he grows tired from all of his "hedge-trimming". 

After lunch we went back out but this time for a walk down a country lane. We found a huge tree where the Metallic Starlings were nesting. They nest in huge colonies and build these kind of messy globular hanging woven nests. Every few minutes a group of about fifty would take off all at once and fly off in a tight formation.

In a tree with some bottle-brush flowers we found several Brown Honeyeaters and Scarlet Myzomelas. As we were watching these birds a lady who had passed by earlier in a car, approached us and asked if we had seen the Papuan Frogmouth at the creek. We hadn't seen it or known about it so we followed here down to the bridge. There we found the frogmouth sitting on a nest!

The Papuan Frogmouth is like our Whip-Poor-Will, a nightjar. It looks kind of like owl and like most owls, it is strictly nocturnal. It flies around at night using it unusually wide mouth to scoop up flying insects. During the day it will roost inconspicuously.

                                                       PAPUAN FROGMOUTH

In the evening we returned to the creek to sit quietly waiting for the platypus to make an appearance. But she refused to show so we had to be content with great looks at the Pale-vented Bush-hen made its way up the creekside and a couple of Water Dragons. On the way back to camp we found two Red-necked Crakes.

                                                              WATER DRAGON

For complete lists click here

Great Barrier Reef

We left Cassowary House and went straight to the airport to pick up my friend Brian. I have known Brian since I was in college, so it's be awhile. We got into birding pretty much at the same time and cut our teeth on trips to Graylodge and Monterey. We've also gone on several birding adventures together like Texas, Arizona, and Costa Rica. And now Australia! I was thrilled to see that he made it to Cairns safe and sound.

The next day we boarded the boat at 7:30 am for an overnight excursion out on the reef. The skipper of the ship was Claire, a forty something mother of two girls and with her husband the owner of the boat and the company. She and her husband run three two-day trips per week and do maintenance and books on their day off. Sounds like running your own business is a dream job. Claire made it seem that way because she had great energy and passion for sharing the reef with us. The first mate's name was Mike, who is a Kiwi, so his name is more like Myaik. Last but not least was Carla, the general jack of all trades and odd jobs. She's a Spaniard but she came to this area for the diving.  The ship's cargo included two Aussies, four Germans, Brian, Mim and me, two other Americans, and one Colombian.

Four hours after leaving the dock, we were at our little blue paradise. We all got our snorkels out and the do's and donts were explained and off into the water we jumped. Okay, I'm going to tell you up front that I'm just throwing-in the towel on trying to relate this experience. It would take a great writer a very long time to describe an experience on the reef and I'm not a great writer and I don't have a lot of time. I will try and provide a glimpse of the experience and hopefully all these underwater photos, thanks to Brian, will help.

All I can say is that it was truly an experience that I will never forget. I'm sure this experience has change lives and helped many people to understand their place in the world. It's really like visiting another planet.

I had a lot of difficulty with my mask leaking. My facial hair was making it impossible for the mask to create a seal around my skin. I would put on my mask and the then begin to snorkel and immediately water would begin to seep in and eventually make its way up my nose. It was impossible to go for more than three to five minutes before I would have to roll over on my back and clear my mask and my nose. Sometimes after clearing my mask, I would just lie back and float and relax there in the water. Then I'd roll over and the reef would come rushing at me and I couldn't focus on one thing. The amount of fish coming at me and going away and the coral beaming and the plants swaying was overwhelming and I'd have to calm myself down and force myself to slow down and spend a little more time with the coral or with a particular fish.

At one point I was snorkeling on the edge of a reef canyon and I noticed a Green Turtle swimming about fifteen feet below me. I looked around and found Brian. I told him about the turtle and he followed me as I was following the turtle. After a bit I turned over and looked back at Brian and he asked "did you see it" and I said "yeah, didn't you" and he said "no, did you see the shark", I said "no, where was it" he said " right under you the whole time". I quickly stuck my mask back on and dipped in the water and sure enough there was an five foot White-tipped Reef Shark swimming along the edge of the reef. I was amazed that I didn't feel nervous at all.

We moved to few different locations and the snorkeling got even more amazing. Vast gardens of coral where the water was only three feet deep. Incredible that we could be fours hours off the coast and be in three feet of water. It was so so so, something, incredible, amazing, mind-blowing, all these seem to fall short of the mark when trying to describe what it was like. A huge parrot fish just inches away, a giant sea clam which changed from blue to neon orange depending on the angle you looked at it, a huge sea cucumber, numerous species of angel and butterfly fish, huge schools of fish, sharks, turtles, soft corals swaying with the currents, a hundred shades of each color of the rainbow illuminated right there before me.

As the sun set Mim, Brian, and I chatted with the rest of the group and had dinner. The boat was much smaller than I imagined. This became most apparent when it came time to bed down for the night. There were four of us sharing a cabin. Calling it a cabin is really generous. I was more like a walk-in closet. It was pretty stuffy down below deck and the fans in our closet didn't work. So you get the picture, it was a restless night.

The next morning we snorkeled a part of the reef they call The Three Sisters. The Sisters are three giant towers of coral that rise up from the depths of the ocean floor. Swimming over to them I saw nothing but endless blue water and then I was there before a huge tower of coral with huge schools of fish of various species. The fish here were bigger than at the other locations and the schools were more numerous.

After spending several hours snorkeling around the Sisters, it was time to head back to dry land. The four hour slog back to the dock was long and a little too hot. But it was well worth it. What an amazing experience!

Cassowary House

Today we drove up the coast to Port Douglas. Miriam had read about how this is where all the beautiful people go and I had read about a pair of Eclectus Parrots nesting in the downtown area. So that sounded like an afternoon adventure to us.

As we drove up the coast we had many wonderful views of the Northern Queensland beaches and seascapes. I got sleepy, so we played the Bird Game, just kidding............ ha,,ha,,

We came into Port Douglas and luckily found a nice place to park. We got out of the car and looked around and there were beautiful people everywhere. This place was booming with tourism. There were plenty of shops to buy beautiful clothes and jewelry. It was kind of like being in St. Helena or Vale. But as nice as it was and as beautiful as the people were, much to my disappointment, not one beautiful Eclectus Parrot was there to be found.

So we decided on the next best thing, an iced coffee of course. Iced coffee is something that we have come to enjoy on these hot afternoons. As I was ordering the iced coffee, the "mate" behind the counter was being super friendly, as most people are Down Under,,,,, anyway he was asking me if I was a biologist or something, I guess it was the binoculars and camera that I was wearing. I told him "no, just birdwatching". He asked if I was looking for the Eclectus Parrots that were nesting around the downtown area. I lit up like a Christmas tree and then he said "yeah I saw them a week or so ago" and I burnt out a few bulbs on the Christmas tree. Then he said "they're escapees from the Wildlife Tourist Park" and it was like someone had pulled the plug on the brightest Christmas tree, and here's my nod to Trump, wait for it ........ EVER! 

Escapees, through no fault of their own are frowned upon in the birding world. Even native endangered birds such as these parrots, are not "countable". So even if I had seen them and got really great pictures, I probably wouldn't have even mentioned it to another birder. But they are beautiful birds, wild or escapees, and I really hope to see, a wild one, someday.

We arrived at the Cassowary House in the early afternoon. No sooner had we brought our bags to our cabin than the owner's son Rowan ( a young man in his 30's) came running up saying, "do you guys want to see the Victoria's Riflebird displaying" and I was like "does Trump say some of the stupidest shit" and we both looked at each other and said simultaneously, just like Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure,,,,,,"EXCELLENT". Well, not really but it was kind of like that.

Mim and I ran over to where he led us, and there, not more than twenty-five yards away was a male riflebird displaying for a female that was perched on a horizontal branch directly in front of him. He was positioned on a short dead stump of a tree that was about twenty feet high. Rowan says they never display in direct sunlight. We were up the hill so we had an eye level view of his display stage. He faced her, stiffened his feathers so as to catch the rays of sunlight that penetrated into the understory of the rainforest. Then he lifted both of his wings up over his head like he was doing some sort of reach for the stars yoga move. The feathers on his breast lit up metallic green, just like a hummingbird's throat patch (gorget). After reaching the apex he paused for a second and then he took several slow deliberate bows, while directly facing his audience of one. He then straightened up and leaned forward throwing his left wing over across his body all the way over to his right side. As he did so you could hear a clicking sound and then he did the same thing with the opposite wing,, click, click, click,. He repeated this several times, until he rose up and pointed his beak skyward exposing his metallic blue triangular patch on his throat and then for the grand finale he pointed his beak towards the sky and opened up his mouth, impossibly wide, exposing the brilliant yellow gape to the object of his desire. This feller was leaving nothing undone. He gave everything he had because if he holds anything back, who knows if there's going to be a second date.

Naturally she was unimpressed and flew away without so much as a wink or a nod. He didn't seem to be too bothered by her indifference. He remained on his display post and began to rearrange his feathers before flying off into the depths of the rainforest. If you'd like to see a video of a Victoria's Riflebird performing his display, click here

It was hot out in a sun but it was rather cool in the rainforest. So we sat out on our balcony which overlooked a little rainforest stream. Not much was happening birdwise, but I was okay with it. In fact, if I hadn't seen another bird for my entire stay I would have been just fine, because never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would see a riflebird display. But today, there was to be icing on this cake. I made some whistling noises and some pishes and soon some small passerines came in for a closer look. Among there were Pied and Spectacled Monarch, Large-billed Scrubwren, and Yellow-breasted Boatbill.

                                                YELLOW-BREASTED BOATBILL

                                                          SPECTACLED MONARCH

Later on I went out for an evening birdwalk and heard some very strange calls coming from the trees on the side of the road leading into Karanda National Park. After some intense searching I was rewarded with very nice views of some very beautiful Wampoo Fruit-Doves.

                                                         WAMPOO FRUIT-DOVE

The next morning we got up at the break of day. We had some granola and coffee and set out on a birdwalk. There were a couple of groups there that we ran in to. After exchanging pleasantries we went about our separate ways. Mim and I walked down to the creek were we found a pair of Forest Kingfishers that were flying up and snagging termites out of a termite nest that was situated high in a tree. We also found Olive-backed Sunbird, Double-eyed Fig Parrot, Chestnut-breasted Munias, Spotted Catbird, and Sulfur-crested Cockatoos. For a complete list of that morning click here

                                                               SPOTTED CATBIRD

                                                      SULFUR-CRESTED COCKATOO

We made our way back to the lodge and on the way Mim picked out, from among all the twisting vines of the rainforest, a Superb Fruit-Dove, one of the most beautiful doves in the world. When we got back to the drive way leading to the lodge the owner, Rowan, was pulling out in his car. Upon seeing us he slowed down and rolled down his window and said, "guys, the Cassowary has come in". We couldn't believe our luck, first the riflebird displaying and now a cassowary!

We hurried back and sure enough standing at the back of the house was a huge and I do mean huge, and strange and I do mean strange, and prehistoric and I do mean prehistoric, and kind of scary and I do mean kind of scary ------ bird. I was feeling like asking Mim to pinch me because this was really sureal to me. I was not more than ten feet away from this huge bird, which by the way is that only bird to have ever attacked and killed a human being. They have one claw on each foot that is the equivilant of a four inch sharp knife. And those knifes are attached to legs that look to be taken from "The Incredible Hulk".

We stood taking in the moment when the bird decided to move. Lo and behold she began to move slowly in my direction and since I was only about ten feet away, it didn't take long for her to be right at my hip, I mean shoulder. Sue, the owner of the property said to me, "stay still",,,,,, "don't move",,, "don't look at her"........ I followed her direstions of a T, and the Cassowary moved on right by me and proceed to a small little ornamental pond where she proceeded to eat the resident doomed tadpoles.

What a wonderfully unbelievable time at the Cassowary House! 

Cairns Esplanade

We got into Cairns (pronounced Cans, like Cans of Beer) a couple of nights ago but we slept too late to catch a good tide for shorebirds, so we did that today. Yesterday was for sightseeing around Cairns. We went to the Botanic Gardens, hung out at our Air BnB, really nice with a pool and no one around. Nice to be back in the tropics! 

We went to bed early and got up before first light, showered, and got down to the Esplanade by six. The high tide was set for 8:37 am. Mim took off for a run up the Esplanade while I strapped my binoculars and camera on. I was thrilled to see that the tide was still about a hundred yards from the boardwalk. I set up my scope and scanned the shoreline. 

                                    THE TIDAL FLATS AT THE CAIRNS ESPLANADE

                                                  THE ESPLANADE AT CAIRNS

The first birds I noticed were a few groups of Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. I've only seen Sharp-tailed three times, so it was great to get a chance to study them. I can't tell you how many times I've given a Least or Pec a real long look and tried to make it in to a Sharp-tailed, with no success. Well if I ever do that again please suspend my birding license and write me a ticket for stringing because they are so distinctive. I can't think of another sandpiper that is so rich in color during its non-breeding plumage. With a chestnut crown and rich reddish brown tones with dark central feathers edged in white this is one of the most impressive sandpipers. 

                                                  SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER

When Sharp-tailed Sandpipers migrate to Australian from their breeding grounds in the Siberian Arctic, they make use of the entire coastline basically circling the continent. But in years when Australia experiences flooding, the Sharp-tailed will make use of the inland flooded fields and meadows and forgo the extra thousand miles of migration. 

As I looked through the flock of Sharp-tails I begin to see other birds that are trying to pass themselves off as Sharpies. I say not so fast as I pick out one that's just a little bigger and a little more chunkier. After a little head scratching I figure out that it's a Great Knot. I have seen it's counterpart, the Red Knot. In fact one was around for a while this fall at Fern Ridge. But the Great Knot was noticeably more hefty than the Red Knot. 

The Great Knot is a connoisseur of shell fish and it depends on having access to this food source during its long migration. Due to the destruction of its most important stop over point in Korea, the Great Knot has declined by over a third of its historic population. 

Right behind the Great Knot is another lifer bird for me. It's a Curlew Sandpiper. Too bad it's not in breeding plumage. I remember when I first started birding, I would lie in bed leafing through the pages of my National Geographic Field Guide and this is one bird where I would have to stop and just dream of seeing it. In breeding plumage they are a brick red color and mighty handsome. Still it's cool to see it in its relatively simple winter plumage. Or should I say summer plumage since we are in Australia. 

                           GREAT KNOT (front right) CURLEW SANDPIPER (3rd from right)

Coming up one of the tidal channels is a bird that I know the instant I see it, it's one that I have never seen. I studied it for a long time and I took several pictures and to be honest I didn't figure it out until later on in the evening when I was reviewing the pictures. I noticed that it had an ever so slightly upturned bill which would get me to consider Tarek Sandpiper, but upon closer inspection it's just too long legged and the bill is not up-turned enough. So then I think, maybe Marsh Sandpiper, but no, because the bill is slightly upturned and Marsh Sandpiper has a straight thin bill. Also this bird is a bit too long legged. Then I hit the page with Common Greenshank and BINGO, I know right away that it's a perfect fit. 

I scan the shoreline and see a familiar bird from the North America, the Whimbrel. There must be about thirty or more of them spread out along the tidal edge. Then I see the Whimbrel Deluxe model, a Far Eastern Curlew. It looks kind of like a Whimbrel but is much larger and with a significantly longer curved bill. Scanning the water's edge I notice that several more are spread out along the Esplanade. Seventy-five per cent of the world's population of Far Eastern Curlews winter in Australia. I didn't know it but the Far Eastern Curlew is the world's largest shorebird. Females have longer bills than males and their bills are on average about seven inches long and down curved. They use them to uncover crabs, their main source of food in Australia. 

                                                                  WHIMBREL

                                                    FAR-EASTERN CURLEW

At this point Mim runs up to me and we make a plan for meeting up later. She is going to take a swim in this large public pool that is free to everyone. It is located right beside the Esplanade and it's a really cool pool with fountains in the middle. She runs off and I resume birding. 

                                                 THE POOL ON THE ESPLANADE 

At this point the tide has come in about thirty yards and the birds are getting closer. I notice a couple of Black-fronted Dotterels probing the trickling waters of the rising tides. Dotterels are basically Plovers but even cuter. Like a Plover or a Robin, it doesn't forage with it's head down. It scurries along at a pretty good clip and then all of a sudden stops and pecks at some aquatic insect. 

                                                   BLACK-FRONTED DOTTEREL 

Also mixed in with the Sharp-tailed Sandpipers are a bird that every North American birder longs to find in their local coastline, sewer pond, or marsh. Of course I'm talking about a Red-necked Stint, which is basically a sandpiper. I give this bird a really good look over because if it shows up in Oregon I want to be able to pick it from the many Western Sandpipers that are common in our neck of the woods during times of migration. 

                                                         RED-NECKED STINT

Shorebirding is so cool. Well of course I would say that and yes it is true that I think all birding is cool, even sewer pond birding! But birders know that shorebirding is something special. The birds aren't deep in some thicket or high in the canopy. They aren't flitting around so that as soon as you can get an eye on them they are gone to another tree and you have no idea which one because they took off while you were raising your binoculars. Shorebirds for the most part are out in the open and for the most part aren't flitting around but staying relatively in one area. Yes you may have bad light or the tide may be out and thus they are far away, but usually you can do something about that. 

Now I'm not saying because they are relatively easy to view that they are easy to identify. It takes a well seasoned eye to pick out the subtle plumage variations. Some can only be identified by their call or by some pattern on a particular difficult area of the bird to see. But more than that it's just so awesome to see these birds as they complete their incredible journey across continents. For example the Red-necked Stint weighs about the same as a strawberry and it migrates from the Siberian Arctic to the southern most coast of Australia and then back again every year. But it doesn't just do that, it raises a clutch of chicks too! And it does so against all of nature's odds, but also all the crap that mankind has put in its way. When you look out at the mud flat in front of you and you feel the tide rising and see it in the movement of the birds, well you just witnessed a miracle 

Here are some of the other birds that I spent some time with today. Pictures are so good, the light was just too harsh.

                                                                    PIED STILT

                                              WHITE-BREASTED WOODSWALLOW

                                                TORRESIAN IMPERIAL-PIGEON

                                                        PIED OYSTERCATCHER

                                                        BAR-TAILED GODWIT

From Kata Tjutja to the Desert Park

From Uluru we drove out for a sunrise at the other rock formation in the park. We were just a little bit late as the sun was coming up as we were pulling up. The viewing platform was kind of a longs ways so the photographs aren't that great.

Some say these rock formations know as the Kata Tjutja, which means "many heads" are more impressive than Uluru. I don't know about that but they are pretty cool. Although this rock formation is only sixteen miles from Uluru, its make up is very different. It is a conglomerate of sedimentary rock consisting of cobbles and boulders of mainly granite and basalt held fast by a matrix of sandstone. The highest dome is seventeen hundred ninety-one feet above the desert floor.

                                                    SUNRISE ON KATA TJUTJA

                                                        ONE OF THE OLGAS

                                                     HIKING UP A CANYON

                                                    MIM TRYING TO SAVE HER HAT


Place names are so strange. This formation is also know as the Olgas for the highest peak, Mount Olga. When I heard that they were called the Olgas I thought maybe because they looked a little like the towers on the Kremlin. I know that's a stretch but I couldn't think of why these rocks in the middle of the outback should be called the Olgas. But that actually makes more sense than the true reason. They were named in 1872 for the daughter of Tsar Nicholas I, Grand Duchess Olga of Russia. The man who named the peak in her honor had been named a baron by the Tsar and this was his way of repaying the honor. But nowadays hardy anyone calls them the Olgas, just folks like me that can't  pronounce Kata Tjutja.

The long drive back to Alice Spring was uneventful except for the dozen or so Truck Trains that passed us going the other way. Miriam drove some of the way and I was able to play a little guitar and blog. As we made up our way up the Stuart Highway, we passed the same roadkill kangaroo that the eagle was eating on the way down to Uluru and he was still there on the way back.

After I started driving we started a game of Botichelli. She chose Bob Marley and I began to quiz her until I got some yes or no questions and I was able to establish that this person was dead, was not an American, was male, and was not known for playing rock music. There were a few more clues that I uncovered and to me it sure seemed like the person was Freddie Mercury. But it can't be because she said he wasn't famous for rock music. But I have played this game enough with Mim to know that her judgment on these kind of questions can be, ah.. questionable. So I said that I thought I knew who it is but he's definitely famous for rock. She said well ask me a question. So I asked "Were you the lead singer for Queen"? And she said "no, I'm not Rami Malek" and to which I replied "well I hope that's true because he's not dead" And she shot back "he is too, he died of AIDS" and I played along "you sure?" and she's like "yeah they just made a movie about him" and I played along "a movie about Rami Malek"?, she said and with confidence "yeah they did" and I said "oh because he just put out a movie recently where he played the lead singer of Queen" and we both fell apart laughing on this long lonesome road in the middle of nowhere.

Now for some birding! 
We got up before sunrise and drove out to the Alice Springs Desert Park. Mim went for a run while I birded around the outskirts of the park. The birding was pretty good as right away I saw our first finch of the trip, a large flock of Zebra Finches.

                                                                ZEBRA FINCH

Then I heard a really sweet three syllable whistling hoot and I left the finches to track it down. I found the area it was coming from but it sounded like it was inside the park and they were not open yet. As I was about to give up something caught my eye. I raised my binos and right there, not twenty yards away was a Peaceful Dove giving that call. I couldn't believe it was so close.

I heard some loud grating calls from back toward where I had left the van. I didn't really want to walk back but that call had to be some kind of parrot. I didn't want to miss a chance to see a parrot so I did an about face and hurried back to the van. Right next to the van in a really small tree were about five Australian Ringnecks! I would see many throughout the day, but I was very pleased to see these in such beautiful morning light.

Mim came back and I showed her the Ringnecks. The sound of a chorus of birdsong was coming from within the Desert Park. The Alice Springs Desert Park is a wildlife park as well as an environmental educational facility. It's super cool, a lot like the Arizona Sonora Museum just outside Tucson. The park is divided up into three different sections, each representing an ecosystem found in the Central Australian Desert. If you're interested in learning more about the park, click here.

The first section we walked through was the woodlands. In each section they have walk-through aviaries with native birds from that habitat. I took the following four pictures in that aviary.

                                                          BANDED PLOVER

                                                            INLAND DOTTEREL

                                                  WHITE-WINGED FAIRYWREN

                                                               YELLOW CHAT

Outside the aviary I heard a really interesting song. I have to say that it's so cool to hear so many songs that are new to my ears. This one was a loud and liquid gurgling song and just sounded like the coolest thing I'd ever heard. It turned out to be a Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater. I'd been seeing these here and there but it seemed to me that there was something different about the song. So I looked it up and it turns out that sometimes they sing in what is known as "antiphonally". That is where one bird will start up a song and in the middle of the song he'll stop abruptly and without missing a beat another bird will take up the song where he left off and finish it. That's totally what this bird was doing. And I got this picture of him in the act. Amazing!

                                                   SPINY-CHEEKED HONEYEATER
I saw a bird moving around in a small tree. When I found it, it was coming out of a nest. It must have been feeding chicks. I followed it with my binoculars and saw that it was a White-browed Babbler. The name is really fitting for this one.

                                                  WHITE-BROWED BABBLER

I walked a little farther down the path and I was almost out of the woodland section and entering the sandlands section, where I saw something moving through the underbrush, walking on the ground like a quail. I almost dropped by binoculars where I saw that it was a Spinifex Pigeon. This was in the top ten of the birds I most wanted to see in Australia. It was pretty shy so I couldn't get very good pictures but if you look close you can see it's really a beauty. Check out that plume on the top of his head!

Another good bird and much more common was the Singing Honeyeater. It is the most wide-spread of all honeyeaters in Australia.

                                                       SINGING HONEYEATER

Mim had left a little while ago because they were having a birds of prey demonstration and she wanted to see it. I couldn't leave these birds so kept on birding. After seeing the Singing Honeyeater I entered the Sandlands Aviary. It was pretty cool but I wanted to be with the wild birds so I didn't stay for long.

I walked into the Sandlands section and met up with Mim. She was super excited because she was seeing all these wonderful birds. She told that she found a Splendid Fairywren and another fairywren that turned out to be a Varigated Fairywren. Now she has a bird on me and she's letting me have it.

I met a birder named Bob in the Sandlands section. He was a really nice guy and knew a lot about the distribution of birds in Australia. He was telling me that they are in the middle of a drought and that since the Desert Park irrigates, it pulls in a lot of birds from the surrounding desert, especially since they had had so many fires already this year.

He gave me a few good tips on where to find certain birds. He was there to photograph the Splendid Fairywren and as we were talking one hopped up on a bush and started belting out his song. Very nice!

                                                           SPLENDID FAIRYWREN

                                                        LONG NOSED DRAGON

It was getting pretty hot by now and Mim and I decided to go to the park's coffee shop and get an iced coffee. Oh did it hit the spot. What a great day of birding at a great place.