A trip to the Eastern side !!

This King parrot flew in staying briefly in the shade before careering noisily off through the forest.

One of the only flowers i saw was this lovely orchid, and have yet to find out what it is.

There were lots of butterflies all of the same species they are a Common brown and the females are quite a bit bigger than the males.

After Armidale, I hitched a lift up to Brisbane where i met up with Jon Coleman and his banding team at a place near Imbril, 2.5 hours north of Brisbane. He has a banding site in remnant rainforest and eucalypt woodland as well.

There are net rides in the forest on both sides of the track and some of the first animals caught were some Long eared bats luckily Paul Barden is a bat handler and well prepared !

Over the morning a range of species were caught including the following:

Painted button-quail

Eastern yellow robin

Eastern whipbird

Little shrike thrush

A net ride through the rainforest

Azure kingfisher not disimilar to Common kingfisher except the blue ranges from a bluey purple to a slivery blue depending how the sun light catches it.

The stunning view from the balcony of the house we were centered around with Channel billed cuckoo flying around.

The banding team enjoying a well deserved rest after a 3:30 am start ! BBQ all round!!

After banding i headed back to Brisbane to stay with friend Wendy (i worked with her 15 years ago on Fair Isle) and her family. She has just had a house built so i helped her move in which was great fun ! One morning i was given a lift out to Eagleby wetlands by Wendy's dad Graeme. Its a nice nature park of re-claimed wetland areas around a waste water treatment on the River Albert. There are a range of habitats which attract a good range of species from Brown quail, Tawny grassbird, Figbird, Olive backed oriole, Red backed fairy wren to shorebirds on the muddy edges of the pool including Sharp tailed sandpiper, Red necked stint and Black necked stork (see photo below).

My flight was out of Sydeny so i decided togo down there a few days before to see the sites! Having been to Sydney before i wanted to do something esle than just the botanical gardens which are good for Buff brested rail wandering about on the lawns as well as a range of other species and for seeing Black Flying foxes, there are hundreds in the park very active all day. Wanting to do someting else i decided to visit Tagorana Zoo a 15 minute ferry ride across the harbour.

The zoo itself is like most others and i was disapointed to see single speciemens of species i would regard as social animals like gibbons on thier own, maybe there was a reason but none made clear. Anyhow, a species i have always wanted to see is the Komodo dragon and it was to my surprise that they had one in an enclosure. A fantastic animal and i would love to see one in the wild....provided there is some distance between me and it !

You can se the drool hanging out of its mouth in this shot and you can see why they simply make a small bite which infects the poor prey item with a mixture of bacteria enough to kill, but very slowly ! The dragon follows the prey item as it slowly dies over a few days or so...what a way to go !

Well, it wouldn't be Sydney without a shot of the Opera house, pity some bloke got in the way !!!!!!

More random shots of wildlife around Broome

The beach at Coconut Wells makes a perfect breeing site for Little Tern and the eggs are not difficult to find as teh birds are so confiding.

A Willy wagtail decided to nest just a meter or so from my bedroome window but unfortunately while i was away on the East coast it was predated.

While driving out on the plains we came across thie Yellow spotted or Gould's monitor
trying to impress us by rearing up on its back legs to make itself bigger and more intimidating !!

Random animals

Frill neck lizards fighting in the garden

Gilbert's dragon or Ta Ta lizard on account of it habit of running then lifting front legs and alternatively and waving them !

Black fronted dotterel on eggs or small young at the Broome sewage works.

A trip to Cape Leveque, Dampier peninsula

Broad billed sandpiper bonanza!!

The Australian Wader study Group are at the observatory for 3 weeks led by Dr Clive Minton to catch shorebirds to place metal bands and engraved yellow flags to allow identification in the field. At a canon netting session we caught over 60 Broad billed sandpipers a fantastic little wader which is not normally sampled in such numbers. The first picture shows the obvious longish bill with a slight droop towards the end.

This bird was a bit of a surprise as the Black over White colour flags means that it was marked in China, we are yet to find the details of this bird.

This photo is of a first winter bird, quite contrasting in the head pattern colour of black and white and this individual shows very well teh 'double' supercillium.

Bush Point again to count shorebirds - Paradise??

We took the 4WD's across the plains and creeks to get to Bush Point again to do the shorebird counts as part of the Monitoring Yellow Sea Migrants in Australia program.

The beach is totally unspoilt and a fantatic haven for shorebirds both at roost and as a feeding site. The main species involved are Bar-tailed godwit, Great knot, Greater sandplover, Red necked stint, Red capped plover and small numbers of Sanderling, Oriental plover, Red knot, Eastern curlew, Whimbrel..........some 40,000 birds counted ! plus several thousand terns, mostly Whiskered, Gull billed and Little tern, small numbers fo Caspian and Common tern.