103) The Tweed

Red-browed Finch

Given our current middle-of-the-semester schedules we are taking shorter trips down in NSW to some 'suburban' birding sites in the Tweed Shire. Along the Terranora Broadwater (an estuary), there are some short trails and an interesting mix of water birds and bush-birds (it seems really out of place to hear a Whip-bird (which is ubiquitous up in the jungle) while looking at flowers next to someones fence!






Blue-faced Honeyeater










A Brown headed honey eater. Maddening quick flyers, this one finally sat down in one spot for a moment.












By necessity, Nancy is getting really good at the "silhouette ID" - there are pages in the bird guide showing relative shapes and sizes for the wide variety of "black birds".

This Spangled Drongo is a complete giveaway with the split tail and the jet black body.












But with a little light the Spangled Drongo shows off its true colors. They have a remarkable iridescence including little 'spangles' of color on the breast and a lovely red eye!














An unexpected Darter building a nest with his lovely. These were not on the area bird list but there were quite a few nesting in the trees.
















Father darter and chick
















Azure Kingfisher

















Fun little Yellow Robins are quite willing to sit still. They are also less skittish and are 'kind' birds to try and photograph.

















Some lovely pockets of ferns along the trail. Nice spot to sit and listen for the birds.



































The estuary has a lot of oyster beds (and some oyster restaurants)

That little brown smudge in the lower left is a Striped Night Heron. I didn't take a real photo of him as he was just too far to resolve much.






Another "life" bird for Nancy --a Striped Honeyeater.

These short trips are amazing - in the last two trips down there, we have seen 9 new (to us) species and 80+ species total.

Spring will be coming - more flowers blooming and I suspect as the birds vocalize, we will spot even more!









Of course, at our house, birdo- watching is a family affair - everyone gets into the act!

Note the lorries out on the rail and the twitching tail in the foreground!

Two very clean lorries - then emptied the birdbath in an orgy of thrashing, snorkeling and flailing wings!

102.) Winter trails

A handsome Superb Fairy-Wren flashing his fabulous blue-accented plumage.

It's actually winter here in the sub-tropics. This is a good time to get out and about, because it's more comfortable when you're not dripping in sweat or wilting from the heat. We decided to head to Lamington and bush-walk (hike, for you Yanks) on the West Canungra Creek track (trail, for you Yanks). Here's some good instructions for making a decision about whether or not to descend to the depths. We decided we would prefer to take the stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower, ergo we hiked a glorious trail!

The Superb Fairy-wrens were hanging out near the guest-cottages at the beginning of the track. No bigger than a sparrow, this guy was the fearless leader.















Here's a Lewin's Honeyeater. A machine-gun rattle is reminiscent of a Lewin's honeyeater call. These guys seem to be the resident honeyeaterof this area and there is some kind of Banksia blooming most times of the year.















A female White-throated Tree Creeper doing her creeping thing on the hunt for bugs

















Here's a Red-Necked Pademelon. These little (knee-high) marsupials come out to graze in the grasses next to the forest edge, where you may see them at sunset and sunrise. The joey is tucked safely away in his mother's pouch.











For those of you who wonder, yes it gets cold enough here to wear my expedition down coat (along with the Billabong surfie girl hat). In fact, I'm wearing my *other* down coat as I'm sitting inside at night writing this (it's 17 C or 62 F inside).








This is the "Green" pool, very aptly named, I'd say! The rainforest, of course, stays green all year. Even the Antarctic Beech trees!
















Contemplating the falls in the creek after a snack. This was the lowest point in the track, now we encounter many more pretty waterfalls along the way as we head on back up. It's really not bad, hiking up the Eiffel tower!










Artsy water photos--











Dirk's having fun taking pretty pictures of water instead of twitchy birds. [hey, at least the falls stays in the same place!]
















Trying to learn the fine art of deep-jungle photography - high contrast but no light...




















One of the lesser-known Australian fauna, here's a Triceratops we saw roaming the highways and byways.









Our friend Quinn paid a visit between the fire management classes he was in OZ to teach. We picked him up in Byron (where he surfed, hung out with Scandinavians, and biked a bit) and headed over to climb the desperate Mt. Warning. This is an arduous peak that many train for, only to fail at the steep "trail of tears" at the top. It's 4.4 km with a vertical of almost 1500 feet. Being the responsible guy he is, Quinn was *very* concerned with the time since it was almost winter and after 1 pm you *should not* go past the halfway point.

We tried to assure him it would be OK - we had headlamps and emergency rations just in case. Besides, firsthand accounts will assure you that Dirk is very experienced with headlamp tours...


Nancy and Quinn on the merciless "Trail of Tears" - there are also strong warnings not to ascend this bit in electrical storms - probably because of the heavy duty lightning rod chain they have installed as a hand rail. Fair enough, this would be a quite a sluicebox in the rain!

No picture, but Quinn was kind enough to indulge Nancy's current birdwatching obsession. We had shown him the common bush turkeys nosing around the carpark. Then, as we were descending the the mighty Peak (in the dry light), he casually pointed out a bird scratching in the duff off the side of the trail and modestly said, 'oh look, isn't that another of those turkeys?' Classic--Nancy took a double-take when she realized it was actually an Albert's lyrebird! To appreciate this, you have to look at the rangemap of Albert's lyrebirds--it's the tiniest spot on the map of Australia in SE Queensland. They must be tame with all the hordes hiking up Mt. Warning--not our experience of the lyrebirds in Lamington.

A leftover photo from the Giraween post - a contemplative moment amongst the boulders after the hordes departed the summit for the day.















The sun sets on another glorious day in the rainforest.

101.) Birthday - Girraween!

Suspended in time, the moment before resuming the Sisyphian Challenge once more...

My idea for a fun birthday this year was...looking for more birds! But it also involved exploring another national park (about 3 hours from the Gold Coast) called Girraween. Luckily for Dirk, it also had some interesting granite formations for exploration to keep things lively. Our first endeavor, upon reaching the campground in the pouring rain, was to suspend Jody's exceptionally glorious parawing tarp. We found out the next day that this was the first rain they had had in seven weeks, so it was a good birthday present--they needed the rain!








Dirk insisted we climb to the top of the "Pyramid" at sunset because he knew the colors of the light would be fantastic. And they were!











Doing the funky chicken, calling on the bird gods to grant us a Diamond Firetail siting! We did see two single guys, but not the flocks we were hoping to find. These bird are falling victim to collectors and inappropriate fire regimes that burn the seeds they depend upon for food.














This is the 'Pyramid' that we climbed at sunset. We actually climbed it twice. The first time, I was dawdling and Dirk forged ahead. After I ambled up and met him at the top, we determined I did the "standard" route (following the painted white lines) whereas Dirk did a first ascent on the slabs. At the top of the pyramid, we found the Sysiphian "Balanced" rock.

There are some J-Tree style climbs here. Either easy and run-out or really hard (and run-out). Too hard for our feeble powers right now.....






The Second Pyramid (great names eh?) Some very scary routes on this we hear. Luckily, the most promising (it has gear) was dripping water so we were not tempted.











In search of the elusive Diamond Firetail, we found other fabulous birds in a vineyard on one of the nearby country roads. This is wine country, and regrettably, this vineyard had a devastating frost this year that decimated the crop. But the birds took advantage of the withered grapes!

Some very crimson Crimson Rosellas.










I bought wine from a vineyard whose owners seemed to appreciate wildlife as much as me--they had posted signs that they are an official "Land for Wildlife" vineyard (they set aside some required amount of native bush for the local wildlife), plus they had a "Bilby Red" that benefitted the "Save the Bilby" fund... I couldn't resist buying a bottle (or actually, two!). I was careful to tell them that we were birders contributing to the local economy, and we came specifically to them because of their "land for wildlife" signs... We should have also purchased wine from this vineyard where we saw the rosellas...we'll have to go back, I should have thought of that at the time!




This bird took me a long time to figure out--does a photo id count for adding to your life list? This Australian Pipit forages on the ground and zipped around between the mounds of the grape vines, peeping up just long enough to confound identification until Dirk caught him in action.














These beautiful Eastern Rosellas were incredibly flighty (especially in contrast to the Crimson Rosellas). Any time we came anywhere near them, they'd disappear. We wondered if they got hassled for trying to make a meal from wine grapes...









This is the almost perfect photo of the rare Coxen's Fig Parrot --- .05 secs after it flew away).

There are no photos of this endangered bird and they haven't been seen in 2 years or so. But this was one. I am sure......

Or maybe it was a ________*

(*fill in the blank with any number of flighty, difficult to photograph birds that was there just a split second before!
The "Arch" which was just almost chimney-able.
















A fine example of a "Stringybark" tree (one of the many species of Eucalypts). As you may imagine, these are quite flammable trees!















Nancy wanted to make sure she got enough exercise after the b-day cake. Rolling this boulder up the first Pyramid did tire her out a bit.....











Kangaroo action photos! These two seemed fairly used to human activity, thought they did keep their eye on us. I believe these are Eastern Gray Kangaroos.












Dirk managed to catch both mom and Joey in mid-bounce as they sprung between rocks.























On of our favorite birds, the Spotted Pardalote. These birds are tiny, and difficult to track down, though they have a distinctive call. They also zoom around quite quickly and never stay still more than a moment. We're still in search of an even better photo to capture the beautiful white spots on their black caps and wings.











Pardalote!


















These king parrots were hanging out by the feeders at the chocolate shoppe...


















I always cajole Dirk to take pictures of the girls...this is a female Red-breasted Robin.

















These guys were hopping around underneath the grapevines on the ground in a "company" (how that's different from a flock, I don't know--maybe fewer in number?). They confounded us for awhile, the spotted crown threw us off, but their bright yellow rump that was visible when they flew helped us finally determine them to be yellow-rumped thornbills. They are bigger (13 cm) than most of the other species of little 10 cm thornbills that normally hang out in the bushes.







Another one of the girls--a female Splendid Fairy Wren (see her rusty lores and gray-blue tail?) chows down on a bug. These charming birds buzz about the grasses, flipping their wrenny tails. They hang out in family groups, and keep track of each others movements with animated buzzy calls.












Vrksasana (that would be "tree" pose). Balancing next to the balanced rock!















A vividly-colored mistletoe bird. These are the birds with the job of wiping their bum on tree branches and spreading the sticky mistletoe seeds.














Maybe this is the real funky chicken! Another bird hanging out at the chocolate shoppe.