Birding in Australia. A fantastic new challenge

Hilary & I arrived in Sydney on 17th September 2010, for 5 weeks, to be spent with family both in Sydney and Narrabri - a farming community in the fertile north west of New South Wales. Combined with this however, we were going to endeavour to get in as much birding as possible, knowing that apart from birds like the Common Myna, House Sparrow, Common Starling and some others, that every observation for us was to be a 'lifer'. This is what initially became a challenge (plus some, I must add), as even though many hours were spent browsing the local field guide before departure, constant reference to it was required with literally every observation. The camera was also very much in use, photographing birds we were unable to immediately identify. Australia, like South Africa is blessed with a wide diversity of bird species, and we looked forward to seeing as much of this in the areas through which we were to travel, and spend time.

Sydney, like any other large city, has its fair share of birds for anyone interested. Among some of the first seen by us were: Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Australian Magpie, Crimson Rosella, Noisy Miner, Spotted Turtle Dove, Welcome Swallow, Red Wattlebird, and of course the bird all associate with the land downunder, the Laughing Kookaburra. Over the next couple of days during a couple of drives which included North Head, Ku-ring-gai Chase NP, Barrenjoey Head and Palm Beach, some of the birds added to our ever growing list included among others: Masked Lapwing, Pied Currawong, Crested Pigeon, Galah, Spotted Pardalote, Rainbow Lorikeet, Willie Wagtail, and Australian King Parrot.

Tuesday 21st Sept, saw us heading off through the Blue Mountains, to spend two days in the Capertee Valley, which despite its renown in birding circles, does as far as I know not appear on any tourist map or road atlas. On the western edge of the vast Wollemi NP in New South Wales, you may find two tiny places called Glen Davis and Glen Alice within an immense canyon rimmed by cliffs and punctuated here and there by the occasional mountain. This is the legendary Capertee Valley, which is generally regarded as one of the best birding areas within Australia.

We left Sydney on the western highway, via Katoomba and Lithgow, for a very pleasant drive to our accommodation at Capertee Valley Retreat, which lies just outside the village of Capertee, and nestles in the bush on the 1100 acre Longridge Estate, and above the Capertee Valley. The accommodation was really first class, and so beautifully peaceful, with only the birds and the occasional Kangaroo joining us.

The valley is a bird watcher's paradise, and we hoped to notch up as many as possible of the birds that are known to occur in the area. We were still raw, but our knowledge of Australia's birds was improving with each and every sighting, 'lifer' or not. Unfortunately, very few of the nectar-rich eucalypts and mistletoes were flowering, so conditions were not ideal, and we dipped on one of our target birds, Regent Honeyeater, despite having some information on where they had been observed breeding in previous years. Our two days spent birding in this valley was a fantastic experience, and during this time we were able to add in excess of 30 new species to our list. These included: Rufous Whistler, Superb Fairy-wren, New Holland Honeyeater, Red-browed Finch, Satin Bowerbird, White-plumed Honeyeater, White-throated Treecreeper, Eastern Whipbird, Richard's Pipit, Fairy Martin, Double-barred Finch, Grey-crowned Babbler, Eastern Spinebill, European Goldfinch, Noisy Friarbird, Little Corella, Grey Butcherbird, Dusky Woodswallow, Jacky Winter & White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike.

Thursday 23rd Sept saw us heading out of the valley via Rylstone en route to our next stop in Mudgee, where we were to overnight in the home of John McCrea, and to meet up with Rosie Gibbs, sister of an Edenvale friend Sally Nielsen. John had undertaken to show us around his local patch in Mudgee. After meeting John in town, we drove out to his home on a lovely 5 acre plot just a bit away from the centre of Mudgee, where after settling in, took a walk around his garden. The first bird we saw on the plot was an Australian Hobby. John has created some lovely wetland habitat on part of his property, and said that he had a resident Buff-banded Rail. We were very fortunate to see this lovely bird wandering through his garden the next morning.
John was telling us about the developments taking place at the old sewage disposal works, whereby the land or part thereof has been made available to the community following on approaches made to the town council by a concerned group of persons. The area is in the process of being laid out with areas of car park, parkland, walking trails along the river for birdwatching as well as the laying out of picnic and BBQ sites around an old quarrylake. It all looks very good and should be a real drawcard for visitors and locals once complete. Some of the birds seen while walkabout in the area with John, included: Cattle Egret, Sacred Kingfisher, Clamorous Reed Warbler, Grey Shrike-thrush, Intermediate Egret, Pied Cormorant & Red-rumped Parrot.

After taking leave of John on Friday morning, we hit the road for Narrabri via Gulgong, Coolah, Mullaley and Gunnedah, arriving in Narrabri around 17h30. Apart from many birds previously observed, we did pick up the following en route: Peaceful Dove, Whitefaced Heron, Zebra Finch, White-necked Heron, Nankeen Kestrel & Black-shouldered Kite.

The weekend was spent on the farm, during which time we added to our ever growing list, the following birds: Apostlebird, Little Friarbird, Eastern Ringneck, Silvereye & Blue-faced Honeyeater.

Monday saw us taking an approximately 90km drive down through large areas of Pilliga Forest to the Pilliga Pottery, which has a wide selection of quite distinctive pottery. Birds noted during our visit included: Hooded Robin, Diamond Firetail, Grey Fantail & White-winged Chough.

On Tuesday 28/9 we took a drive out to the northern section of Mt. Kaputar NP to view Sawn Rocks, a spectacular geological formation, a result of volcanic activity some 17-20 million years ago. Birds observed during our visit included: Mistletoebird, Spiney-cheeked Honeyeater, Spotted Bowerbird,and Yellow-tufted Honeyeater.

After spending a day on the farm gardening & lawnmowing, Thursday saw us heading out to the site of the CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array at the Paul Wild Observatory. It is an array of six 22metre dish antennas used for radio astronomy, located about 25km west of Narrabri. From the site of the telescope, we then drove on to Lake Yarri, a natural phenomonen, being a perfectly circular 'dish-shaped' body of water approximately 2km in diameter and 2 metres deep at its centre when full. Birds added during a short walk along its banks were: Darter, Royal Spoonbill, Yellow-throated Miner, Grey Teal and Dusky Moorhen.

Friday 1st October saw us leaving for a week at the coastal city of Port Macquarie, via the New England town of Armidale, where Cathy was to attend a seminar related to child care work. Before leaving Armidale the next morning, we took a drive out to an Aboriginal art site at Mt. Yarrowyk, and added some new birds to our already quite substantial list. These were: Masked Woodswallow, Scarlet Honeyeater, Satin Flycatcher and Striated Pardalote.

Our drive down to the coast and Port Macquarie was undertaken in cool, intermittant rainy weather, which was to endure for the bulk of our stay at the coast. The weather did not deter us, and we did a couple of walks along Flynn's Beach, where we saw White-bellied Sea-eagles overhead, with one eating prey on the wing. Also visited the local maritime museum and the old Tracking Point lighthouse, and spent a few hours on the boardwalk through the Sea Acres rain forest. Apart from the beautiful forest giants and magificent ferns (Stag & Elkhorn ferns), saw some really beautiful birds: Green Catbird, Crested Shrike-tit, Black-faced Monarch, Spectacled Monarch, Lewin's Honeyeater, Large-billed Scrubwren, Speckled Warbler and Australian Brush Turkey.

We also spent a lovely few hours at the Billabong Koala & Wildlife Park, where we got a good overview of some of Australia's avian, reptilian and mammalian wildlife, including close-up contact with the delightful Koalas. We got to see a number of parrot, frogmouth & stork species, we would not get to see in the wild on this trip.

On Friday 8th, we returned to Narrabri, with the following few days then spent on the farm, adding Rainbow Bee-eater (the only bee-eater found in Aus.), Tree Martin and Olive-backed Oriole to our birdlist. We also did a bit of birding at the lake in town, and added Blue-billed Duck, Magpie Goose, Australian White Ibis, Hardhead and Straw-necked Ibis.

On Wednesday, Hilary & I borrowed the 'Ute' (bakkie for us South Africans), for another drive into Mt. Kaputar NP, this time into the mid section of the park - a lovely scenic drive which takes one to the summit of Mt. Kaputar 1510metres ASL. Additional birds seen on this trip were Wedge-tailed Eagle, White-eared Honeyeater and Scarlet Robin.

Thursday 14th, saw us together with Cathy, Candice & Luke heading off to the home of Black Opal mining at Lightning Ridge, approx 260km NW of Narrabri and not to far south of the NSW/Queensland border. We fortunately did our visit to the walk-in mine and drive around some of the tourist routes during the afternoon, as the weather was threatening, and it turned out that Thursday was very wet and put a bit of a damper on the trip. we were however able to spend time browsing the beautiful opal stones & jewellary in the Australian Opal Centre. A couple of birds added in LR were Red-winged Parrot and White-breasted Woodswallow.

We returned to Narrabri, arriving on Friday afternoon, and our holiday was now winding down, and the weekend was spent on the farm, packing, and taking leave of the family. Birdwise we added Common Bronzewing and Black Kite to our list, and we had great views of Apostlebirds at nest with at least 4 chicks that we could see.

On Monday 18th, we boarded the Countrylink train at Narrabri for our daylight return trip to Sydney. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable trip in airconditioned comfort, with many and lovely scenic views of the countryside and its towns, as well as the huge scars of opencast coal mining activities. Especially beautiful was the trip throught the eastern coastal areas of Gosford and the Hawkesbury River - huge waterways with thousands of watercraft, all shapes & sizes from 'tinnies' to fabulous cruisers. Our final two birds of the trip seen from the train were Bar-shouldered Dove, and a pair of Black Swan on the Hawkesbury.

A fantastic first-time visit to Australia, a vast and beautiful country, of which the birding experience is but one of many great memories.

We were fortunate to positively identify a total of 132 species during our 5 weeks, and those whose id's we were unable to nail down, will have to wait for a next visit.

A full list of our birds seen is available for those interested.