Short Notice Tours

On Monday 8th we had an enquiry to see if we were available for a tour the next day - luckily we were as we never like to let clients down - and so 0515 on Tuesday morning found us picking up Stephen and Barbara from their hotel at the Marina.
They are visiting Australia from Canada and had a few days based in Cairns before flying back down south to Melbourne.From our e-mail conversation whilst we were sorting out the booking it was clear that their main targets were anything that they had not seen around Brisbane. This meant only one thing - a tour around the key sites on the Southern Tablelands targeting not the Wet Tropic endemics and any other goodies we could find.
The day was a great success with eleven of the twelve endemics seen really well - the twelfth Macleay's Honeyeater we heard but it never showed itself. In total we recorded over 100 species many of which were ticks for our guests, it is great to take birders out and help them find new species!
Here are a few of the days highlights....

Any day that you see Southern Cassowary is going to be a good day!

The male Golden Bowerbird is always a favourite - we also saw several Tooth-billed and Satin Bowerbirds

Pied Monarch are very good at hiding so it was great to be able to watch one feeding as it crawled up a tree.

This male Rufous Whistler very obligingly sat and sang at eye level, unfortunately he was always in deep shade.

There were still many Pink-eared Ducks in the area, many of them were feeding in these curious circles. This presumably increases feeding efficiency.

All in all a very productive and enjoyable days birding.

I briefly met up with Stephen and Barbara on Cairns esplanade on Wednesday, apart from a nice selection of waders we also found a very obliging Mangrove Robin