Australia Part 1 - Perth and Adelaide

More urbanish birding.....
Kings Park in Perth provided us with our first sightings, we went there for the views, but of course our birding heads took over;
Our first Rainbow Lorikeet

 and Australian Magpie

of which we were to see many.
We went on an excursion down to Fremantle, this included a boat trip back to Perth. In Fremantle we managed to get good sightings of Red Wattlebird, another bird we were to see a lot of around the lower end of Oz.

another common bird around the cities was the
Silver Gull

in Fremantle we also saw our first
Australian Raven

and Willy Wagtail (no pictures of that here, perhaps in a later post!)

Our boat trip back to Perth along the Swan River, was largely disappointing from a birds viewpoint, although we enjoyed the trip immensely we did see some Cormorant though,
Australian Pied Cormorant

The following day we took a trip from Perth to see the Pinnacles,

an amazing place, a bit like being on another planet I would imagine. Not much bird life about, but we did add a
Singing Honeyeater

to our list. On the way to the Pinnacles we stopped at New Norcia, this is a very small town, hosting a large monastery, in fact only people who work for the monastery are allowed to live there. Anyway it did add a few birding opportunities. Believe it or not this is a

 Yellow-rumped Thornbill,

 and a Tree Martin,

 Magpie Lark,

 and an Australian Ringneck

other birds seen here were Western Corella, Galah and Welcome Swallow.

So on to Adelaide......
We took an afternoon out here to walk from our hotel along the Karrawirra Pirra (river) to the Botanical Gardens, this was brilliant, we just took our time, stopped for coffees as we do and enjoyed the Adelaide birdlife.
Noisy Miner,

 Cormorant,

 Dusky Moorhen,

 Crested Pigeon,

 Purple Swamphen,

 Magpie Lark,

 Australian Magpie,

 White-faced Heron,

 Australian Wood Duck (Maned Duck),

 A fantastic colony of Grey-headed Flying Fox,

Australian White Ibis,

 more Australian Wood Duck,

 Hardhead,

 Chestnut Teal,

 Rainbow Lorikeet,

 Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, (being mobbed by Noisy Miners)

 Galah,

 Eastern Rosella,

 Rainbow Lorikeet, (again!)

 Masked Lapwing,

 Black Swan,

 and Australasian Grebe.

Other birds seen in Adelaide, but no photos unfortunatley!
Coot, Silver Gull, Feral Pigeon, Coconut Lorikeet, Australian Raven and Mallard.

Urban Birding in Singapore

As I said in our previous post, this wasn't a birding holiday, but we made sure that we nearly always had our binoculars with us, and the big lens was in my rucksack, although birds being birds they didn't always hang around for me to swap the lenses.

So we saw quite a few birds while we were out and about in Singapore, I even managed to photograph a couple;

Yellow-vented Bulbul 

 Common Flameback

 Black-naped Oriole

 Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (female)

 Asian Glossy Starling

So a nice start to the birding list, not many but a good start none the less:

Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon  ("Columba livia")

Common Flameback  ("Dinopium javanense")

Black-naped Oriole  ("Oriolus chinensis")

House Crow  ("Corvus splendens")

Asian Glossy Starling  ("Aplonis panayensis")

White-vented Myna  ("Acridotheres javanicus")

Common Myna  ("Acridotheres tristis")

Tree Sparrow  ("Passer montanus")

Paddyfield Pipit  ("Anthus rufulus")

Pied Triller  ("Lalage nigra")

Yellow-vented Bulbul  ("Pycnonotus goiavier")

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker  ("Dicaeum cruentatum")

Olive-backed Sunbird  ("Cinnyris jugularis")

We're Back

So we are back from Australia and New Zealand. It has taken me a couple of days to sort through my notes and record into Bird Journal what we have seen, it has been amazing! Considering this was not a birding holiday we amassed quite a few species along the way.

As David Lindo says, look up! In this case is it was look up, down and sideways. We ultimately did a lot of urban birding in our free time, the botanical gardens of Adelaide, Melbourne and Cairns were very productive, plus we did a wetlands wildlife trip near Darwin which was awesome and of course a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef (only a handful of birds seen there, but loads of fish!)

New Zealand was less productive, UK birds everywhere, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Greenfinch, Starling, Goldfinch, Redpoll and House Sparrow (we could do with importing some from there, but not to our garden, we have quite enough already) But the wildlife trip we did in Dunedin was brilliant, Penguins, Albatross, Spoonbill and so many different species of Shag/Cormorant were to be seen it was stunning.

So no photos in this post as I have nearly 6000 to sort out, plus video, it may take me a while. Then I will do a post with the highlights, of which there were many!

But as for numbers we clocked up 206 species of birds, of which as you might guess a lot were lifers, 153 in fact. Perhaps the NZ indigenous birds were up there with the best, Kea, Tui, Bellbird, Fantail, Brown Kiwi, NZ Pigeon and Weka. From Australia the Laughing Kookaburra, Parrots galore, Spotted Catbird and the gorgeous Superb Fairy Wren stood out. Impossible to pick really.

In addition to birds, there were Crocs, Dolphin, Seals and Sea Lion and fantastic Flora too.

So more to follow..... eventually!

Update 18/11
As I go through the photos, found a bird I missed in Oz, so that makes 207 birds and 154 lifers.

On tour

It's been quite a while since I have posted anything, that because we are on holiday in Australia at the moment, it's not a birding holiday, but we aren't doing too badly up to 137 species so far and a fair lot to do yet.

I will look forward to sorting out my photos out when we get home, whenever that may be as we have to go to New Zealand first, but I will do some reports as soon as I can.

Buzzard Fest at Kinver

On Friday we went for a walk at Kinver along the canal from The Vine in the direction of Whittington Lock, we hadn't done this since February and it is one of our favourite walks.

As you can imagine it was fairly quiet, but by the end of the walk we had seen 25 species and at least nine different buzzards (sure about that as we saw two groups of 4  and a single buzzard at the same time) We had many more sightings on the walk as well but those could have been from the larger groups)

I know Buzzards are fairly common these days, but they are magnificent, so here's one more,

There were plenty of Grey Wagtails about, especially near the sewage works at Whittington, where we also saw Willow and Wood Warbler.

A Kingfisher put in a couple of appearances, allowing me a distant photo,

Butterflies were out in force too,

Finally a one of the canal fisherman proudly showed off a rather large Pike,

We saw him put him back and he swam off seemingly none the worse for the experience.

A afternoon out completed with a late lunch and a pint, well it was my birthday!