What can be more Australian than this post !

There are a few animals that stand out to represent Australia, and I would like to share some of them.

On a recent visit to Churingas B&B just outside of town as part of our surveys for "Bird Trails of Cooloola", we were lucky enough to see all of the following, plus lots more birds, 62 species in all.  

Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)

Australian King-Parrot (Alisterus scapularis) (Female)

Australian King-Parrot (Male)

 Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)

Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) 

Will post more birds seen over the 2 days we were there soon.

Wader Count Time Again

After having a month of not counting waders it was hard to get back into the swing of things. Because it is Winter, we were not expecting many birds, but were surprised to see so many at Norman Point with 10 species for a total of 330 birds. We have only ever recorded Great Knot at Norman Point once before in June 1998. When we went to our second site at Mullen's we only got 11 species for a total of 131 birds.

Some of the 280 Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)

Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia) 

Gull-billed Tern (Sterna nilotica) Bar-tailed Godwit & Great Knot

Can you find the Great Knot among the Bar-tailed Godwit ?   

It was interesting to see just how many Bar-tailed Godwit and Great Knot still have breeding colour on them.

Great Knot (Calidris tenuirostris) & Bar-tailed Godwit.