A Bit of Birding and a Flight to Brisbane

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This was my last day in Perth before my much anticipated Queensland trip and I spent the morning birding with my aunt who I was staying with before being picked up by my other aunt who I was doing the Queensland trip with. It’s a bit confusing isn’t it!

Anyway, we started the morning by heading to a small lake between King’s Park and the Swan River, however the day did start particularly well with three Carnaby's Cockatoos in a tree right outside the house just as I was getting into the car.


When we approached the lake we were met by quite a few darters sunning themselves right next to the path and perched on a bench.

They seem to be really common all around the Perth area and I saw loads along the Swan River too. In my other darter experience, with the African Darter, they are quite an uncommon and shy species, but around Perth at least they seem as common as cormorants. Speaking of cormorants, this lake had a large colony of them nesting in the trees above, mostly Little Black Cormorants, but about a dozen Little Pied as well. Soon I saw one of the main reasons I had come to this little lake, an extremely showey Australasian Reed Warbler, despite the lack of reeds beyond a couple of small clumps there was a warbler here and I did manage to get a few pictures though they are a bit out of focus and I didn’t upload them. I can do so though if anyone wants me to though. Aside from this, most of the stuff was just common things, Dusky Moorhens and the like. Though there were a few different egrets sitting prominently, namely Little and Eastern Great. Though surprisingly what should be the most common heron species – White-faced - didn’t show here, nor did it show in any of the places where it should have been yesterday so I had to go to Queensland missing one bird that should be easy around Perth, as well as Black-faced Cuckooshrike which I was also missing and should be easy too.

Just as we were leaving the lake there were two further notable sightings, the first was a Nankeen Night Heron fairly exposed considering it was day though in the shade of a large tree,

and some Rainbow Lorikeets I think getting nesting material from a palm, or doing something with it at least.


After the lake we had a look around King’s Park where all I saw were common birds that I had seen the other day like Silvereyes and various honeyeaters, and then we had a walk along the Swan River hoping for dolphins. There were no dolphins, but I did see lots of cormorants, darters,
and pelicans, and sitting on the river bank amongst the many Silver Gulls were two rather huge Caspian Terns. There was one final highlight though as we were driving back along the road by the river – an Osprey sitting prominently on top one of the pines that line the road.

I was then picked up by the aunt who I was going with to Queensland and taken back to her house (where most of my stuff was) to pack, relax a bit, and make sure everything was sorted for the trip before going to the airport for our flight to Brisbane. This was with Virgin Australia which we managed to get a deal with, and I was pleasantly surprised at the standard of the airline; not as budget as I was expecting. This was an overnight flight and I, luckily, managed to get some sleep because we had a full day planned the next day.

New birds seen:
Eastern Reef Egret
Little Egret
Caspian Tern
Osprey

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