Five Weeks Around Perth

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So I wasn’t sure quite how to approach the almost five weeks I had in Perth with regards to this thread. Most of the time was actually not doing anything very interesting, and I only did some birding in the mornings and evenings, and fitted stuff in whenever I could. Though my day trip to Rottnest Island certainly deserves its own post, and I plan to review the six different zoos that I visited while in Perth. There were also little bits and pieces of birding and wildlife watching here and there that deserve a mention so in this post I’m going to go through week by week what I did mentioning the noteworthy wildlife here and there and making a note of the stuff that I’m going to give separate posts to.

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Week One in Perth After Queensland – 27th of June to the 3rd of July

As you may recall, everything I have done so far in Australia was not with my parents but with my Australian family members and I mentioned that my parents would be joining me in Perth later, but for most of this first week I was still staying with my aunt because my parents (and my brother) didn’t arrive until the third of July.
Due to certain circumstances however, I wasn’t able to do a huge amount during this first week apart from stuff in the local area. My aunt does live in the Perth Hills though so there is a lot of interesting wildlife just around her house including a variety of very interesting birds that I enjoyed watching, even stuff just in her garden.

Just around the local area and doing stuff that wasn’t specifically to look for birds I was able to add three species, Western Gerygone, Hoary-headed Grebe and Pied Stilt. I also made two visits to places during that week specifically to look for wildlife. The first was an afternoon in Lesmurdie Falls National Park which is a national park on the edge of the Darling Scarp with a large waterfall. I saw lots of interesting birds there, but all stuff I had seen in Perth before going to Queensland. I did see a new reptile though which was a Bobtail Skink. Rather interestingly, on all my previous visits to Lesmurdie Falls I also saw bobtails so I guess that is a particularly good site for them.


The other place I visited to look for wildlife was John Forrest National Park. It’s quite a nice national park and I visit regularly when I go to Perth. It’s very good for both Red-tailed Black Cockatoos and Red-capped Parrots, both of which I saw many of, though sadly I was unable to find any Western Rosellas or Red-eared Firetails, both of which I particularly wanted to see. I did find one psittacine year bird that was a group of Western Corellas, rather than the Little and Long-billed Corellas that are more common within Perth itself. The scenery there is very nice too, and it can be quite good for birds of prey, particularly Wedge-tailed Eagles. Though I didn’t see any Wedge-tailed Eagles (or wedgies to the locals!), I did manage to get a bird of prey lifer that was a Little Eagle.

At John Forrest National Park there is a ‘tavern’ where lots of wildlife congregates in the garden to be fed by visitors and often steal from them as well. The Australian Ringneck Parrots, Australian Magpies and Laughing Kookaburras are the main species that will approach tables of people eating to try and steal food. Kangaroo food is also left out by the people that run the tavern to attract a large mob of kangaroos that are not shy of coming amongst the tables and lying around right next to people. Though the kangaroos are very regular there and you can’t miss them, one new mammal had started to turn up since I last went to John Forrest National Park two years before, which was a ridiculously brazen Southern Brown Bandicoot. It seemed to be mainly there to steal kangaroo food but was not shy of running around people and under tables, investigating my bag, and while I stood still watching it, it even came up and touched my shoe with its nose!

So I didn’t do a huge amount that week, but I did do a little bit of interesting birding and wildlife watching that I thought was worth a mention in this thread.

New birds seen that week:

Western Gerygone
Hoary Headed Grebe
Little Eagle
Western Corella
Pied Stilt

New reptile:

Bobtail Skink

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Week Two in Perth After Queensland – 4th to the 10th of July

For this week and for the remainder of my time in Australia I was staying with my parents and my brother in a self-catering cottage, rather than with my aunt as I had been up to this point. The cottage was actually in quite a nice location completely surrounded by bushland that is contiguous with Korung National Park and to get into the national park itself is only a few kilometres walk through the bush. So of course I spent a lot of time walking around and looking for birds. There were also loads of Western Grey Kangaroos around, and rather than the tame ones at picnic areas and suchlike that I had been seeing, these kangaroos were properly wild. There was lots of interesting birdlife around too including many different parrots, honeyeaters, robins, whistlers, waterfowl and interesting things like that. Red-capped Parrots were fairly numerous, and that is a species that I particularly like. Though I was up at sunrise doing morning bird walks most mornings, I wasn’t actually able to add anything new for the trip list, but I still enjoyed walking about in the bush. I also tried a little bit of spotlighting because with so much wildlife about in the day, I thought there must be stuff about at night. There were lots of Western Grey Kangaroos about and I found a location near a car park and picnic area where Southern Brown Bandicoots could be seen quite reliably.

There were also a couple of introduced mammal species around, and I saw quite a few rabbits and couple of foxes.

Though there was a lack of new wildlife sightings that week, I did, however, visit Caversham Wildlife Park on the 4th, Perth Zoo on the 6th, and AQWA on the 10th and I will be uploading pictures of those zoos (and species lists of the former two) in the next couple of days, and posting reviews in this thread not long after that.

One last thing that is worth mentioning for this week is that while I was at AQWA my mum who was at the accommodation, saw a Western Rosella in the garden! I was very annoyed that I had missed it because it was a species that I particularly wanted to see, and I would still be particularly annoyed now if it wasn’t for the fact that I managed to see them about two weeks later.

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Week Three in Perth After Queensland – 11th to the 17th of July

During this week, I continued with the same birding in the local area and doing morning bushwalks and spotlighting on some nights. I was able to add some new birds to this list for that area, but nothing that was new for the trip as a whole. I was able to add twelve new birds for the trip though over two separate trips. The first was a morning and afternoon spent in the Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam area on the 16th and a trip to Yanchep National Park on the 17th, and I will be writing full posts for each of those because I think there is just about enough to warrant separate posts.
I also had another visit to John Forrest National Park where the same bandicoot that touched my foot with its nose was around and still just as lacking in shyness.

And I was also able to visit two further zoos that week which were the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Park on the 12th, and the Cohunu Koala Park on the 13th, both of which will have pictures and species lists posted, as well as reviews in this thread.

New birds seen that week:
At Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam:
Australian Hobby
Red-winged Fairy-wren
White-breasted Robin
Baudin's Black Cockatoo
Inland Thornbill
Dusky Woodswallow

At Yanchep National Park:
Whistling Kite
Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
Black-faced Woodswallow
Yellow-throated Miner
Jacky Winter
Black-shouldered Kite

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Week Four in Perth After Queensland – 18th to the 24th of July

I did two particularly significant day trips during this week. The first was a trip to Peel Zoo on the 21st with a stop in Serpentine National Park on the way back, and the second was a long day trip to Rottnest Island on the 23rd, both of which will be getting their own posts.

As well as the birding in the local area and seeing the same things, there were a couple of bits of birding here and there that are worth mentioning. The first was a trip to the Canning Dam area (but not to the actual dam itself) where there were many interesting birds around, two of which were new for the year, those being Australasian Pipit and Western Rosella. Both particularly nice birds because the pipit was a lifer and the rosella was a species that was high on my list of things I wanted to see, and I had been looking for, for a long time. Two other interesting things that I saw around here were actually footprints, the first was for an echidna which was not very surprising because my aunt had actually seen an echidna here in the past, and there were other signs of the presence of echidnas around too. The second was a bit more surprising and was a trail of footprints that I’m pretty sure were Emu footprints and must have been within the last two days because it had rained two days ago. So both very exciting, but I didn’t see the animals themselves.

The second notable bird addition this week (outside of the ones in the two proper posts that I will be doing) was actually seen while I was out walking in the bushland around the accommodation and Korung National Park. I noticed on the path up ahead a small bird hopping about on the ground and at first I thought it would be a thornbill or something like that but, when I looked at it through binoculars I realised that it was a Red-eared Firetail! It was a species notably absent from my lifelist that was one of the main things I was looking for around Perth. I must have spent dozens and dozens of hours walking in ideal firetail habitat where I knew they should occur but not seeing them at all so I was ecstatic to finally see one, and I got a really good view too. Such an awesome bird.


I also had a second visit to Herdsman Lake of the trip (after a visit on one of the first days) and the experience was much the same including the rain from the first visit as it was raining again today! (though not as much). I saw all the interesting waterfowl again including the shovelers, Pink-eared Ducks, Musk Ducks, and everything else, and I saw a new species for the list as well that was a Chestnut Teal. Several of the ducks also had ducklings including a few families of Pacific Black Ducks and Australian Wood-ducks, and there were three interesting species at Herdsman Lake that I had already seen on the trip but didn’t see the previous time I was at Herdsman which were Crested Pigeons, Pied Stilts, and an Australian Hobby which was being mobbed by Willie Wagtails. And another thing worthy of note at Herdsman Lake were two dead birds that a saw on the grass at the lakeside – a Boobook Owl and a Musk Duck. And finally, just as we were leaving the lake, I got a fantastic view of a Yellow-billed Spoonbill.


After Herdsman (the same day) we also went to another nearby lake called Jack Adder Lake which was a typical suburban lake with all the common waterfowl. There was another hobby in one of the trees around the lake though, and a sign about the birds at the lake listed some interesting waterfowl species that I had not seen yet, though I think it may have been a rather optimistic sign.

New birds seen that week:

Australasian Pipit
Western Rosella
Red-eared Firetail
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Chestnut Teal
Black-browed Albatross
White-fronted Chat
Red-capped Robin
Banded Stilt
Rock Parrot
Southern Giant Petrel
Australasian Gannet
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross
Red-necked Stint

New mammals:

Western Brush-wallaby
Quokka
Humpback Whale


New reptile:

King Skink

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Week Five in Perth After Queensland – 25th to the 29th of July

The final 'week' in Perth wasn’t actually a full week, but was just four days. For the last two of those days I was back to staying with my aunt because it was cheaper for my parents to book a return flight and for me to book a return flight with the same airline I flew out with, than it would be for me to try and book two one way tickets and return the same way as them. I didn’t mind of course because my route only had one transit (Dubai) rather than theirs which had two (Singapore and Munich) and I much prefer Emirates anyway. It would also mean that I could have a little bit longer for some last minute birding in Perth. Though I did visit several different sites for birding including a revisit to Lesmurdie Falls National Park where I got a lovely view of a Golden Whistler and a couple of other places as well, I didn’t see anything new.

The one new addition from this week however was seen at the accommodation the day before my parents left, and it was a very small reptile addition but a very nice one - a Fence Skink seen, rather appropriately, on a fence.

I think the cold weather and the presence of introduced kookaburras lead to a lack of small reptiles. There was a subspecific addition though, which was the western subspecies of the White-naped Honeyeater, which was nice to see.

New reptiles:

Fence Skink

So I hope that rather higgledy-piggledy post was still of interest. Of course most of the time in Perth was spent seeing family, and friends of family, and I probably wouldn’t have visited Australia at all if it wasn’t for the fact that most of my mum’s family is there, so the wildlife stuff and zoos was pretty much all a bonus. And I did manage to see and do a lot of stuff.


So just to summarise, this is what is still to come for this thread, in order:

Caversham Wildlife Park
Perth Zoo
AQWA
Armadale Reptile and Widlife Park
Cohunu Koala Park
Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam
Yanchep National Park
Peel Zoo
Rottnest Island

And I still have the pictures of all the zoos and Rottnest still to upload so there’s a fair amount still to look forward to (or to dread, depending on how you view this thread!). I am aiming to have all of that written, and the pictures uploaded, by around early September before I go back to school, because I’ll have very little free time after that.

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