South-East Queensland. February 2008

Tuesday, February 19, 2008. 10.30pm
Needing a well earned break, I had the next 4 days as a window of opportunity to head anywhere my frequent flyer points would get me. So I consulted the Qantas site, the weather forecast site, Swellnet, and of course Birding Aus.
Darwin? – Pouring for 4 days (and no surf)…..
Cairns? – Pouring for 4 days (also no surf) but with a yet unnamed Gull in Cooktown. Whoops the road is cut off…..
Bali? - Probably a bit far in 4 days…..
Wollongong Pelagic? – Flights not available…..
How about South east Queensland?
I check the flights, with Ilona’s help as by this time I was experiencing brain fade. I could get into the Sunshine Coast tomorrow morning and leave from the Gold Coast on Saturday evening. Perfect. I hired a car through Vroom.com.au for $130. Pick up at Maroochy airport, return at Coolangatta so I was set! As I was packing I decided to throw my surfboard in just in case!

Day 1: Wednesday 20th Feb. - Noosa Shire.On arriving at Noosa, I did a quick surf check only to find that a swell had just hit the coast, closing all the main beaches. The only surfable spot being Noosa Heads! Negotiating the road works, the 100’s of BMW driving mal riders and a few Brush Turkey’s I did 3 laps of the car park to score a spot right near the track. On arriving at Tea Tree point I was overjoyed to find it 4-6 ft with the occasional bigger set. On paddling out I was confronted with the 70 plus people who had the same idea! Up and down the whole headland there would have to have been 500+ people out! It seamed that Noosa was the only place to surf and due to the Quicksilver event being held on the Gold Coast that weekend, everyone was up here getting practice!! After 2 hours and 1 wave, I decided to head in and check out the local avifauna.

Armed with the Noosa bird trail brochure (available from http://www.noosaparks.org.au/noosabirdtrail/) and after a brief look around the Noosa National Park and Noosa village, I quickly headed to Jabiru Park on the Cooroy Noosa Road out from Tewantin. Here is a large dam that has a few trails and a hide setup for the water birds. A great spot and well recommended. Birds seen over 2 visits were:

Jabiru Park:

1. Magpie Goose
2. Darter
3. Great Cormorant
4. Australian Pelican
5. Whistling Kite
6. Purple Swamphen
7. Dusky Moorhen
8. Comb-crested Jacana
9. Masked Lapwing
10. Bar-shouldered Dove
11. Rainbow Lorikeet
12. Forest Kingfisher
13. White-browed Scrubwren
14. Little Wattlebird
15. Noisy Miner
16. Lewin's Honeyeater
17. White-throated Honeyeater
18. Brown Honeyeater
19. Eastern Yellow Robin
20. Magpie-lark
21. Willie Wagtail
22. Cicadabird
23. Grey Butcherbird
24. Australian Magpie
25. Pied Currawong
26. Torresian Crow
27. Golden-headed Cisticola
28. Silvereye

This ended the first day. Having booked into the local Tewantin Caravan Park overnight I quickly went to bed eager to get enough rest for the following day. Unfortunately I was awake most of the night trying to decide weather I should surf first then bird or visa-versa. Gee, I really do need a break…..

Day 2: Thursday 21st Feb. - Noosa Shire and Glasshouse Mountains.
Up early and having decided to bird first I headed out to the back country of Noosa. First port of call was the small town of Kin-Kin. Here I found Pale-headed Rosella (L), Latham’s Snipe, Green Catbird (L), Spangled Drongo, Red-backed Fairy-wren (L), Golden Whistler and Forest Kingfisher among others. Next spot, the Cooroy Waste Water Treatment Plant. Here I had great views Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, Wandering Whistling-Duck, and more Red-backed Fairy-wren but little else. With the amount of rain the region has had most of the birds had dispersed. Back to Noosa via a quick stop at Jabiru Park again. Here I decided to head around to Granite Bay for a surf and stay for a while. 3-4 ft, with only 20 out so it was fun and I scored heaps more waves. This part of the Noosa National Park is amazing.

Time to head to the Gold Coast. On the way I saw many Dollarbird on the wires along the coast road. As I was nearing Brisbane I discovered that I would hit the highway at peak traffic time so decided to detour via the Glasshouse Mountains. Not many birds but great views!

After and hour I headed South to the Gold Coast highway and arrived at Andy and Jo’s place in time for dinner!! A plan was quickly made to head into the hinterland tomorrow so it was off to bed for the early start!


Day 3. Friday 22nd Feb. – Gold Coast Hinterland.
Up at 4.30. and off to the Lamington National Park. At the base of the mountain at O’Reilly’s vineyard, Andy left me with the car as he decided to ride his bike up the last bit! This gave me time to bird some of the trails on my own. First stop was O’Reilly’s Guest House. Here I got a map and headed to Python Rock Track which is not well signed as at first I drove straight past it. Great birds and excellent view of Logrunner, Albert’s Lyrebird and Russet-tailed Thrush in the one clearing. I had to tramp through the bush to find the Lyrebird and the others were all there with it! It took ages to get a good view of the Thrush’s tail but persistence paid off! I saw 3 others on the path but was unable to sort them out.

Satin Bowerbird

As I headed back I was met by Andy and we made our way to O’Reilly’s for Breakfast. We then did a quick walk around the treetop suspension bridge and through the gardens giving us great views of the region and also a Wonga Pigeon.

Next we headed along the Border Trail to the falls. This took a couple of hours (return). Such an awesome forest with huge trees and brilliant birds. A couple of highlights were male Paradise Riflebird, Noisy Pitta and a pair of Crested Shrike-tit.

Lamington National Park and especially O’Reilly’s is a must for any birder visiting the Gold Coast region. The birds seen were:

Lamington NP:

1. Australian Brush-turkey
2. Brown Cuckoo-Dove
3. Wonga Pigeon
4. Australian King-Parrot
5. Crimson Rosella
6. Noisy Pitta
7. Albert's Lyrebird (L)
8. White-throated Treecreeper
9. Yellow-throated Scrubwren
10. White-browed Scrubwren
11. Large-billed Scrubwren
12. Brown Gerygone
13. Brown Thornbill
14. Lewin's Honeyeater
15. Eastern Spinebill
16. Eastern Yellow Robin
17. Logrunner (L)
18. Eastern Whipbird
19. Crested Shrike-tit
20. Golden Whistler
21. Grey Fantail
22. Cicadabird
23. Australian Magpie
24. Pied Currawong
25. Paradise Riflebird (L)
26. Torresian Crow
27. Green Catbird
28. Regent Bowerbird (L)
29. Satin Bowerbird
30. Red-browed Finch
31. Welcome Swallow
32. Russet-tailed Thrush (L)

On the way back down the mountain we discovered a huge Carpet Python that had eaten something big. It was so full we could walk right up to it and take some photo's!

On our return I was interested when the Southport Pelagic was to operate and rang Paul Walbridge (Paul_Walbridge@health.qld.gov.au) to enquire. I was delighted to find out that though it was suppose to go out last Saturday it was postponed due to bad weather. So I quickly booked for tomorrow! My brilliant plan is working….

What a fantastic day! Saying my goodbyes to my hosts Andy and Jo, I headed to bed for again the early start.

Day 4. 23rd Feb. - Southport Pelagic.
4.30am and off again. This time to the beachside suburb of Southport. About 12 birders congregated at the wharf waiting expectantly for the 6.30am departure. I paid my $100 (the trip including drinks and a light snack) and we set off down the river to the heads picking up Little Tern and others on the way. This trip is much different from the Wollongong Pelagic in many ways. One is that it is warmer!! The boat is faster but it would need to be as it has further to go to the shelf. The other is the lack of the bigger Albatross but this is made up for by the likes of Tahiti Petrel etc. It takes approx. 3 hours to get to the shelf. This was achieved easily in the calm conditions. Many birds were seen with the highlight being a Red-footed Booby circling overhead. This was first in the history of the tour, and a new one for many of us including a 15 year old – his 500th Australian bird. The Surprise was a Ruddy Turnstone 30 miles off shore?

The journey back was different as 1 hour into it, the predicted storm arrived 3 hours early and we spent the next 2 hours getting smash between a nor-east swell and a 30-40kt southerly wind. The skipper earned his keep and did a brilliant job making sure the boat remained right side up! Needless to say we didn’t see much during that time as all of us were squashed into the small cabin. Still we had a great trip. The birds seen were:

Southport Pelagic:

1. Tahiti Petrel (L)
2. Streaked Shearwater (L)
3. Wedge-tailed Shearwater
4. Flesh-footed Shearwater
5. Fluttering Shearwater
6. Red-footed Booby (L)
7. Little Black Cormorant
8. Australian Pelican
9. Eastern Curlew
10. Ruddy Turnstone
11. Masked Lapwing
12. Pomarine Jaeger (L)
13. Silver Gull
14. Crested Tern
15. Little Tern (Oz)

We arrived back on time at 4pm. More than enough time to drive to the airport, drop off my hire car and check in for my 6.10pm flight.

All up the trip was a success. It stopped raining the day I arrived and started again the night I left. I saw 98 species of bird with 13 new ones for Australia (12 lifers). I also had 2 surfs at 2 new locations. Life is good.