PARDALOTE!!!!

Female (or juvenile?) Spotted Pardalote!

It was getting late in the morning, and we were on our way out to another site we had found on our "Bird Places of Brisbane" list. Dirk and Rafael both paused when they saw a little bird flitting around in the tangle of a bush. Thinking she was a Thornbill (i.e. LBB or little brown hard-to-identify bird) we duly set about trying to hone in on the little bird to practice our identification skills. Any weariness immediately vanished when we realized this was no ordinary bird...she was a SPOTTED PARDALOTE! If you recall, in our last blog we were thrilled to have had the good fortune of spotting Striated Pardalotes at a new (to us) birding locale in Brisbane called Eagleby Wetlands. This week, we were inspired to check out another new site to see what we'd find, so we got out of bed at pre-dawn, and drove past Brisbane to Pullen Pullen Reserve in the hopes of finding new birds.


There were actually three pardalotes, and they were incredibly cooperative. They gave us a good long look, although the conditions were tricky for photography. Multiple layers of branches made focusing difficult, and light conditions inside the tangle were very low. The brilliance of the pardalotes (also called Diamond birds) couldn't help but shine through, though, and we were as pleased as punch to see these absolutely brilliant little birds!



This Golden Whistler was no small prize, either. Isn't he handsome? Dirk found him quite cooperative, maybe even curious about being photographed. We also saw Rufous Whistlers, a species with similar feather patterns, but as you may imagine, rufous instead of yellow underparts.










We have finally met a kindred spirit who seems to adore birds as much as we do and who wants to get out and about in nature. Rafael is from Peru, and is very adept and observant of his surroundings. In Peru there are ~1400 species of birds! Australia and the US have around 800. Wimps! We'd like to go birding with Raphael again--we saw so many great birds this day. And, like Nancy, he keeps a bird list--40 different species we saw this day!











Another bird we were specifically trying to find--a Rose Robin! Dirk was hoping to get to see another Rose Robin, because we've only seen one of these birds in the three years we've been here. At that time, he was so frustrated that his autofocus focused on the branch next to the Robin, and we didn't know if he'd have another opportunity to try to capture an image of one of these beautiful little birds. This guy is a juvenile, so doesn't have the full-on rose breast, but he's still quite a looker. Rafael and I had to work at convincing Dirk what we were seeing was indeed the long-sought after Rose Robin. Spotted Pardalotes and a Rose Robin in one day. What a day!



We saw a great many scarlet honeyeaters at Anstead Nature Reserve, as well as red-backed fairy wrens. This is winter, but you can always tell which trees are blooming because that's where the birds are. Australia's a land of drought and flood, boom and bust. The birds are adapted, we just need to leave them some land and trees so they have a variety of places to go when one place doesn't provide what they need.


















We saw this pretty (and sleepy!) Wompoo Fruit Dove last week at the Cougal Falls section of Springbrook. For most of the time we watched him, he had his head tucked back underneath his wing. And he was not in a good location--high up in the canopy and the only place we could see him was when the sun was directly behind him. He is a very richly colored bird and quite a good bird to see. This guy was virtually the only bird we saw in this bit of regrowth rainforest. The area had been logged and had a failed banana plantation before it was left to return to some semblance of a forest.


Oh yeah, there's pretty flora, here, too--it's not all about the birds!