After posting to the FB Brisbane Birds group and asking for help, Kris McBride was the second person to offer to take me out birding. He is trying to get a birding guide business set up, Rosella Adventures, and offered to take me out as a practice run. He picked me up at 5:00 AM for some serious birding. I saw 20 new lifebirds at two locations. More than double the the new birds I had seen in the last three weeks here in Brisbane. He was a great guide in so many ways. First he knew all the bird calls in the area. That allowed him to listen for the specific birds on my target list. Second he was very good at guiding me to see the bird once it was spotted. Other guides I have hired were not nearly as adept as he was in this department. It was a real give and take process. For example: "KM: Look to the second tree with the bent branch FL: The dead tree? KM: No the one to the left of the dead tree about halfway up..." In this manner Kris was able to guide my eye to the right spot nearly every time. Lastly Kris knew when to linger and when to move on to greener pastures. We started at the Sandy Camp Wetlands and then moved to the Wynnum Mangrove Boardwalk. Great fun! I had Kris drop me off at the closest ferry terminal and when I got to our place, I just missed Leslie. She was heading off to the manicure and pedicure that she had scheduled for that day. I showered and took a nap and when Leslie came home, we went about our day. The following pictures are mostly a photo album of the best bird pictures for the day. Not all of them are lifebirds and not all the lifebirds are presented.
We started out easy with a Masked Lapwing
A pied cormorant
Sacred Kingfisher
Comb Crested Jacana
Australian Spoonbill
There were several lakes and reed banks
Magpie Goose
Tufted Ducks and Pacific Black Duck
A Torressian Crow getting mobbed by Willy Wagtails
White-breasted Woodswallow
Dusky Moorhen
Variegated Fairywren
A loving couple
Tawny Grassbird
Chestnut Breasted Munia
Bar Shouldered Dove
Olive Backed Oriel
A path between the lakes
Water lizard
A swampy area
Black-Faced Cuckooshrike
Rufus Whistler
Pacific Black Duck
Shelf Fungus
A willy Wagtail was keeping a close eye on us. They always look a bit angry
Termite mound in the tree can some times be used as a nest for birds or tree possums
An even bigger termite nest
Australian Ibis and Little Black Cormorant
Cuckooshrike ready to strike
Spoonbills flying as a group
Superb Fairywren
Striped Honeyeater
Australian Figbird
Blue-faced Honeyeater
Blooms from the water lillies
Off to the mangroves and the big spiders
The Devils Stinkhorn mushroom
The mangroves have egrets
White Faced Heron
Pale Headed Rosella
Lovely plumage
Mangrove Gerygone
Striated heron
A tiny tidy nest
the water is chocked full of tannins
Grey Butcherbird has a wonderful call
Gray Crowned Babbler
A most vocal bird
Chestnut teal
And his mate
Torressian Kingfisher and his mate
Their "nest"
A big bill for sure
This one was certainly brighter then the other.
The mangrove swamp got a bit buggy
So I decided to call it a day
Hop on the ferry
And race upstream!
