AUSTRALIA - HOLIDAY/RECCE TOUR - DAY 33 - OCT 29TH - BRISBANE

MANGROVE BOARDWALK WYNNUM - GOLD COAST

My early morning excursion today was to the Sea-front at the nearby coastal town of Wynnum. The tide was low and vast areas of mud-flats lay all along the shoreline, to the north a large mangrove swamp stretched for miles. The local council provided nice pathways and a very impressive boardwalk through the mangrove swamp, so after scoping the beach area, where I logged over 20 species, I headed for the mangroves.

OLIVE-BACKED ORIOLE

Lots of birds were singing and very few were showing, however I did manage to see Olive-backed Oriole, Australasian Figbird, Kookaburra and a couple of new species!

First a small flock of tiny birds came noisily through the trees, it took a while but I finally got great views of a couple of them, they were MANGROVE GERYGONE (remember to pronounce this name as.......GER (as in gerbil).....RIDGE....ON....KNEE ). then after a few minutes I saw what I thought was a LEADEN FLYCATCHER, but on closer inspection this male was altogether darker and had dark under-tail feathers, so I had a SATIN FLYCATCHER in my bins. The bird wouldn't keep still enough for a photo. A third new species appeared above me as the boardwalk entered a drier area  of woodland, it was a Pale-headed Rosella, technically a race or subspecies of Eastern Rosella but it looks totally different.

The colourful PALE-HEADED ROSELLA

The boardwalk continued to supply good birds and finished about 1km further north. The path then widened and wound its way up to a small hillock of open grass which overlooked a huge pool (which was currently dry on low tide) a lovely hide was positioned in front of the pool. This would obviously be a great place to come on high tide when all the waders are roosting, I must come back at high tide.

TORRESIAN CROW

The grassy area provided good viewing for Fairy Wrens and another first for me the Golden-headed Cisticola. A couple of raptors flew over as I was leaving, Brahminy Kite and later a White-bellied Sea-Eagle.

After breakfast Dawn and set off southward to look at the GOLD COAST before we move down there later in the week. We were totally shocked to see a modern version of Torremolinos, high rise apts. thousands of them, one beach is called Miami and it looked just like it, ugh! after driving through 20-30 kilometers of concrete, glass and plastic we eventually found a nice beach, called Paradise Beach. We settled on there and spent a few hours relaxing before taking a walk.

 

Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo

Just before our walk I got another lifer when a group of noisy Cockatoos flew into the trees immediately behind us. They turned out to be Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos. During the walk we had great views of Little Wattlebird, Buff-banded Rail, Brown Honeyeater and lots of Rainbow Lorikeets.

LITTLE WATTLEBIRD

 

After a lovely afternoon-tea and cakes I took a five minute sea-watch as we were on one of Burleigh Heads, there were hundreds of terns. gulls and shearwaters out there, but much too far away to identify. We drove home avoiding Miama and Surfer's Paradise!

259.  MANGROVE GERYGONE
260.  SATIN FLYCATCHER
261.  PALE-HEADED ROSELLA
262. GOLDEN CROWNED CISTICOLA
263. YELLOW-TAILED BLACK-COCKATOO