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| Beach Stone Curlew |
And so it was that 16 fresh faced folk from the Sunshine Coast group boarded a Burnside High school bus [Thanks again Principal Kerri Dunn!] for the not-so-distant area of Tin Can Bay for a weekend of birding.
Sleepy Lagoon Hotel provided well priced accommodation and right next door there was a hotel to cater for our sundowners..
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| Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling |
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| Sanderling and Red necked Stint - how could anyone confuse them? |
And the area provided good birding. First on our Saturday morning agenda was a drive to Inskip Point to first look for the completely invisible disappeared non existent Black breasted Button -quails. The woodland had a few good bush birds but no platelets. No platelets means no quails. Fairy Gerygones were also absent. Beach stone Curlews showed well as did a few waders - chief among them a decent little flock of about a dozen Sanderling plus a few Ruddy Turnstones.
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| Little Egret in breeding plumage |
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| Tree Martin at Carlos Point |
Birding continued at Carlos Point where the surprise honeyeater in attendance was a few Fuscous; in addition to the more expected species.
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| Fuscous Honeyeater |
Back at Tin Can we stopped for Bush Stone Curlews at the Golf Course before checking out the Sewerage Ponds where we had a fly over of one of our targets - Rajah Shelduck.
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| Rajah Shelduck |
Late in the day we walked to a high tide roost near the Cooloola Cove but many of the birds were quite distant.
Saturday ended with a few drinks and Dinner at the pub next door.
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| Brown Songlark |
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| Tree and Fairy Martins over Cooloola heathlands |
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Sunday started early with a trip to the Cooloola National Park where we searched for a few specials. Most got reasonable views of Ground Parrot. A few King Quails were seen flushing over the heath. We searched for the Southern Emu Wrens however, despite hearing a few birds only Russell managed a view. Brown Songlarks were seen quite well also.
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| Black necked Stork on wetland enroute to Gympie |
Lunch was back in Tin Can before a slow trip home with stops near Kia Ora and Gympie - the latter allowing some nice views of breeding birds.
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| Mallard - tickable? |
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| Cattle Egret in breeding plumage |
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| Plumed Egret in breeding plumage |
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| close up - Plumed Egret |
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| Australian Reed Warbler |
Great weekend overall.
Some unsolicited comments from participants;
'Thanks very much for a great weekend. I really enjoyed it! I was a bit apprehensive as it was my first "extended" birding outing and I usually prefer independent travelling rather than group tour type of activities. However, I was pleasantly surprised and it was a very nice group of people to share a couple of days with.
It is very generous of you to give your time and expertise so that we can all benefit from such experiences. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get on another short trip with you sometime.'
and
'Had SUCH a good weekend! Thanks again. Everything ran so smoothly and easily, your sense of humour an important element!'
and
'Great weekend... please keep me on the group email list for future weekends/ weeks away...'
A big thumbs-up.
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