As well as all of Australia’s wonderful birds our tour also seeks out its unique mammals including the always-popular Koala. Photo: David Fisher
Our tour to Victoria, southern New South Wales, and Tasmania passes through a wide variety of habitats and climates. The Victoria countryside may seem reassuringly familiar after two centuries of European settlement, but the birds that inhabit it are anything but. Large flocks of parrots feed along the highways and multicolored fairy-wrens and honeyeaters fill the woods, while kangaroos graze in the paddocks and Koalas look down from giant eucalyptus trees. The area around Deniliquin in southern New South Wales seems much wilder, almost the outback, with major ornithological attractions, including the almost mythical Plains-wanderer. Tasmania holds many endemics, even flightless species such as the Tasmanian Native Hen.
This tour can be taken in conjunction with our tour of South Australia and Northern Territory, followed by our tour of Queensland and New South Wales.
Day 1: The tour starts in Melbourne at 2 p.m., when there will be an excursion to a local park to see our first colorful Australian birds, including Galahs, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Red-rumped Parrots, and Laughing Kookaburras. As well as these widespread species, in previous years this park has also produced less common birds, including Tawny Frogmouth, Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Crested Shrike-Tit, and Varied Sittella. Night near Melbourne airport.
Day 2: We’ll take an early morning flight to Hobart in Tasmania and then drive south to catch the ferry to Bruny Island. En route we’ll stop to look for our first Tasmanian endemics, perhaps including enormous and flightless Tasmanian Native-hens, noisy Yellow Wattlebirds, and striking Yellow-throated Honeyeaters. After crossing to the island, we’ll stop first at the terminal to look at the Black-faced Cormorants on the harbor pylons. All of Tasmania’s endemics occur on Bruny Island, most of them on the property owned by our local guide, Tonia Cochran. We’ll spend the afternoon walking around her private estate, looking in particular for Green Rosella, Dusky Robin, and Forty-spotted Pardalote. Night on Bruny Island.
Day 3: We’ll spend a delightful day exploring the forests and farmland of Bruny Island, searching for the remaining endemics: Tasmanian Scrubwren, Scrub-Tit, Tasmanian Thornbill, and Strong-billed and Black-headed Honeyeaters. We’ll also search for a number of species that are easier to find on Tasmania than on the Australian mainland, including Hooded Plover, Brush Bronzewing, Swift Parrot, Flame Robin, Crescent Honeyeater, and Forest Raven. Because it has fewer introduced predators than Australia, Tasmania is famous for having a more intact marsupial fauna, so after dinner there will be an optional night drive mostly in search of mammals, including Bennett’s Wallaby, Rufous-bellied Pademelon, Long-nosed Poteroo, and Eastern Quoll. We’ll also visit a bustling Little Penguin colony and see our first Short-tailed Shearwaters. Night on Bruny Island.
Day 4: The final Tasmanian endemic, Black Currawong, winters on Bruny Island, and at the time of our visit they may have all left for the Tasmanian mainland. We will leave the itinerary for this day flexible to accommodate this possibility; if there are none left on Bruny, we will return to Hobart in the morning and drive up to Mt. Field National Park, where the currawongs breed. In the late afternoon we’ll catch a flight back to Melbourne, where we’ll spend the night.
Day 5: Today we’ll visit the area southwest of Melbourne, beginning with Brisbane Ranges National Park, where we’ll search for Koala. Next we’ll stop at a small swamp near Geelong, where Latham’s Snipe spend the northern winter and a variety of local waterfowl, including beautiful Chestnut Teal, breed. Then we’ll drive down the spectacular Great Ocean Road to Airey’s Inlet, where we’ll look for the local Rufous Bristlebird and where a seawatch from a nearby headland may reveal a graceful Shy Albatross or two. On the way home we’ll stop at Weribee in search of Striated Fieldwrens that skulk in the saltmarsh, and we might find a pair of Brolga cranes, a rare and endangered species these days in Victoria. Night in Melbourne.
Day 6: We’ll leave early for the long drive north to Deniliquin through Victoria and across the famous Murray River into New South Wales. We will arrive in the Deniliquin area in time for lunch and will spend two nights here. While this area has many interesting species, the main reason for visiting Deniliquin is to search for Plains-wanderer, a unique species in its own family and our primary focus. It is a cryptic, buttonquail-like bird that can be very hard to find, but by driving at night across the area’s short-grass native pasturelands, accompanied by local expert Phil Maher, we have a very good chance of spotting this fascinating and rarely seen bird. Other possibilities on our night drive include Banded Lapwing, Inland Dotterel, and Stubble Quail. Night in Deniliquin.
Day 7: The time of our start will depend on how late we stay out the previous night, but we’ll spend the day in the Deniliquin area searching for local specialties that we are unlikely to see elsewhere during our tour, such as Australasian Bittern, Inland Dotterel, Superb Parrot, Crested Shrike-tit, and Gilbert’s Whistler. In the evening we’ll have a second chance for Plains-wanderer should we have missed it the previous evening. Night in Deniliquin.
Day 8: We’ll spend another morning birding around Deniliquin with Phil, and then in the afternoon we’ll drive east to the small town of Chiltern, where we’ll spend the night. We may arrive in time to make a first visit to nearby Chiltern-Mt. Pilot National Park.
Day 9: Chiltern-Mt. Pilot National Park was set up in 1997 to protect the box-ironbark forest that once covered much of northeast Victoria. It is now home to one of the few scattered populations of the endangered Regent Honeyeater, and during our morning in the park we’ll search for this scarce species. Other birds that we hope to see include Turquoise Parrot, Speckled Warbler, and Fuscous and Painted Honeyeaters, the last a truly beautiful bird in its own genus. In the afternoon we’ll drive south to Healesville, where we will spend two nights.
Day 10: This morning we’ll make a very early start and visit Badger Weir, where the great attraction is Superb Lyrebird, indisputably the world’s most remarkable mimic. It’s a bird that is easy to hear but hard to see. While walking the forest tracks in search of the great imitator, we should see Rose Robin and the spectacular Eastern Spinebill among others. After breakfast we’ll visit a local park where Australian King Parrots and Common Bronzewings are abundant and provide excellent photographic opportunities. We’ll also see an active bower of Satin Bowerbird and watch how the male decorates the bower with various blue items to entice females to visit and mate with him. In the afternoon we’ll visit Toolangi State Forest to search for Gang-gang Cockatoo, Pink Robin, Pilotbird, and Olive Whistler and to marvel at the ancient Mountain Ash trees, some of which are over 200 feet tall! After dinner there will be an optional spotlighting trip in search of Sooty Owl, and we should see Greater Gliders and, with luck, a Yellow-bellied Glider as well. Night in Healesville.
Day 11: We’ll have another chance to look for lyrebirds if they eluded us the previous day, and then after breakfast we’ll search for Powerful Owl at a regular roost site. Later we’ll drive back to Melbourne, stopping en route to look at a vast “camp” of Gray-headed Flying-Foxes. Thousands of these amazing creatures roost in an area of parkland on the edge of the city. In the late afternoon we’ll reach our hotel near Melbourne airport, where we’ll spend the night.
Day 12: The tour ends after breakfast. Those joining the South Australia and Northern Territory tour will catch a morning flight to Adelaide (not included in tour cost)
Updated: 28 January 2011
Prices
- 2012 Tour Price : $5,800*
- Single Occupancy Supplement : $560
Notes
This tour is limited to eight participants with one leader.
Participants wishing to spend added time in Melbourne should contact the WINGS office.
* Tour invoices paid by check carry a modest discount. Details here.
* This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird. Please review the explanation of our Sunbird pricing here.