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
Tasmania, Victoria, and southern New South Wales encompass a wide variety of habitats and climates. The Victorian countryside seems reassuringly familiar due to two centuries of European settlement, but the birds that inhabit it are anything but. Large flocks of exotic parrots feed on the highway verges and multicolored fairy-wrens and honeyeaters fill the woods, while kangaroos graze in the paddocks and Koalas look down from giant eucalyptus trees. Tasmania holds many endemics, among them some fascinating birds, even flightless ones such as the Tasmanian Native Hen. The area around Deniliquin in southern New South Wales seems much wilder, “almost the outback,” and offers its own ornithological attractions, including the almost mythical Plains-wanderer.
This tour can be taken in conjunction with our tour Australia: The Center - South Australia and Northern Territory.
Day 1: The tour starts in Melbourne at 2:00 p.m. with an excursion to a local park to see our first colorful Australian birds: Galah, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Red-rumped Parrot, and Laughing Kookaburra. In addition to these widespread species, this park has over the years produced less common birds such as Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Crested Shrike-Tit, and Varied Sittella. Night near Melbourne airport.
Day 2: We’ll catch an early morning flight to Hobart in Tasmania and then drive south to Bruny Island. En route we’ll stop to look for our first Tasmanian endemics, perhaps including noisy Yellow Wattlebirds, and Yellow-throated and Strong-billed Honeyeaters. We’ll catch a ferry to the island, stopping first at the terminal to look at the Black-faced Shags on the harbor-side 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: the enormous and flightless Tasmanian Native-Hen and the diminutive Tasmanian Scrubwren, as well as Scrub-Tit, Tasmanian Thornbill, and Black-headed Honeyeater. We’ll also look 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. Tasmania is famous for having a more intact marsupial fauna than the mainland because of fewer introduced predators, so after dinner there will be an optional night drive mostly in search of such mammals as Bennett’s Wallaby, Rufous-bellied Pademelon, Long-nosed Poteroo, and Eastern Quoll; we’ll also probably see our first Little Penguins and Short-tailed Shearwaters. Night on Bruny Island.
David and Judy did a marvelous job throughout. Apart from all their other excellent qualities as leaders, we were particularly appreciative of their driving skills, whether in heavy traffic or on quiet tracks. They even managed, on top of showing us the birds and wildlife, to keep us all in order—and entertained—and happy. Grateful thanks to all the fine local guides, too!
Donald Smith and Helena Brooke, participants on Australia 2007.
Day 4: The final Tasmanian endemic, Black Currawong, winters on Bruny Island, but at the time of our visit the birds may have left for the Tasmanian mainland. We’ll leave the itinerary for this day flexible to accommodate this possibility, and if there are no currawongs left on Bruny, we’ll return to Hobart in the morning and drive up to Mt. Field National Park, where the birds breed. In the late afternoon we’ll catch a flight back to Melbourne. Night in Melbourne.
Day 5: Today we’ll drive southwest of Melbourne to Brisbane Ranges National Park, where we’ll look for cute Koalas and striking Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters. Later we’ll visit a small swamp near Geelong where Latham’s Snipe spend the northern winter, then 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 Shy Albatross or two. Night in Melbourne.
Day 6: We’ll leave early for the long drive north to Deniliquin through Victoria and then across the famous Murray River into New South Wales, arriving in the Deniliquin area in time for lunch. While there are many interesting species to be seen here, our primary target is Plains-wanderer, a unique species in its own family. The Plains-wanderer is a cryptic, buttonquail-like bird that can be very hard to spot, but by driving at night across the native short-grass pasturelands in this area, accompanied by local expert Phil Maher, we have a very good chance of finding this fascinating and rarely seen bird. Night in Deniliquin.
Day 7: We’ll spend the day in the Deniliquin area searching for local specialties that we are unlikely to see elsewhere, 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 night. Night in Deniliquin.
Day 8: We’ll spend another morning birding around Deniliquin with Phil, then drive east to the small town of Chiltern. We may arrive in time to pay a first visit to the nearby National Park. Night in Chiltern.
Day 9: Close to Chiltern is Chiltern-Mt. Pilot National Park, created in 1997 to protect the box-ironbark forest that once covered much of northeast Victoria. The park is now home to one of the few scattered populations of the endangered Regent Honeyeater, the target of our morning’s search. Other birds we hope to see here include Turquoise Parrot, Little Lorikeet, Speckled Warbler, and Black-chinned and Fuscous Honeyeaters. In the afternoon we’ll drive south to Healesville. Night in Healesville.
Day 10: This morning we’ll make a very early start for Badger Weir, where the great attraction is Superb Lyrebird, the world’s greatest mimic and a bird that is as easy to hear as it is hard to see. Walking the forest tracks in search of the lyrebird, we should also see Rose Robin and the spectacular Eastern Spinebill. After breakfast we’ll visit a local park where abundant Australian King Parrots and Common Bronzewings offer excellent photographic opportunities. We’ll also see an active Satin Bowerbird bower and see how the male decorates the bower with blue objects in hopes of attracting females to mate with him. In the afternoon we’ll visit Toolangi State Forest in search of Gang-gang Cockatoo, Pink Robin, Pilotbird, and Olive Whistler; we’ll marvel at the ancient Mountain Ash trees, some of which are more than 200 feet tall! After dinner there will be an optional spotlighting trip in search of Sooty Owl, and we should see Great Glider and, with luck, Yellow-bellied Glider as well. Night in Healesville.
Day 11: We’ll have another chance to look for Superb Lyrebird if that species has eluded us the day before; then, after breakfast, we’ll search for Powerful Owl at a regular roost. Later we’ll drive back to Melbourne, stopping en route for a vast “camp” of thousands of Gray-headed Flying-Foxes in parkland on the edge of the city. We’ll reach our hotel near the Melbourne airport in the late afternoon. Night in Melbourne.
Day 12: The tour ends in Melbourne this morning after breakfast.
Updated: 29 April 2008
Prices
- 2008 price about $4,660
- Single Occupancy Supplement $540
Notes
This tour is limited to seven participants with one leader, 14 with two leaders. If a second leader is needed, it wll be Judy Davis.
This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird.