First Taste of the North

I had a great time in Canberra my first 5 days in Australia, seeing where Nikki lives and exploring various birding spots. However, one of the things we were both excited about for our visit was the road trip we had planned from Brisbane down to Sydney. Winter birding in Canberra was very good, but we were looking forward to a part of Australia that wasn't bloody cold for all but a couple hours of the day. 

We departed ACT the morning of June 14, taking the Tiger Air flight from Canberra to Brisbane. The journey itself was... less than fun, starting with us having to pay through the nose because our carry-on baggage was 1 kilo overweight. Though I suppose that's what we get for buying cheap flights. When we arrived in Brisbane, we realized to our chagrin that the rental car company we were using was not, in fact, at the airport, and had to pay yet more for an Uber to the rental office. It was mid-afternoon by the time we had our car and were ready to go.

Nonetheless, we still had time to drive around Brisbane and see some birds before it got dark (in part because the sunset up north wasn't quite as annoyingly early as it had been in Canberra). We decided to head to the Lake Samsonvale area, a reservoir just west of the city that had some northern specialties. It was a longer drive than expected, through a landscape of rolling hills, eucalyptus forest (pretty) and the mansions of people who make way too much money to have neighbors (less pretty). Our destination, Golds Scrub Lane, was basically just a dirt road down to a cemetery at the edge of Lake Samsonvale. Despite not looking terribly impressive, it's known as being an excellent spot for wildlife. 

We saw our first target even before we got out of the car: an Australian Brushturkey scratching in the grass next to a flock of feral Helmeted Guineafowl. Brushturkeys aren't exactly rare, and most Australians find them rather annoying given their penchant for destroying back yards and gardens to build their huge mound nests, but it was a bird I was excited to see, considering that I've only ever seen one other megapode, and they're pretty impressive-looking birds to boot.

Australian Brush-turkey

Even within the first 20 minutes or so there we saw lots of fun birds, including a Crested Pigeon foraging on the ground, a Striated Pardalote that alit briefly on a gravestone, our lifer Pied Butcherbird in the tree over the car, and my favorite, a juvenile Australasian Figbird (a kind of weird oriole) that sat right in front of us on a tree branch and checked us out. 

Crested Pigeon

Pied Butcherbird

Striated Pardalote

Australasian Figbird

In the lawn nearby the lake, we saw a small flock of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes and a Spangled Drongo a tall tree, joined by some adult Australasian Figbirds, even weirder-looking than the immature bird. A Willie Wagtail was displaying in the grass, wagging its tail and chasing off an intruding Grey Fantail, while yet another Australian Brushturkey watched us from in the woods. 

Black-faced Cuckooshrike

Spangled Drongo

Australasian Figbird

Willie Wagtail

Australian Brush-turkey

In the lake itself, we saw lots of good birds, though most of them were too far away for good pictures: a pair of Black Swans, a large flock of Great Crested Grebes, an Australasian Darter, Eurasian Coots, Little Pied Cormorants, Little Black Cormorants, Australian Pied Cormorants, Great Crested Terns, and a flock of Australian Pelicans, a common bird I was still happy to have finally seen. 

Great Crested Grebe

Australian Pelicans and Black Swans, with Australian Pied Cormorants in the background

Australasian Darter

Naturally, as it's not a trip with Forest and Nikki without being caught in the rain, it started to drizzle a little bit after we got out of the car. We returned to the car for a bit for shelter, while the birds did their best to deal with it. 

Pied Butcherbird in the rain.

Laughing Kookaburra

Just as the rain stopped, another car pulled up that held a very large and enthusiastic Golden Retriever, which was enough to scare the Brush-turkeys into a tree- a slightly more natural setting than their usual habitat of gravel.

We took a quick walk along the road itself, hoping to see some of the interesting smaller birds. The site certainly delivered, with lots of fun new birds: Lewin's Honeyeaters, Rufous Whistler, Scarlet Myzomela, a late-staying Rufous Fantail, Brown Honeyeater, White-throated Honeyeater, Striped Honeyeater, Olive-backed Oriole, Red-browed Finch, Double-barred Finch, plus flyovers from Rainbow Lorikeets and Tree Martins. Unfortunately, most of them didn't really lend themselves to being photographed- but I suppose that's why I call myself a birder rather than a bird photographer. 

Rufous Whistler

Lewin's Honeyeater

Australasian Figbird

Striped Honeyeater

When we were finished at Golds Scrub Lane, we searched unsuccessfully for a good overlook of Lake Samsonvale, then finally headed to our Airbnb, a bedroom in the suburbs in the house of a very nice Indian couple. We ended our first day in Queensland with a solid 20 or so new birds from an hour and a half of birding- not bad overall. After that there was just time for a quick dinner in town and then sleep, as we had a very, very long day planned for the next day....