Surprises in the Mangroves

I had intended for our stop at Sandy Camp to be our only wetlands visited during our limited time in Brisbane, as we were hoping to spend a little more time in rainforest areas. However, after losing more time in traffic than expected the previous day, it seemed that driving an hour out of our way to get to the rainforest birding area would make it difficult to both get to our target museum destination (yes, we actually did do things unrelated to birds on this trip) and where we intended to stay that night, halfway down the coast to Sydney. 

Thankfully, it appeared there was a happy medium: Tinchi Tamba Wetlands Preserve, located near the edge of Moreton Bay, was more or less on the way between our AirBnb and the museum. I was happy, since there were a number of birds I'd missed out on in Sandy Camp, and Tinchi Tamba held a few birds we were unlikely to see anywhere else, especially Mangrove Honeyeater and Mangrove Gerygone. 

We arrived at the wetlands at a reasonably early hour, though it took a while to figure out where the trail into the park actually led. There was a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets in the trees above our car and a few Australian White Ibis at the beginning of the trail, but overall the first part of our walk was fairly dead- to the point that I was beginning to wonder if it had been worth it to stop there at all. Thankfully, things started to pick up as we got into the small patch of forest near the bird hide, first with a Fan-tailed Cuckoo and then a pair of Red-backed Fairywrens, one of the birds I'd most been hoping to see in Queensland (though I never managed to get decent pictures of either of them).

Fan-tailed Cuckoo

Almost immediately after I saw the Fairy-wrens, I heard the calling of a parrot in the treetops, and looked up to see a pair of Pale-headed Rosellas, a Rosella found only in northeast Australia and another bird I would have been disappointed to miss out on (who doesn't want to see another species of parrot, after all?).

Pale-headed Rosella: great perch, terrible lighting

In the same stretch of woods, we also saw Bar-shouldered Dove and Rufous Whistler, and finally had good views of a Scarlet Myzomela, much more colorful than most honeyeaters. 

Bar-shouldered Dove

Female Rufous Whistler

Male Rufous Whistler

Scarlet Myzomela

At the bird hide, there was a small flock of Chestnut Teal in the water, plus lots of honeyeaters- mostly Lewin's Honeyeaters and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, but also including a single Mangrove Honeyeater that proved impossible to get a pictures of. A tiny Mangrove Gerygone in the bushes filled out the second of my mangrove-related targets, which I was happy about. Best was a beautiful adult Rose Robin in full Bright plumage, posing long enough of us to get pictures- something we were both hoping would happen on our trip.

Yellow-faced Honeyeater 

Lewin's Honeyeater

Mangrove Gerygone

Rose Robin!

As I was craning my neck trying unsuccessfully to get a picture of the Mangrove Honeyeater, I happened to catch something out of the corner of my eye. I did a double-take and nearly dropped my camera- "Oh my God, Tawny Frogmouth!" And sure enough, there was a pair of Tawny Frogmouths perched right at eye level on an open branch. It was a complete surprise, and a far better view than what we'd gotten at the botanic garden. They sat there calmly eyeing us as we took as many pictures as we could- definitely my favorite find of the morning, even if it wasn't a lifer. 

Tawny Frogmouths

Tinchi Tamba was also almost the only place in Australia that I managed to see some decent butterflies. Overall I saw disappointingly little non-Avian Australian wildlife, probably because it was the wintertime and reptiles and insects were mostly in hibernation. It was nice to see at least a little bit of good arthropod life here. 

Tailless Line Blue (Prosotas dubiosa)

Tiger Spider (Nephila plumipes)

Australian Crow (Euploea core corinna)

Glasswing (Acraea andromacha)

Monarch Butterfly- I guess monarchs really are everywhere

On the way back out we saw a small flock of Rainbow Lorikeets in a tree right in front of us, finally allowing me to get some good pictures of them. Rainbow Lorikeets might be a bit of a trash bird in Australia, but they're a damn good looking trash bird- hard to go wrong when you have "rainbow" in your name I suppose. 

Rainbow Lorikeet

In the same place as the Lorikeets, the Fan-tailed Cuckoo was still hanging out, as was the pair of Red-backed Fairywrens, joined by some Superb Fairywrens, Red-browed Finches, and another late-staying Rufous Fantail. We also saw another beautiful male Rufous Whistler.  

Fan-tailed Cuckoo

Red-browed Finch

Red-backed Fairywren

Rufous Whistler

Near the river, a Great Egret was showing itself off near some fishermen (probably hoping to sneak off with some bait), while I added a couple of raptors to my Australia list in the form of White-bellied Sea Eagle and Brahminy Kite. I also decided to get around to getting a picture of Torresian Crow- since apparently even the crows are different between northern and southern Australia. In Canberra the only corvids are Australasian Raven and Little Raven, while in cities in Queensland Torresian Crows take over. An adult Grey Butcherbird was also a great photo subject. 

Great Egret

Torresian Crow

Grey Butcherbird

Tinchi Tamba was so unexpectedly birdy that I would have been happy to stay another hour, but we had a museum to visit and lunch to eat. We left it with some nice additional life birds on our list, reluctant that we'd have to leave Brisbane that day.