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| A dollarbird comments on my efforts |
I have reached the half way point in my (modest) bid to see 300 species of Australian birds in a year. The current list is at the bottom of this post. It's made up mostly of Far North Queensland species with a few from Tasmania.
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| One of the few from Tasmania: forty-spotted pardalote |
I'm doing this Year of Seeing Quite a Few Birds for several reasons. The most important is that it gets me out and about. For a long while I had been pottering around the house, apparently happily. Then I wandered across the line that separates pottering from stagnating. Unfortunately that line is not clear and I had gone some distance into the wasteland before I looked up and saw where I was. So now I'm heading back again. I intend to stride right over that line, keep going all the way through pottering, and emerge on the other side, which I hope has good metaphors because I've done something awful to this one. Send a compass. Help.
Anyway, I have a number of bird watching trips lined up over the next four months. No point mentioning them in advance because 'I'm going to [location]' is not as interesting as 'I'm at [location] and here's what I've seen' followed by fuzzy photos of something in a tree. (See image above.)
If I clock up 300 species in 2017, that'll be great. It means I've been to some interesting places. If I don't...well...I've still been to those interesting places. The key to this is not the seeing, but the looking.
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| Difficult to miss this golden whistler |
The list so far:
- Australian Brush-turkey
- Orange-footed Scrubfowl
- Magpie Goose
- Plumed Whistling-duck
- Wandering Whistling-duck
- Cape Barren Goose
- Black Swan
- Radjah Shelduck
- Chestnut Teal
- Pacific Black Duck
- Hardhead
- Australian Grebe
- Great Crested Grebe
- Rock Dove
- White-headed Pigeon
- Spotted Dove
- Brown Cuckoo-dove
- Emerald Dove
- Peaceful Dove
- Bar-shouldered Dove
- Wompoo Fruit-dove
- Torresian Imperial-pigeon
- White-rumped Swiftlet
- Australasian Gannet
- Little Pied Cormorant
- Great Cormorant
- Little Black Cormorant
- Black-faced Cormorant
- Australian Pelican
- Intermediate Egret
- Cattle Egret
- White-faced Heron
- Australia White Ibis
- Straw-necked Ibis
- Osprey
- Black-shouldered Kite
- White-bellied Sea-eagle
- Whistling Kite
- Black Kite
- Grey Goshawk (white phase)
- Wedge-tailed Eagle
- Brown Falcon
- Purple Swamphen
- Buff-banded Rail
- Tasmanian Native Hen
- Dusky Moorhen
- Eurasian Coot
- Bush Stone-curlew
- Australian Pied Oystercatcher
- Sooty Oystercatcher
- Masked Lapwing
- Comb-crested Jacana
- Crested Tern
- Pacific Gull
- Kelp Gull
- Silver Gull
- Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
- Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
- Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
- Galah
- Rainbow Lorikeet
- Scaly-breasted Lorikeet
- Australian King-parrot
- Green Rosella
- Crimson Rosella
- Eastern Rosella
- Pale-headed Rosella
- Channel-billed Cuckoo
- Fan-tailed Cuckoo
- Barking Owl
- (Red) Boobook
- Sooty Owl
- Laughing Kookaburra
- Forest Kingfisher
- Dollarbird
- White-throated Treecreeper
- Spotted Catbird
- Tooth-billed Bowerbird
- Superb Fairy-wren
- Atherton Scrubwren
- Large-billed Scrubwren
- Brown Gerygone
- Yellow-rumped Thornbill
- Tasmanian Thornbill
- Forty-spotted Pardalote
- Eastern Spinebill
- Lewin's Honeyeater
- Yellow-faced Honeyeater
- 'Herberton' Honeyeater
- Noisy Miner
- Yellow Wattlebird
- Bridled Honeyeater
- Dusky Honeyeater
- Scarlet Honeyeater
- Brown Honeyeater
- New Holland Honeyeater
- White-cheeked Honeyeater
- Strong-billed Honeyeater
- Black-headed Honeyeater
- Blue-faced Honeyeater
- Helmeted Friarbird
- Noisy Friarbird
- Macleay's Honeyeater
- Eastern Whipbird
- Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
- White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike
- Cicadabird
- Golden Whistler
- Rufous Whistler
- Little Shrike-thrush
- Bower's Shrike-thrush
- Grey Shrike-thrush
- Australasian Figbird
- Yellow Oriole
- White-breasted Woodswallow
- Pied Butcherbird
- Black Butcherbird
- Grey Butcherbird
- Australian Magpie
- Pied Currawong
- Spangled Drongo
- Rufous Fantail
- Grey Fantail
- Willie Wagtail
- Forest Raven
- Torresian Crow
- Leaden Flycatcher
- Black-faced Monarch
- Spectacled Monarch
- Magpie-lark
- Pied Monarch
- Yellow-breasted Boatbill
- Victoria's Riflebird
- Scarlet Robin
- Pink Robin
- Dusky Robin
- Grey-headed Robin
- Pale-yellow Robin
- Silvereye
- Welcome Swallow
- Bassian Thrush
- Common Blackbird
- Metallic Starling
- Common Starling
- Common Myna
- Red-browed Finch
- Beautiful Firetail
- Chestnut-breasted Mannikin
- House Sparrow
- Australasian Pipit
- European Goldfinch
