Trip Report — Australia Part 2 2025 (with optional Tasmania Extension)

October 14-29, 2025 with John Coons & Cory Gregory (ext. to Nov. 3)

Our trip Down Under saw a vast array of birds and mammals from Australia’s Top End to the rainforests, coastal shores, and deserts of Queensland to the island state of Tasmania.

With some of our group continuing from the first part of the Field Guides Australia tour and others arriving straight from the US, we met up at the Darwin airport where we encountered very warm temperatures and humidity.  We saw a few birds at the airport including Silver-crowned Friarbird before heading to the nearby coastal area where we saw a few mangrove specialties such as Red-headed Myzomela, Arafura Fantail, and Australian Yellow White-eyes.  On the way to our motel we stopped at the Darwin Botanical Gardens where we found two marvelous Rufous Owls on a day roost.  Following breakfast the next morning, we were off to East Point Reserve where we had a wonderful early morning with a number of new birds.  We scoped a colorful Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, Bush Thick-knees, Spangled Drongo and a great Rainbow Pitta.  At the nearby coastline we spotted two Beach Thick-knees, a very unusual shorebird, on the tidal rocks along with a handful of shorebirds.  On the boardwalk we had nice looks at an often difficult Mangrove Robin, Torresian Kingfisher, and Mangrove Gerygone.  Varied Lorikeets put on a nice show at Lee Point before lunch.  Afterwards a group of Little Curlews were seen with lots of waterbirds and Red-winged Parrots at a nearby lagoon.  At another park near Darwin the flowering trees yielded Bar-breasted Honeyeater and a pair of Silver-backed Butcherbirds.  A few Little Terns in the Darwin harbor finished our birding day.  We left early the next morning to get to Fogg Dam early enough to see a rather quiet Barking Owl before heading to the marsh to enjoy sunrise while we ate a picnic breakfast.  Several White-browed Crakes were walking about on the lotus pads and we saw a few Brolgas, Black-necked Storks, Comb-crested Jacanas, and our first Nankeen Night Herons.  A stop at the Adelaide River area found a quite local Black-tailed Whistler.  We headed towards Darwin but detoured to the south for lunch and a stop at Manton Dam where a group of Black-tailed Treecreepers appeared during a bush walk and we saw the exquisitely decorated bower of a Great Bowerbird.  We made our way back to Darwin in the late-afternoon and enjoyed our final Top End dinner.

With an early flight to Cairns the next morning we were met by Clayton, our local driver and all-round guide.  The cooler temperature here was much appreciated.  Our first stop was at a huge tree with a large colony of Metallic Starlings at their nests.  We headed to a pond where we had nice views of Brown-backed Honeyeater and Sahul Sunbird among many other species before lunch at a small café.  After lunch we went to the Centenary Lakes reserve in Cairns and enjoyed a Papuan Frogmouth on a nest, another Rufous Owl, our first Australian Swiftlets, Sahul Cicadabird, and Laughing Kookaburras.

The tide was coming in on the Cairns foreshore so we made our way to the mud flats to search through the shorebirds that move closer and closer as the mud and sand gets covered up. This turned out to be great from the viewing platforms. We got a chance to study Red-capped Plovers, Far Eastern Curlews, Bar-tailed Godwits, lots of Gray-tailed Tattlers, Great Knots, Sharp-tailed and Curlew sandpipers, Red-necked Stints, Greater and Siberian sand-plovers and we watched the always cool Terek Sandpipers dashing about on the mud.

We packed up the next morning and headed to the Cattana Wetlands reserve where Fairy and Large-billed gerygones showed well and we had a soaring Pacific Baza.  We then drove up the windy road to the top of the Atherton Tableland and made a stop in Clayton’s neighborhood where a pair of Lovely Fairywrens put on quite a show.  Both of the quite similar Yellow-spotted and Cryptic honeyeaters were seen well, as was Macleay’s Honeyeater.  Pacific Emerald-Dove, Scaly-breasted Lorikeet and scoped Wompoo Fruit-Doves were other highlights of this roadside stop.  Hasties Swamp was our next destination where several duck species were present with the widespread coots, moorhens, and, Autralasian Swamphens.  A singing male Scarlet Myzomela was a hit and we got our first Yellow-faced Honeyeaters.  It was another 20 minutes to the Chamber’s Wildlife Lodge that sits in the beautiful rainforest with many birds right on the grounds.  However, after getting settled we headed back out to check a few places on our way to dinner.  Passing through Lake Eacham National Park we were awe struck to see a Southern Cassowary on the edge of the road!  Continuing with amazing Australian creatures, we drove to a creek where after a couple of up and back searches, we found a fantastic Platypus swimming about just in front of us, one of the most bizarre creatures in the world.  It was a very nice late-afternoon.  Our next day was a full day on the Tableland starting with some quite rewarding birding right outside our rooms.  Several of the Atherton Tableland specialties showed up including Victoria’s Riflebird, Green Catbird, Double-eyed Fig-Parrot, Yellow-breasted Boatbill, Bower’s Shrike-Thrush, and Gray-headed Robin.  We then headed to Lake Barrine, the sister crater lake to Lake Eacham.  Along the trail we scoped a Tooth-billed Bowerbird (aka Stagemaker) singing(?) from just above his bower of shiny upside-down leaves.  A few Topknot Pigeons were sitting atop a tree and we saw about 30 Great Crested Grebes on the lake.  Our next stop was Mt Hypipamee at a higher elevation in the forest than our other birding stops.  A few of the upper elevation specialties of the Tableland are more likely to be seen here and we did well.  Bridled Honeyeaters were fairly conspicuous by voice and we managed to track down both Large-billed and the very local Atherton scrubwrens, Mountain Thrornbill, and Pale-yellow Robin, but the highlight here was seeing a beautiful adult male Golden Bowerbird near his bower.  Stopping at the unusual Curtain Fig Tree, we saw several more Topknot Pigeons, Wompoo Fruit-Dove, and a flying Gray Goshawk.  That evening we saw a close Krefft's Glider (formerly Sugar Glider) lapping up honey at the Chamber’s Lodge but could only hear a distant Southern Boobook.  The following morning we birded again before breakfast with good views of perched White-headed Pigeon, Brown Cuckoo-Dove, a group of White-throated Needletails, Little Shrikethrush and a brief Pied Monarch.  We loaded up the bus for our next couple of nights in Georgetown with a stop at Bromfield Swamp where we scoped a few Sarus Cranes, Black-shouldered Kites, and our first Australian Pipits.

Heading west from the Atherton Tableland we soon got into a much drier environment.  The higher elevation of the Great Dividing Range creates a rain shadow and the vegetation changes quickly from the rain forest to a more desert-like habitat.  At a couple of isolated wetlands we caught up with the often difficult to find Cotton Pygmy-Goose, Latham’s Snipe, and Azure Kingfisher.  Along the drive we had nice looks at Great Bowerbird, Apostlebird, Pale-headed Rosella, and a wonderful experience with several huge Channel-billed Cuckoos flying about as well as a tree with thousands of cicadas that were making it rain!  We checked in to the motel then headed out to Cumberland Dam in the heat where there were a couple of Brolgas with young and an Emu while a good number of waterbirds were on the pond.  The next morning we were out at dawn to visit Durham Dam as the sun was just popping up.  In these quite arid areas the waterholes are the place to be early and late in the day.  Squatter Pigeons came to drink as did an Australian Bustard, while as many as 18 Black-fronted Dotterels worked along the edge of the pond.  Diamond Doves, Yellow and Rufous-throated honeyeaters, Red-winged Parrots and Double-barred Finches were just some of the birds that came for the water.  A walk in the bush found Gray-crowned Babblers building a nest, Red-backed Fairywrens, Weebill, Olive-backed Oriole, and lots of Blue-faced Honeyeaters.  Heading back for a pitstop at the motel, we flushed a Ground Cuckooshrike from the roadside that disappeared on us but we managed a nice Red-backed Kingfisher.  With a couple of stops near the town we had great looks at a Tawny Frogmouth nest with young, Gray Butcherbird, and both Striated and the much less common Red-browed Pardalote.  After lunch and a much needed siesta in the dry heat, we headed off again in the afternoon and scoped a Common Bronzewing, finally got into the range of Rufous Whistler, and saw a few more Weebills.  We were at it again early the next morning to beat the heat at Cumberland Dam.  Most of the same waterbirds were there but we did a walk through the bush that yielded nice views of Masked and Black-throated finches, a group of wonderful Banded Honeyeaters, better Yellow-tinted Honeyeaters, Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo, and another 12 Apostlebirds.

We drove back to Cairns pretty much following the same route as before, but we came into the city on the north side and stopped at the Barron River mouth.  A few sandbars were exposed and we got nice looks at Great and Lesser Crested Terns, Australian Tern, Caspian Tern, and several of the shorebirds we had seen on the Esplanade earlier.  We returned to our motel on the foreshore.  In the morning we went to the Esplanade to clean up our view of Varied Honeyeater and ended up scoping a couple of tiny Double-eyed Fig-Parrots.  With new bird possibilities few and far between at this point we decided to head back up to the north end of the Atherton Tableland.  We drove into Granite Gorge where we encountered a handful of our now familiar birds but we did see the quite local Mareeba Rock-Wallaby, a very cute and rather tame species here.  On the way out we were shown a magnificent Frill-necked Lizard.  We got back to the motel with time to relax before our morning flight.

As with every flight of the trip we were up very early to head to the Cairns airport for the flight to Brisbane.  We met our transport and headed off to Lamington National Park.  We stopped at a park along the way and got a nice look at Tawny Grassbird.  At our pit stop in Canungra we saw another Tawny Frogmouth on a nest with a chick.  We climbed up the winding road to the park and arrived at O’Reilly’s Guest House, which is one of the premier birding locales in Australia.  We were soon greeted by Crimson Rosellas, Australian King Parrots, and incredibly bright Regent Bowerbirds.  After lunch and getting into our rooms we got more serious about the birding, and soon saw Wonga Pigeons, Satin Bowerbirds, White-browed and Yellow-throated scrubwrens at our feet, Red-browed Firetails, conspicuous Eastern Whipbirds, the often difficult Russet-tailed Thrush, and the unusual Australian Logrunner.  The next morning we met for a pre-breakfast walk and were entertained by the rosellas, king parrots and Regent Bowerbirds at arms length and sometimes on our arms.  After breakfast we met our long time friend and O’Reilly’s personality Glen Threlfo and drove down the main road.  We made a few stops in the rainforest and in the drier eucalypt forest, where the quite uncommon Red-browed Treecreeper showed well as did a Spotted Pardalote right overhead.  We tried to see a calling Noisy Pitta and Victoria’s Riflebird that a couple of our group had seen near the guest house but the real surprise here was a group of about five Varied Sittellas, a species that feeds and acts much like a nuthatch and has become very difficult in recent years.  That afternoon we walked a forest trail and had great views of a male Rose Robin and male Victoria’s Riflebird.  That evening we walked into the forest and soon had a wonderful look at a calling and very uncommon Marbled Frogmouth, another of Australia’s very strange wildlife.  A bit farther along, Glen took us to the glowworm site and it was amazing to see what looked like distant lights of a city appear on the close bank as our eyes adjusted.  The following morning we met in front of the guest house to find two Albert’s Lyrebirds along the trail close to the lodge.  After a spell, one of them walked to the edge of the clearing and probed for several minutes in the soft dirt.  What an incredible experience!  We headed down the mountain after lunch working our way to Brisbane with a stop or two.  A rain storm thwarted one of our final stops before arriving at our motel.  We enjoyed our final dinner with Rob and Sandy who were headed back to the US in the morning.

With another early morning flight, the rest of our group flew to Tasmania for the five night extension to our trip.  After transferring through Melbourne we arrived in Launceston on the northern end of Tasmania, met our driver David, and drove to a reserve on a hill above the city.  In our afternoon of birding here we did very well, with wonderful views of our first of the Tasmanian endemic birds, Green Rosella, Yellow Wattlebird, and Yellow-throated Honeyeater.  We also enjoyed great looks at Scarlet Robin and the often difficult Beautiful Firetail.  The next morning we stopped to view some local Cape Barren Geese and Tasmanian Nativehens before heading into the native forest.  A couple of endemic honeyeaters, Strong-billed and Black-headed, were seen well before we headed to lunch at a park.  A trail here led us to a beautiful male Pink Robin and our best looks at Tasmanian Thornbill as well as a magnificent Short-beaked Echidna.  We continued on to the rather remote Mountain Valley Lodge for two nights.  At the lodge, and driving to other sites, we caught up with several more of the Tassie endemics, including Dusky Robin, several Black Currawongs, the uncommon Scrubtit which is one of the harder of the specialties to find, and a Common Wombat that strolled across the road in front of our group.  Leaving Mountain Valley in the morning, we had a wonderful view looking down on a Platypus (our third sighting in Tasmania) from a bridge.  Driving across the island to Hobart we stopped for a couple of rather close Banded Lapwings with young that Cory spotted from the bus.  Our final day of birding found us driving south from Hobart and catching the ferry for the 20 minute ride to Bruny Island with a fly-by Australasian Gannet along the way.  On this island it took a spell, but we finally found our final endemic, the rare Forty-spotted Pardalote. This bird kept returning to the same area in the undergrowth, perhaps to gather material for its nest cavity?  A handful of the threatened Swift Parrots afforded close views in the trees just above us.  Near our picnic lunch site at Adventure Bay we walked a beach to see a pair of Hooded Plovers, one of the most handsome shorebirds in the world, and we scoped a group of ten Black-faced Cormorants perched on a buoy.  We headed back to the ferry landing and on to Hobart.  David negotiated the bus through some narrow historic streets for a brief tour of the beautiful city.

This concluded our 2 ½ week adventure through northern Australia and Tasmania (and over 5 weeks for those that joined the first half of the of the full Australia trip), where we experienced a huge amount of diversity in birds, mammals, and habitats in this wonderful country.  We hope to bird with you again in the future.

You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/437346

You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/au225TRIPLIST.pdf