September 26-October 16, 2025 with Chris Benesh & Alex Sundvall
Whenever you ask birders about where they most want to go in the world, Australia is always high on the list, if not topping the list. The birds here are unlike anywhere else in the world. Gone are the familiar families of the rest of the world and are replaced with something strange. Woodpeckers are replaced by Treecreepers, Nuthatches by Sitellas, Wrens by Fairywrens, and the list goes on and on. Even the cities are filled with Cockatoos and Lorikeets instead of Starlings and Sparrows like back home. Nearly every bird we saw was endemic to either Australia alone or the oceanic region. Over the course of our 18-day odyssey across southern Australia, we managed to see nearly 300 species of birds, some of which had never been seen on the tour before! As a group, we decided that our incredible experiences with Red-eared Firetail, Pink Cockatoo, Pink Robin, and Little Penguins shone above the rest and were our favorite birds of the tour. The Red-eared Firetails made us work for them for days on end, truly ghosts in the woods. Thankfully on literally the last possible day at the final stop, right as we were about to leave and give up for good, a Firetail mercifully showed up and we finally got to see this beautiful Australian finch. The Cockatoos were a stunning late addition to our tour, watching a pair of birds flying around and raising their crests showing off their hot pink feathering on one of our final days. The Robins were an incredibly unexpected find in the pouring rain on our day through Great Otway National Park, with one male so tame on the side of the road it even flew between our legs at one point! A fantastic way to spend a rainy morning. And of course, who can deny the wonders of penguins! Our boat trip around the St. Kilda Harbor was unforgettable, seeing over 100 penguins as they were coming in to roost for the evening. Even though we observed them under red light so as to not harm them, we still saw them spectacularly well at close range, with one even swimming under the surface of the water right next to the boat! Three fantastic birds and memories from our time exploring the best of what southern Australia has to offer.
From Chris and I and all of us at Field Guides, we would like to extend our gratitude for choosing us for this Australian adventure. This is a long and arduous tour, with more hotel changes than I can count and many very long days in the bus. You were a very patient group and took challenges in stride, and we thank you immensely for that. Thank you again for your kindness and we hope to see any of you again somewhere along the birding trail soon!
What follows is a brief detailing on our trip through southern Australia with some selected photos. For a complete list of the birds, follow the link to the eBird trip report and for all other taxa (mammals, plants, etc) follow the link to the iNatuarlist project!
Day 1: We started our first day of birding with a nice stroll around Centennial Park. This is a nice primer in the birds of Australia, with a nice diversity of new water and land birds. We saw our first Black Swans, Royal Spoonbills, and Hardheads of the trip here amongst others. The bird highlight here was an incredible eye level Tawny Frogmouth that we got to see up close in person in the scope. The real main attraction however was the huge roost of Gray-headed and Black Flying-Foxes. After lunch we embraced our inner tourists and saw the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge. We ended the day at Lane Cove National Park where we had scouted out a family of roosting Powerful Owls and an Australian Brushturkey mound, and at the Cumberland State Forest where we watched the colony of Bell Miners and a surprise Scaly-breasted Lorikeet amongst the Rainbows.
Day 2: Today was our big day at the Royal National Park! We spent the whole morning birding along the famous Lady Carrington Drive. While we didn’t get a Lyrebird on this morning trek, we saw a ton of other really cool birds! Right off the parking lot we watched a pair of Sacred Kingfishers gobbling down worms, a pair of Satin Bowerbirds (with a bower!), a pair of Superb Fairywrens, and some stunning Australian King-Parrots. As we walked down the trail, we had marvelous views of multiple Variegated Fairywrens, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Dollarbird, Gray Goshawk, Scarlet Myzomela, Bassian Thrush, Spotted Pardalote, and Black-faced Monarchs. We also had awesome heard only experiences with two quality birds: Wonga Pigeon and Australian Owlet-Nightjar! We also had some incredible non-bird highlights on our hike, with a huge Carpet Python that decided not to move until Chris had almost stepped on it, and an Echidna we managed to see just before it burrowed away to safety. We had lunch at a cafe right in the park, and had to fend off the hungry Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Laughing Kookaburras, Noisy Miners, and Maned Ducks from our food. After lunch we made the long drive to the southern end of Lady Carrington along Bolas Creek, where after much perseverance we finally got good looks at a few Superb Lyrebirds, and even got to hear one do some of its famous mimicry! All in all, a very long but incredible day of birding.
Day 3: Today was the first of a long string of long whirlwind days through the beauty of Victoria! First, we took our early morning plane to Melbourne. Even as we arrived and were waiting for our bus we were greeted with new birds, namely a group of Little Ravens and a distant pair of Wedge-tailed Eagles. Once the bus arrived, we were headed to the Western Treatment Plant where we spent the majority of the day birding. We met our local guide Kim and it was off to the races. This is often the most overwhelming place we visit on the tour since there are SO many new species in such a short amount of time. We could easily spend days birding the massive 26,000-acre property, but alas we have only a few hours. There were birds everywhere, including our first Chestnut Teals, Musk Ducks, Blue-billed Ducks, Pied Stilts, Red-necked Avocets, Red-necked Stints, Eurasian Skylarks, Hoary-headed Grebes, Black Kites, and so much more. The real major highlights though were Australian Fairy Tern, Brolga, White-bellied Sea-Eagle, Cape Barren Geese, Striated Fieldwren, Australasian Pipit, Golden-headed Cisticola, and even more! After dinner, we went down to the St. Kilda Pier where we picked up our boat cruise and took a nice spin around the harbor to see their colony of Little Penguins. While we didn’t see all 1600 of them, we saw a good pile of them including one that was actively swimming along the boat for a few seconds.
Day 4: Our day started with a short drive down to Geelong where we visited some new reclamation ponds where a huge group of Banded Stilts were roosting. After getting great scope views of them, we headed to Lake Lorne where we had our lovely picnic breakfast. While breakfast was getting set up, we enjoyed close views of Pink-eared Duck, Freckled Duck, and Long-billed Corellas. Unfortunately, this is when the gale winds and intermittent downpours started, which really colored the rest of the day. We attempted birding along a few coastal heathlands but it was pretty moot. We were successful in battling the rain at Point Roadknight where we had wonderful scope views of an endangered Hooded Plover. Graciously, the rain continued to be kind to us with now longer periods between intermittent drizzling and we were able to go birding along Split Point where we had sublime looks at the often skulky Rufous Bristlebird and great scope views of a couple of White-capped Albatross. Unfortunately afterwards the rain and wind worsened again and we had a much longer time in the vehicle before being able to get out comfortably again. Thankfully one of those more comfortable stops was in Kennett River where we spotted a very soggy and sleepy Koala sitting up in a eucalyptus tree! One of the most emblematic species of Australia, we had prolonged excellent views of this adorable animal. Deciding this would be the perfect closer for the day, we headed onwards to Apollo Bay to our hotels to warm up and dry off after a long and wet day.
Day 5: Unfortunately, today started off no calmer nor drier than the previous day left us. Between bouts of rain, we were able to quickly scan the rocks out from Marengo Beach to spy a few Brown Fur Seals with a few Black-faced Cormorants mixed in between them. We made our way up into Great Otway National Park and despite the pouring rain and hellacious wind, we managed to squeak out Crescent Honeyeater and Olive Whistler, two of our main targets this morning. We also saw a pack of at least 30 White-naped Honeyeaters blitzing through the forest going between the flowering tea trees! We spent a good while at breakfast warming up and drying off before heading up farther into the mountains of the national park. We spent over an hour battling the rain along the Turton Track where we saw very little in the way of birds. However, what we did see more than made up for the cold, wind, and rain. A pair of Pink Robins absolutely stole the show right on the side of the road, a glowing pink orb in the dark and rain. And later, a lone Flame Robin really put on a show at a picnic area as the rain absolutely dumped down on us. All worth it to see these incredibly rare and range restricted species! Typically, our tours only see these birds in Tasmania as that’s where they’re more common. After lunch we made a quick stop at Lake Purrumbete where we had really nice close views of Magpie-geese and Black-fronted Dotterels with an Australian Reed Warbler teasing us by never coming out into the open for very long. We ended the day with the long drive up to Halls Gap, sheltered from the rain and wind in the cozy bus.
Day 6: We started our morning with a nice stroll around Halls Gap in the misty cool up towards the Venus Baths. While it was pretty scenic , the mist cut down on bird activity so we retreated back to the hotel for breakfast. Afterwards we headed to some drier forest, where the rain mercifully let up. On the way there we managed to come across a small flock of White-winged Choughs (no relation to the European choughs) and a few Emus! While walking around in the dry sclerophyll forests we had a number of new birds, including Speckled Warbler, Buff-rumped Thornbill, Brown Treecreeper, Fuscous and Black-chinned Honeyeaters, and Musk Lorikeet. We even had fleeting glimpses of our first Little Eagle! After lunch, we continued northward into the edge of the mallee to Mount Arapiles. This is a world-famous climbing site and the campground was filled with climbers. As soon as we arrived, one of the local Swamp Wallabies greeted us! During our walk around the rocks we had incredible encounters with Gilbert’s Whistler, Yellow Thornbill, Shy Heathwren, and Scarlet and Hooded Robins. From here we headed on to our hotel in Nhill.
Day 7: Another early morning start to the day with an on-site picnic breakfast! This time it was along the scenic shores of Lake Hindmarsh, which looked like it hadn’t held water in quite some time. That isn’t to say there weren’t birds to distract us from our breakfast! We watched a pack of Emus chase after a Western Gray Kangaroo, enjoyed sublime perched views of Purple-crowned Lorikeets and Regent Parrots, and our first good looks at Tree Martins. From here we made our way slowly out to Wyperfeld National Park, stopping for Brown Songlark, Australian Pipit, Pied Butcherbird, and more Spotted Harriers along the way. Some years seem to be better than others for Spotted Harriers, and this definitely seems like a good year for them as they have been everywhere in the desert woodlands! Once we got into the national park, we took a long walk out to a Malleefowl mound hoping to spot an adult. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful with that, however our incredible experience with the normally shy Chestnut Quail-Thrush more than made up for it! While driving around in the park we came across a couple dozen more Emus, including a family of still striped juveniles! After our picnic lunch in the park, we headed off towards Lake Tyrell. While the Rufous Fieldwrens didn’t want to play today, we did see a handful of Red-capped Plovers to end the day.
Day 8: With daylight savings time sucking an hour of our life away, our 6am start was a very dark one today. We made it to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park just as the sun was starting to rise. While Andrew was setting up our breakfast, we took a quick spin around the picnic grounds where we saw incredibly friendly Apostlebirds, Yellow Crimson Rosellas, and a couple Australian Hobbies harassing the Little Corellas and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. After breakfast, we made our way over to the Nowingi Track where we took an extended hike through the Mallee and spinifex hoping for a couple of the harder birds in this habitat. We started off with a bonus Crested Bellbird right by the bus! Taking this as a sign of good things to come, we walked off into the bush where a group of Masked and White-browed Woodswallows greeted us. Just a short ways into the walk we had one of our targets: a pair of exceptionally cooperative Striated Grasswrens! The Grasswrens are a famous endemic family to Australia in that they are nearly all incredibly difficult to see and access to most of them require bush planes, helicopters, and 4x4s to drive way out into the bush. While Striated may be one of the easier and more accessible Grasswrens in Australia, that does not mean it’s any less exciting to see them! As we moved through the scrub dodging the porcupine grass, we soon found our next target, the Mallee Emuwren! Emuwrens are so named because their tail, like emu feathers, lack the barbules that keep their feathers all nice and together to protect their incredibly long tails from being ruined living in their spiny environments. It took some perseverance, but eventually everyone was able to get really nice views! After a successful jaunt through the mallee, we headed over to the Nature Trail where we picked up a couple of Chestnut-rumped Thornbills and a Striped Honeyeater. After lunch, we headed to Macs Road where we all got to see an incredibly rare group of birds. There has been a group of Inland Dotterels in the area for about a week, and we were positioned perfectly to go see them! This was already a planned stop on the tour, so seeing these rarities without going out of our way was a real treat! Inland Dotterels are nocturnal and very little is known about them and their movements, but they tend to move around in accordance to drought and rain, and there’s been a pretty heavy drought across much of their range in Australia which could account for why they were along the road today. While the heat shimmer was pretty horrendous, the birds were pretty close in and we all had lovely looks at this enigmatic species. What normally would have been stars of the show along this road took a little bit of a backseat to this incredible sighting, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t amazing in their own rights! Sharing the paddock with the Dotterels was a small flock of Banded Lapwings, and farther down the road we had Purple-backed and White-winged Fairywrens, Crimson and Orange Chats, White-winged Trillers, Red-backed Kingfishers, and Black-faced Woodswallows! By the time we made it to our turn around, it was an hour later than we had wanted to be out of there so we had to quickly make our way back to Ouyen for the night. What an incredible and long day of birding!
Day 9: A much more relaxed start to what is primarily a long travel day to Adelaide. We started out again birding at Hattah-Kulkyne early in the morning hoping for a Malleefowl. We cruised the roads slowly with our fingers crossed, and with incredible luck we were able to find a Malleefowl off in the bush! Everyone was able to get a glimpse of this forest cryptid as it slowly and carefully walked away. For the size bird it is, it is incredible how easily they can hide in the scrub! We also saw a few Tawny Frogmouths (including one on a nest!) and a couple more Crested Bellbirds. At breakfast we were able to catch everyone up on the beautiful Mallee form of Australian Ringneck. After breakfast we drove along the Mournpall Track where we found Southern Whiteface, more Yellow Rosellas, a couple of Chestnut-rumped Thornbills, and our first looks at Peaceful Doves. We didn’t have long, unfortunately, as we had a very long drive in front of us. We opted for lunch in Pinaroo on the other side of the South Australia border at a little wetlands park. While it was mainly a lunch stop, it was quite birdy with Rainbow Bee-eaters, Australasian Grebes, Australian Reed Warblers, and a Pacific Heron! After a long drive later, we finally made it into Adelaide.
Day 10: Mostly a travel day, but we got a fair bit of birding in before the flight! We started out along the Port Gawler Rd and almost immediately had a handful of Adelaide Crimson Rosellas fly over. Later on down the road at the saltworks, we had nice looks at both Royal and Yellow-billed Spoonbills, Great Crested Grebes, Pied Oystercatchers, and our main target for the morning, Slender-billed Thornbills! We even saw a mother and baby Common Wallaroo! Next, we made a quick stop in St. Kilda hoping for shorebirds, but other than a handful of Common Greenshanks the diversity was pretty low. Our final stop of the morning was at the Whicker Rd Wetlands where we took a brisk walk around some of the ponds hoping to add a couple waders and skulkers to our list. We were able to find two of our targets: Red-kneed and Black-fronted Dotterels, and better views of Pied Stilt and Australasian Shoveler, but unfortunately none of the crakes we were hoping for. From here, we headed to the airport and boarded our plane to Perth.
Day 11: The start of two repositioning days, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t see any birds! Right at our hotel as we were loading bags on the bus we had our first Laughing Dove and the western Australian Magpies. We spent the majority of the morning birding around the Wungong Dam and Bungendore Parks. At the dam we had our first looks at Red-capped Parrots, Port Lincoln Australian Ringnecks, White-breasted Robins, Spotted Scrubwrens, Brown and Gilbert’s Honeyeaters, and the most Splendid Fairywrens. Up in the park we had more great looks at Common Bronzewing, a flyover group of Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos, Western Gerygones, and some fantastic looks at Western Spinebills. After lunch, we made a quick stop at Gleneagles Campground where we tracked down Western Wattlebirds and Red-winged Fairywrens. We ended the day with an incredibly successful trip around Dryandra Woodlands National Park. Walking a little stretch of road in the park we were able to see Rufous Treecreeper, Blue-breasted Fairywren, Dusky Woodswallow, Square-tailed Kite, our first Carnaby’s Black-Cockatoos, Gray Currawongs, Elegant Parrots, Western Yellow Robins, and of course Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters. It was starting to get a little late, so we began our slow cruising of the roads here to look for Numbats. These adorable marsupials almost went extinct and are basically now completely restricted to just the Dryandra Woodlands. Just as we were starting to talk about them, magically one appeared right by the side of the road! There are fewer than 400 of these opossum sized creatures left in the park so it was miraculous we even found one! And the birds weren’t done yet either, while we were watching the Numbat we heard and then later saw Western Shrike-Tit and had a flyover pair of Western Rosellas. What a finale to the day!
Day 12: The second of our repositioning days to get down to the coast. We started bright and early returning to Dryandra to hopefully track down some of our remaining species there. It was a slow start to the morning, but eventually we tracked down some birds and found Western Thornbills, Restless Flycatchers, Rufous Songlarks, more Western Rosellas, and had a spectacular experience with a pair of Painted Buttonquail! We even somehow found another(!!!) Numbat!! This one provided even longer looks at even closer range! It’s been decades since two numbats have been seen on one of these tours, and I cannot overstate how lucky we were! Basking in the success of the morning, we headed back into town for lunch and from there to Wagin where we searched successfully for White-cheeked Honeyeater. We finished our day at the base of the Stirling Range looking for Western Fieldwren, a recent split from Rufous Fieldwren. Not only did we get fabulous looks at a pair of these secretive birds, but there were a number of cooperative Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters around as well!
Day 13: Today was the first of our coastal days, and arguably the most important one! We had a very early start heading to Cheynes beach to look for the big three of the coastal heathland in Southwestern Australia. Before we even got to the heathland however, we were treated to awesome scope views of a mother and calf Southern Right Whales! As we got out of the bus we watched a booming Brush Bronzewing up on a wire, one of the prettiest doves on this tour! As we began our trek through the heathland, we heard our first target: a pair of Western Whipbirds croaking their awkward song. Sounding nothing like their other Whipbird and Wedgebill cousins, and also not being as accommodating, it took multiple tries with multiple individuals before we finally were able to get a view of one! Thankfully once it did cooperate it decided to sing on an unobstructed perch for a whole 30 seconds, allowing everyone to get great views of it! Between our many attempts to track down a Whipbird, we also managed to get great views of another of the skulkers, a Western Bristlebird! Nowhere as cooperative as their Rufous relatives, but still the least shy of the heathland birds here! Finally it was time for the champion of the skulky birds here: the Noisy Scrub-bird. A bird so secretive it was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered nearby in 1961, this bird is notoriously difficult to get a glimpse of. Typically when you do, it is of a shape darting incredibly fast across sand tracks. Thankfully they sing pretty loudly, so they aren’t the most difficult to track down that way! We found one near a road and sat and waited hoping for the best. And the best happened! Twice we got to see one dart across the road in about 5 quick leaps! With such a successful morning, we made our way back to the hotel with a quick stop at some ponds where we heard Little Grassbirds and a Spotless Crake. After taking a bit of an afternoon break, we headed to a nearby lake where we had our first taste of a Red-eared Firetail. What an incredible day of birding, we saw all three of the challenging skulkers!!
Day 14: A bit of a repositioning day, we started out by doing a short bit of sea watching at Cave Point Lighthouse in Torndirrup National Park. The winds made for a pretty uneventful watch, but we did get some distant views of some Flesh-footed Shearwaters. After breakfast, we started making our way towards Margaret River, with a quick screeching halt for a group of mixed Carnaby’s and Baudin’s Black-Cockatoos! We made another quick stop in Rocky Gully to look for the regionally restricted Western Corellas where we found a few out grazing in a nice field! These corellas have super long bills that they use for digging, and they plough long deep trenches as they feed. All the birds we saw were stained brown from the dirt and some had some dirt still on their bills. Our next stop was a quick one at Lake Muir for yet another try at Red-eared Firetail, but no dice here. We ended the day at Hamelin Beach, which is a great place to see what I think is Australia’s cutest parrot, the Rock Parrot. While they might not be the prettiest, something about their little faces and how friendly they are just put them over the top for me. We got to their normal patch of lawn and there they were, a small group of them gorging themselves on flowers and buds. I’ve never seen one without flower schmutz hanging off their faces. A little farther up the trail we saw our Southern Emuwren, which I find to be easier to find then the Mallee birds, but once you track them down, they’re harder to get good looks at since they live in much thicker denser cover.
Day 15: Another day with long drives with interspersed birding! We started the morning at the local rotary park hoping yet again for a Firetail, and still coming up with nothing! There were still plenty of birds around however, including our best looks at a Western Shrike-Tit! Afterwards we headed to our dual-purpose breakfast and birding spot at a lovely seaside cafe overlooking the Indian Ocean. Besides the stunning view, a little family of Sooty Oystercatchers also entertained us while we ate. Hoping for better seawatching conditions today, we headed to Sugarloaf Rock. We were in luck and the seas brought us cooperative Flesh-footed Shearwaters and Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross! On top of that, we also had possibly the most scenic view of the trip with a pod of very acrobatic Southern Humpback Whales splashing and breaching on the horizon. From here we kept driving northward along the coast towards Mandurah where we stopped briefly at what can be a nice shorebird spot. While the diversity wasn’t what it could have been, we did get some awesome looks at the world’s largest shorebird, the Far Eastern Curlew! We got to watch one of these huge birds foraging at close range, sinking its entire bill deep into the mud. There were also a couple Bar-tailed Godwits and newly minted Eurasian Whimbrels around (an armchair tick for everyone by the time you get this report!) Finally we ended our day at the Ellis Brook Valley Reserve, where we had our best looks at Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos and Splendid Fairywrens. There was a small creek holding some water from all the recent rains near the parking lot that some birds were coming to bathe in where we hoped could finally give us a Firetail. Sure enough, after enough time a pair of Firetails graced us with their presence, an incredibly sweet feeling after trying so many times in so many places for them! A fantastic way to cap off an incredible time in the southwest!
Day 16: an early start with an early flight to Alice Springs, our final destination on this part of the Australia Tour. This was again mostly a travel day, but other than heading home (or on to the second half of the tour) it was our last one, a welcome relief! After a long tour of jumping around from hotel to hotel we were looking forward to staying here for more than a night or two. After some brief challenges with check-in, and a late lunch, we were finally birding at the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. The differences in the birds were very apparent in the desert, and we pretty quickly found some of the new regional birds for us. Spotted and Striated Pardalotes had been replaced by Red-browed Pardalotes here, and Noisy Miners were replaced by Yellow-throated Miners. The star of the show this afternoon however were the Western Bowerbirds, and we even found an active bower! The breeding biology of bowerbirds is fascinating with each species building some sort of a display ground and decorating it in some way. This species builds an alleyway bower, a sort of high walled structure made of sticks that the male can stand in between and display. Scattered around this bower were bits of white stuff that the bird had collected (trash, bones, etc). While we were there, we got to watch the main male fix some of the sticks within the bower, add to and adjust the decorations, and fend off a roving group of younger males that were looking to cause trouble! Western Bowerbirds are quite intricately patterned and sport a vibrant fuschia crest that is usually hidden, but when there are rogue males around it can be quite prominent! We ended the afternoon with a brief discussion on the difficulties of separating the crows in the area as we watched a small group of Torresian Crows, and headed back to the hotel.
Day 17: Our plan for our first full day of birding in the desert was to head out dark and early to the west and into some of the surrounding canyons. The first stop was to Simpson’s Gap in West MacDonnell National Park, but before we even got to the gap we made two quick stops: one for a roving flock of Zebra Finches, and another for a group of Budgerigars. It’s so surreal to see these common cage birds out in the wild! Once we got to the gap, we were able to add a pair of Little Woodswallows to our species total, our final Woodswallow for the trip. Also present were a big group of White-plumed Honeyeaters (the bullies of the desert), Red-backed and Sacred Kingfishers, Gray Shrikethrushes, and some Mistletoebirds. We also managed to keep Chris’s streak alive in never missing Black-footed Rock-Wallaby spotting a couple fittingly high up on the rocks. After leaving the gap behind, we headed to the nearby ranger station and had an incredible experience with a group of Gray-crowned Babblers! We also finally got everyone caught up with Black-shouldered Kite, a bird that we normally have seen dozens of times by this point so it was good to finally get that squared away! Once we got back to the highway, we weren’t driving for too long before needing to stop the car for a stunning pair of Pink Cockatoos! Thankfully the road wasn’t too busy so we were able to sit with this pair, watching them fly around and raise their crests for a good while before heading towards Ormiston Gorge. Before turning down the entrance road to the gorge, we stopped and walked through the spinifex and porcupine grasses hoping for the aptly named Spinifexbird. We were in luck and fairly quickly found some of these weirdly shaped grassbirds. We also managed to kick up another Crested Bellbird! Next, we managed to find one of the main targets of the morning right in the parking lot of the gorge! Spinifex Pigeons are an absolutely stunning bird with a super long crest that makes them feel almost more like a quail than a dove. There was a little bit of water in the gorge, which was drawing some birds to it. Most shockingly was a pair of Nankeen Night Herons roosting up in one of the taller trees, a strange sight for being in the middle of a desert. As the heat of the day approached, we headed for lunch at Standley Chasm. As it was so hot, there were surprisingly few birds around, but we did manage to track down a Gray-headed Honeyeater and a Hooded Robin of note. After a short walk to the Chasm, we headed back to the hotel for an early evening.
Day 18: Our final day of birding on this marathon adventure of southern Australia! We spent the whole morning birding along the Santa Teresa Road heading south of town. We had barely passed the airport before we needed to make a quick stop for a Pallid Cuckoo! This migrant had just shown up in the area so it was a really nice one to see! Next we walked a short section of road with some larger mulga trees, and were immediately rewarded with a flyover flock of Cockatiel! These birds can be incredibly sparse and some years just aren’t around at all, so seeing them is a real treat! A little farther down the road we stopped for a Banded Whiteface territory we discovered a few years ago. The bird was still around and everyone was able to get great views! This species is still a fairly recent addition to the birds here and gets more common as you head further south into the outback. The main part of the morning was spent wandering around in the spinifex again looking for some of the rarer, harder to find, skulkier birds of the region: primarily Dusky Grasswren. It took some time to track one down as they are incredibly quiet birds, and even once we started hearing some it took us quite a while to actually spot them! Eventually though, they did finally come out into a relatively open spot and we were all able to see this really really challenging bird. The Grasswrens are famous in Australia for being an exceptionally difficult group to see, and we managed great looks at two different species on this tour! As we were walking back to the bus, a White-backed Swallow rocketed over us, giving us just enough of a view before it disappeared into the desert. Farther down the road just as we were turning around we stopped for a Chiming Wedgebill territory I found last year, and again the birds were still around and we got to see, and importantly hear this desert skulker. Hard to imagine that these birds are related to the Eastern Whipbirds we had way back in Royal National Park on the first day, they look and sound nothing alike! But their songs might be my favorite in all of Australia. After an afternoon siesta to get a break from the heat, we went to the local Sewage Ponds. Formerly a must stop whenever you came through Alice Springs, they now let nobody in, even the locals, and the best ponds just aren’t visible from the road. That being said, we were still able to see some birds including Whiskered Tern, Black-fronted Dotterel, Little Crows, and lots of Black Kites. Unfortunately the best birds were a zillion miles away, a pair of sky high Black Falcons; an incredibly challenging desert bird! The most cooperative thing at the ponds was definitely the Perentie that was chilling on the side of the road. While not a bird, this huge monitor lizard was still very impressive! The final stop of the day and the tour was to Emily Gap, where the final bird was a gorgeous Wedge-tailed Eagle soaring overhead. A fitting end to a magnificent tour!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/498822
You can see my iNaturalist report of non-avian taxa at this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/australia-2025-part-one
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/au125TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Chris and Alex