Birdwatching Holiday Australia

Southeast Australia: Tasmania, Victoria & Plains-wanderer

Sunday 21 September to Thursday 2 October 2008

Sunday 27 September to Thursday 8 October 2009
with David Fisher and Judy Davis as leaders
and Tonia Cochran, Phil Maher, Ed McNabb and Richard Loyn as

local guides

Cost: £2730 (2009) In country price only - allow £1100 for return flights from London if booked by Sunbird
Single room supplement: £260

Click here for explanation of price breakdown

Maximum group size: 7 with 1 leader; 14 with 2 leaders.

Bird List
Booking Form

'David and Judy did a marvellous job throughout. Apart from all their other excellent qualities as leaders, we were particularly appreciative of their driving skills, whether in heavy traffic or on quiet tracks. They even managed, on top of showing us the birds and wildlife, to keep us all in order! And entertained - and happy. Grateful thanks to all the local guides too.' D. Smith and H. Brooke 2007.

This tour to Tasmania, Victoria, and southern New South Wales passes through a wide variety of habitats and climates. The Victorian countryside seems reassuringly familiar due to two centuries of European settlement, but the birds that inhabit it are anything but familiar. Large flocks of exotic parrots feed on the verges along the highways, and multicoloured fairy-wrens and honeyeaters fill the woods, while kangaroos graze in the paddocks, and Koalas look down from giant Eucalyptus trees. Tasmania holds many endemics include some fascinating birds – even flightless ones such as the Tasmanian Native Hen. And the area around Deniliquin in southern New South Wales seems much wilder – almost the outback – with major ornithological attractions including the almost mythical Plains-wanderer.

This tour can be taken in conjunction with our Central Australia tour, followed for those who wish by our Eastern Australia tour. Because of this the dates refer to Melbourne to Melbourne and the tour price does not include the international airfare from London. This allows those people wanting to combine sections to calculate the total cost of their tour.

David Fisher first visited Australia in 1985 and this will be his 23rd Sunbird tour there.

Day 1: The tour starts in Melbourne at 14.00 when there will be an excursion to a local park to see our first colourful Australian birds including Galahs, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Red-rumped Parrots, and Laughing Kookaburras. As well as these widespread species in previous years this park has also produced less common birds including Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Crested Shrike-Tit, and Varied Sittella. Night near Melbourne airport.

Day 2: We'll catch an early morning flight to Hobart in Tasmania, from where we'll drive south to Bruny Island. En route we'll stop to look for our first Tasmanian endemics perhaps including noisy Yellow Wattlebirds, and Yellow-throated and Strong-billed Honeyeaters. We'll catch a ferry across to the island, stopping first at the terminal to look at the Black-faced Shags on the harbour side pylons. All of Tasmania's endemics occur on Bruny Island, most of them on the property owned by our local guide Tonia Cochran. We'll spend the afternoon walking around her private estate looking in particular for Green Rosella, Dusky Robin, and Forty-spotted Pardalote. Night on Bruny Island.

Day 3: We'll spend a delightful day exploring the forests and farmland of Bruny Island, searching for the remaining endemics - the enormous and flightless Tasmanian Native-Hen, and the diminutive Tasmanian Scrubwren, Scrub-Tit, Tasmanian Thornbill, and Black-headed Honeyeater. We'll also search for a number of species that are easier to find on Tasmania than on the Australian mainland including Hooded Plover, Brush Bronzewing, Swift Parrot, Flame Robin, Crescent Honeyeater, and Forest Raven. Tasmania is famous for having a more intact marsupial fauna due to there being fewer introduced predators, so after dinner there will be an optional night-drive mostly in search of mammals including Bennett's Wallaby, Rufous-bellied Pademelon, Long-nosed Poteroo and Eastern Quoll, though we'll also probably see our first Little Penguins and Short-tailed Shearwaters. Night on Bruny Island.

Day 4: The final Tasmanian endemic, Black Currawong, winters on Bruny Island and at the time of our visit they may have all left for the Tasmanian mainland. We will leave the itinerary for this day flexible to accommodate this possibility and if there is none left on Bruny will return to Hobart in the morning and drive up to Mt. Field National Park where the currawongs breed. In the late afternoon we will catch a flight back to Melbourne where we will spend the night.

Day 5: Today we'll drive southwest of Melbourne to Brisbane Ranges National Park where we'll look for cute Koalas and striking Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters. Later we'll visit a small swamp near Geelong where Latham's Snipe spend the northern winter, before driving down the spectacular Great Ocean Road to Airey's Inlet where we'll look for the local Rufous Bristlebird and where a seawatch from a nearby headland may reveal a Shy Albatross or two. Night in Melbourne.

Day 6: We'll leave early for the long drive north to Deniliquin through Victoria, and then across the famous Murray River into New South Wales. We'll arrive in the Deniliquin area in time for lunch, and will spend two nights here. While there are many species to be seen here, the main reason for visiting Deniliquin is to search for Plains-wanderer, a unique species in its own family, and this will be our main focus. It is a cryptic, buttonquail-like bird that can be very hard to find, but by driving at night across the short-grass native pasturelands in this area, accompanied by local expert Phil Maher, we have a very good chance of finding this fascinating and rarely seen bird. Night in Deniliquin.

Day 7: The time of our start will depend on how late we stay out the previous night, but we'll spend the day in the Deniliquin area searching for local specialities that we are unlikely to see elsewhere during our tour such as Australasian Bittern, Inland Dotterel, Superb Parrot, Crested Shrike-tit, and Gilbert's Whistler. In the evening we'll have a second chance for Plains-wanderer should we have missed it the previous evening. Night in Deniliquin.

Day 8: We'll spend another morning birding around Deniliquin with Phil, then in the afternoon we'll drive east to the small town of Chiltern where we'll spend the night. We may arrive in time to make a first visit to the nearby National Park.

Day 9: Close to Chiltern is the recently designated Chiltern-Mt. Pilot National Park. This park was set up in 1997 to protect the box-ironbark forest which once covered much of northeast Victoria. It is now home to one of the few scattered populations of the endangered Regent Honeyeater, and during our morning in the park we'll search for this scarce species. Other birds that we hope to see include Turquoise Parrot, Little Lorikeet, Speckled Warbler, and Black-chinned and Fuscous Honeyeaters. In the afternoon we'll drive south to Healesville where we will spend two nights.

Day 10: This morning we'll make a very early start and visit Badger Weir, where the great attraction is Superb Lyrebird, indisputably the world's most remarkable mimic. It's a bird that is easy to hear but hard to see. While walking the forest tracks in search of the great mimic we should see Rose Robin and the spectacular Eastern Spinebill among others. After breakfast we'll visit a local park where Australian King Parrots and Common Bronzewings are abundant and provide excellent photographic opportunities. We'll also see an active bower of Satin Bowerbird and watch how the male decorates the bower with various blue items in order to entice the females of the area to visit and mate with him. In the afternoon we'll visit Toolangi State Forest in search of Gang-gang Cockatoo, Pink Robin, Pilotbird, and Olive Whistler, and to marvel at the ancient Mountain Ash trees some of which are over 200 feet tall! After dinner there will be an optional spotlighting trip in search of Sooty Owl and we should see Greater Gliders and, with luck, a Yellow-bellied Glider as well. Night in Healesville.

Day 11: We’ll have another chance to look for Lyrebirds if they eluded us the previous day and then after breakfast we'll search for Powerful Owl at a regular roost-site. Later we'll drive back to Melbourne stopping en route to look at a vast 'camp' of Grey-headed Flying-Foxes. Thousands of these amazing creatures roost in an area of parkland on the edge of the city. In the late afternoon we'll reach our hotel near Melbourne airport where we'll spend the night.

Day 12: The tour ends after breakfast. Those joining the Central Australia tour will catch a morning flight to Adelaide.

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Last updated August 2008