Birdwatching Holiday Australia

Central Australia: South Australia and Northern Territory

Thursday 2 October to Tuesday 14 October 2008

Thursday 8 October to Tuesday 20 October 2009
with David Fisher and Judy Davis as leaders
and David Harper and Niven McCrie as local guides

Cost: £3480 (2009) In country price only - allow £1100 for return flights from London if booked by Sunbird
Single room supplement: £380

Click here for explanation of price breakdown

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

Bird List
Booking Form

'You asked for an evaluation of the Australia trip. I had a wonderful time. David is the most patient and knowledgeable of leaders. He made sure we saw everything no matter how many times he was asked where the creature was. His enthusiasm for the trip made it so enjoyable for me. His sense of humour was evident throughout.'M-J Karger 2003

Our Central Australia tour visits South Australia and the Northern Territory, two states that contain vast tracts of uninhabited desert wilderness, with the only cities of any size being located in the extreme south and the extreme north. We’ll explore the areas around both of these cities – Adelaide and Darwin – and will also visit Alice Springs smack in the centre of Australia. After a visit to the famous saltpans near St Kilda with its teeming hordes of wintering Palearctic waders, we’ll travel out from Adelaide via the vineyards of the Barossa Valley to the mallee around Glue Pot reserve in search of many special inland birds restricted to this specific habitat, including the fascinating Malleefowl. Then we’ll fly into the Red Centre around Alice, where spectacular desert scenery forms a backdrop to the many wonderful birds we’ll see.

We’ll also visit world-famous Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) and Kata_Tjuta (the Olgas) National Park to view these spectacular geological features including watching the sunset at the rock. Darwin in contrast is tropical – humid, lush and green with a rich and colourful avifauna. The town suburbs are filled with exotic birds and other bizarre wildlife and well merit the three nights we will spend there, before we travel out to the World Heritage Area of Kakadu famous for its waterbird spectacles, crocodiles, water buffalo, and aboriginal culture.

This tour can be taken in conjunction with either or both of our tours Southeast Australia and Eastern Australia. Because of this the dates refer to Adelaide to Darwin 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 at Adelaide airport at 10.00. From there we’ll drive north into the suburbs and check in to our hotel. After lunch in a nearby restaurant we’ll spend the afternoon visiting a local wetland reserve where good numbers of waterfowl may include Australasian Shoveler and the cute Pink-eared Duck. Depending upon the state of the tide we may also visit the nearby tidal mud flats for a selection of herons, egrets, ibises and waders, perhaps including Pied and Sooty Oystercatchers. Night in Adelaide.

Day 2: We’ll spend the morning at the St Kilda Saltfields, home to masses of waterbirds including Musk Duck, Banded Stilt, Pied Oystercatcher and Fairy Tern. Palearctic waders winter here in their thousands and we should be able to study Sharp-tailed and Curlew Sandpipers, and Red-necked Stints at close quarters. After lunch we’ll drive through the world famous vineyards of the Barossa Valley, stopping at Altona Scrub, an area with a rich diversity of indigenous plants. Here we’ll search the mixed Native Pine forest for birds such as Yellow Thornbill, Rufous Whistler and the spectacular Diamond Firetail. Later in the day we'll travel beyond the Mount Lofty Ranges to Brookfield Conservation Park where at dusk we’ll visit a colony of the rare and endangered Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat! Then we’ll drive on to Waikerie where we’ll spend two nights.

Day 3: Today we’ll visit Gluepot, a reserve run by Birds Australia, Australia’s main ornithological conservation organisation. This reserve, the jewel in the crown of Birds Australia's properties is home to no less than six nationally threatened species, some of which we’ll have a good chance of seeing, such as the highly sought after Red-lored Whistler, Striated Grasswren, and Black-eared Miner. Throughout the day we’ll have plenty of time to visit various habitat types that make the reserve so special, including mallee scrub where we should have little trouble in finding birds such as Southern Scrub-robin, Chestnut Quail-thrush, Gilbert’s Whistler and the local race of the spectacular Splendid Fairy-wren. It is in this scrub that we’ll visit a mound of the Malleefowl. This distinctive member of the Megapode family is famous for it’s massive mound nests in which the eggs are incubated by rotting vegetation, the temperature of which is controlled by the parent birds that either pile extra sand on top of the mound or scrape it off depending upon the outside temperature. If we are lucky the birds themselves may be in attendance. In taller old growth mallee we’ll find several species of honeyeaters that should include White-fronted, White-eared and the unique Striped Honeyeater. Later on we’ll look for White-browed Treecreepers and Crested Bellbirds in mixed Black Oak woodland and search the more open woodland and grassy bluebush clearings in the western half of the reserve for birds such as Mulga Parrot, Chestnut-crowned Babbler, and Southern Whiteface. The bird list for the reserve is extensive and the possibilities for us are almost endless. Night in Waikerie.

Day 4: This morning we’ll briefly visit Eremophila Park to look for Malleefowl if we missed it at Gluepot. From here we’ll travel the back roads to Morgan searching for the gaudy Regent Parrot and the curious-looking Apostlebird, calling in at Hart’s Lagoon on the way where we’ll see many species of waterbirds, possibly including Freckled Duck. At Morgan we’ll cross the famous Murray River by ferry and after lunch we’ll look for Ground Cuckoo-shrike and Redthroat. Then we’ll drive back to Adelaide stopping for any birds we may have missed up to this point. Night in Adelaide.

Day 5: A morning flight will take us to Alice Springs, in the centre of Australia. This is desert country and contrasts strongly with the more temperate south. Known as the Red Centre for good reason the local landscape is dominated by the rich red colour of the rocks and the sparse vegetation provides a home for a surprisingly rich avifauna. After lunch in town we’ll visit Simpson’s Gap National Park, open scrub country with a wealth of central Australian birds including Pied Butcherbird, Crested Bellbird, Western Gerygone, Grey-headed Honeyeater, Zebra Finch, Black-faced and Little Woodswallows and, with luck, Dusky Grasswren. Local rainfall in these deserts determines the presence or absence of many nomadic species and some years we also see Budgerigar, Diamond Dove, Rufous Songlark and Painted Firetail. Among the marsupials, Black-flanked Rock Wallaby is a local speciality. Night in Alice Springs.

Day 6: In the morning we’ll visit one of two spots further away from town. Our choice of which will be determined by the local conditions, but whichever we choose we’ll be searching for many of the same species including Spinifex Pigeon, Dusky Grasswren, Western Bowerbird, and Red-browed Pardalote, amongst others. In the afternoon we’ll visit the Old Telegraph Station next to the spring after which the town was named. If the waterhole is wet various species may be coming down to drink. This is also a good spot to see Common Walleroo. In the evening we’ll visit a pool where Bourke’s Parrots come to drink at dusk. Night in Alice Springs.

Day 7: Today we’ll take a charter flight to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) and Kata_Tjuta (Mount Olga), spectacular geological formations famous throughout the world. Much of the day will be spent learning about the formations, their natural history, and their meaning and significance to the local Aboriginal people, but we’ll also keep an eye out for Crimson Chat, White-fronted Honeyeater and, depending on seasonal conditions, various other honeyeaters and woodswallows. We’ll stay to watch the sunset at the Rock, then fly back to Alice after dark. Night in Alice Springs.

Day 8: We’ll make a pre-breakfast visit to the ponds of the local sewage works to look for Hoary-headed Grebe, Hardhead, Red-necked Avocet, Black-fronted Plover, and White-backed Swallow. Being the only extensive wetland in the middle of a vast desert, the ponds attract any species that is passing through and almost every visit in the past has turned up something unusual. These have included such unlikely birds as Pied Cormorant, Freckled Duck, Grey-tailed Tattler, Pectoral Sandpiper, Long-toed Stint, Silver Gull, Orange Chat, and Brown Songlark. Who knows what we may find!

After breakfast we’ll catch a late morning flight to Darwin for a three-night stay. Here we’ll enter the tropics and will encounter many new and colourful species for the first time. Figbirds perch on many roadside wires, White-bellied Cuckoo-shrikes undulate overhead, and Torresian Imperial-Pigeons sit in the treetops. After checking in to our hotel we’ll visit the nature reserve at nearby East Point. Orange-footed Scrubfowl – our second megapode – strut around the lawns that fringe the reserve and Agile Wallabies graze on the short turf. Depending upon the tide we may check the exposed reefs for roosting waders which are likely to include Greater and Lesser Sandplovers, Asiatic Golden Plover, Grey-tailed Tattler, Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint and Red-capped Plover. If the tide is low Eastern Reef Egrets and Striated Herons are sure to be fishing in the rocky pools, and the occasional Brahminy Kite will be drifting overhead. Night in Darwin.

Days 9-10: We’ll spend these two days visiting a variety of excellent birding spots around the town. These are sure to include the following:

At Howard Springs we’ll walk the nature trail in search of the brilliant-coloured and aptly named Rainbow Pitta. Most of the world’s pittas are extremely hard-to-see skulking birds, but this one is the exception. In addition to the pitta there are lots of other forest birds to look for including Australasian Koel, Spangled Drongo, Shining Flycatcher, Little Shrike-Thrush, Yellow and Olive-backed Orioles, and a variety of strikingly patterned tropical honeyeaters. There is also a camp of Black Flying-Foxes here, as well as many exotic lizards, colourful turtles and exotic butterflies.

We’ll visit Buffalo Creek, where depending upon the state of tide, we have a slight chance of glimpsing a Chestnut Rail. It spends most of its time hidden in dense mangroves, but we’ll certainly hear it calling and with great luck might even see it. While we scan for the rail other mangrove species will entertain us perhaps including noisy Black Butcherbirds, musical Green-backed Gerygones, dainty Yellow White-eyes, and colourful Azure Kingfishers. On the nearby beach large flocks of migrant waders and terns may be roosting and these should include many of the waders that breed in Siberia and winter in Australia. A few resident waders may also be present, best of which would be the massive but surprisingly elusive Beach Thick-knee.

Palmerston sewage ponds may hold a few waterbirds to interest us (as well as our only real chance for a Freshwater Crocodile) but it is the fringing mangroves that will be our main focus as this is one of the few spots where we can hope to see Mangrove Robin, Mangrove Fantail, and Mangrove Gerygone. The surrounding grassy patches can also be good for finches perhaps including colourful Crimson Finches and beautifully patterned Chestnut-breasted Mannikins.

A late afternoon visit to Knuckey’s Lagoon is always a delight as large numbers of waterbirds are always present including many herons, ducks and waders. We’ll search amongst hundreds of Pied Herons, Magpie Geese, Radjah Shelducks, Green Pygmy-Geese and Comb-crested Jacanas for scarcer species such as Wood Sandpiper and Long-toed Stint. In the past local rarities have included Garganey, Ruff, Little Ringed Plover, Oriental Pratincole, and Yellow Chat so who knows what we may find.

We’ll also visit a number of special stakeouts for such sought-after species as Little Whimbrel, Oriental Plover, Rufous and Barking Owls, Tawny Frogmouth, Northern Rosella and Collared Kingfisher. Nights in Darwin.

Day 11: We’ll drive to Fogg Dam in the early morning stopping along the way to look for Australasian Bush-Lark and Long-tailed Finch. The lagoons behind the dam were originally a rice-growing scheme but thousands and Magpie Geese quickly put paid to that idea and the area was turned into a nature reserve instead. Now it is a mass of reed-beds and lily-covered ponds, home to thousands of waterbirds. Amongst the scarcer species we’ll be searching for Brolga, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, White-browed Crake, Broad-billed and Restless (Paperbark) Flycatchers, Tawny Grassbird, and Golden-headed Cisticola. Later we’ll drive on to Kakadu National Park, a vast World Heritage Site famous for its wildlife, its scenery and its aboriginal culture. We’ll make various birding stops along the way to look for Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Partridge Pigeon, Mangrove Golden Whistler, and Black-tailed Treecreeper. If we are very lucky, we might even come across a Gouldian Finch or two. Night at Cooinda.

Day 12: While most of Kakadu National Park is covered in dry eucalyptus forest, it is the seasonally flooded waterways that form its widely perceived image in most people’s minds. And this is what we will experience in the early morning when we’ll make a memorable boat trip on the Yellow Water. Most tourists come here to see Saltwater Crocodiles – the famous man-eating beasts that still do that from time to time (though fortunately not in the park!). We’ll see plenty of ‘Salties’ but our main focus will be the wealth of waterbirds all around us. Those who like to count or estimate their birds will be hard pressed this morning, as we’ll cruise past hundreds, possibly thousands, of herons, egrets, Wandering and Plumed Whistling-Ducks, Magpie Geese, Green Pygmy-Geese, Comb-crested Jacanas, and many other species. We’ll have some specific targets in mind and will be searching for Great-billed Heron, Little Kingfisher, Rufous-sided Robin, Arafura Fantail, and Bar-breasted Honeyeater, the latter best found by looking in any flowering paperbark trees along the watercourse. Photographic opportunities from the boat will be excellent and photographers will want to make sure they have plenty of free space on their memory cards.

Later in the morning we’ll visit Nourlangie Rock, famous for its aboriginal rock paintings, which we’ll view and while walking around the rock we’ll hope to see one of more of the scarce local specialities which include Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Great Bowerbird, Sandstone Shrike-Thrush, Silver-crowned Friarbird and White-lined Honeyeater. In the afternoon we’ll drive back to Darwin where we’ll spend the night. We should have time to stop to look for any species that we might still be missing. Night in Darwin.

Day 13: The tour ends in Darwin after breakfast. Those joining the Eastern Australia tour will catch an early morning flight to Cairns.