Thank you to all those who provided information on birdy spots in New
England and on the Mid North Coast. We arrived in Armidale last Thursday
and had our one and only dry night in tents. Fri we headed east into the
rain which continued on and off for the rest of our trip. In fact it rained
as far as Wellington on our way back to Canberra. Cathedral Rock NP and New
England NP were miserable with very little visibility and after a very wet
night at the latter (during which a Powerful Owl called at 1am) we headed
for Dorrigo and booked into a cabin close to the NP. With the weather
forecast on the coast being rather grim, we decided that was not an option
and the only thing to do was to don overpants and parkas and enjoy the
rainforest in the rain. Apart from Lewin's HE and the 3 spp of scrubwrens,
nothing called so we had to work hard for birds but had stunning views of a
lyrebird scratching with a YT Scrubwren lurking close by ready to grab any
stray bug and at one stage being covered by leaf litter kicked up by the
lyrebird. We did several walks from the rainforest centre, the Glade and
Never Never Picnic Area picking up a few species here and there. Finally on
Mon morning the sun actually appeared at sunrise so we headed for the
skywalk at the Rainforest Centre and were rewarded with Regent Bowerbirds -
male and female - plus Satin Bowerbirds. Logrunners were calling below and
we managed to track them down and had good views but every time a camera
appeared they hid behind tree trunks. Green Catbirds were also very active,
along with Eastern and Pale Yellow Robins, Brush Turkey, Brown Cuckoo Dove
and Whipbirds. No luck with pittas or riflebirds but we were happy. We
wasted a lot of time waiting for heavy rain to stop - thank goodness for the
cafe at the Rainforest Centre and we had our only view of a Rose Robin
through the cafe windows - and in the end decided that any trip to the Coffs
coast would be very rushed and would just have to wait for next time. We
ended up with 110 species for the trip, with the last 2 being a rufous phase
Pallid Cuckoo near Wellington and an OB Oriole at Cowra. A few photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/
Sue Lashko
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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