Greetings,
I visited Norfolk Island with my two sons (5 & 7 y.o) in mid-April of this
year.
All birding was done in their company, so it was by no means a hard-core
birding trip.
I benefited from reading several Norfolk Island trip reports on
Birding-Aus, the most current
to our trip was Jenny Spry's from the previous month, and I have nothing of
significance to
add to the locations and other trip information that she provided.
We went over to Phillip Island, and did a fishing trip the next day - with
the hope of getting to the continental
shelf (but didn't get there). We did however see Wilson's Storm-Petrel on
that fishing trip, which seems
to be previously unrecorded on Norfolk Island? I have some bad (but good
enough to confirm i.d.) photos.
Another bird of interest was having the opportunity to watch so many
Red-tailed Tropicbirds at close
quarters and with light from above, below, sideways, and every other
possible direction.
I couldn't get the tail to look even remotely white, irrespective of the
angle of the light, so I'm more convinced that the
white-tailed, coral-red-billed tropicbird I saw in January 2001 at
Hippolyte Rock, Tasmania was a Red-billed Tropicbird
(at that time unrecorded in Australia).
On non-birding matters, we loved the fabulous fungi all over the place,
including a stunning luminous
mushroom (I've got photos of that, too, taken at night using only the
illumination of the fungus if anyone wants to see),
and a crazy forest floor star-shaped liquid-filled insect-attracting
plant (photos on request), I think someone called
it star-of-the-forest, but I can't find out any more about it.
And finally, a non-natural history highlight - my sons and I did the
enjoyable morning bird tour with Margaret Christian,
along with three women from Sydney, who all turned out to be teachers and
two of them musicians (as am I).
Once this was realised, and following a phone-call from Margaret, we all
got invited to a music evening
(jam session/performance) that Margaret happened to be going to that
night, and over the course of the evening
I got to play with just about every musician on the island. It was a nice
interlude of not feeling like a tourist,
but briefly a member of the community.
Below is a bird list. Kermadec and White-necked Petrels were only seen as
young on Phillip Island -
Kermadec fully-feathered, White-necked were fluffy-balls.
We wandered around the National Park a bit at night, but no sign of any
Boobooks.
Cheers
Philip
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Philip Griffin
philipgriffin at gmail dot com
Red Junglefowl
California Quail
Feral Goose
Mallard
Pacific Black Duck
Kermadec Petrel
White-necked Petrel
Black-winged Petrel
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Wilson's Storm-Petrel
Red-tailed Tropicbird
Masked Booby
Little Black Cormorant
Greater Frigatebird
White-faced Heron
Swamp Harrier
Nankeen Kestrel
Purple Swamphen
Bar-tailed Godwit
Wandering Tattler
Ruddy Turnstone
Pacific Golden Plover
Double-banded Plover
Sooty Tern
Brown Noddy
Black Noddy
Grey Noddy
White Tern
Feral Pigeon
Pacific Emerald Dove
Crimson Rosella
Norfolk Island Parakeet
Sacred Kingfisher
Norfolk Island Gerygone
Pacific Robin
Norfolk Island Whistler
Grey Fantail
House Sparrow
European Goldfinch
European Greenfinch
Welcome Swallow
Silvereye
Slender-billed White-eye
Common Blackbird
Song Thrush
Common Starling
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