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Buff-breasted Buttonquail: an Update
A scientific report has been amended in response to criticism by some in the birding community that researchers were dismissive of multiple sight records of the extremely rare Buff-breasted...
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North Queensland, December 2021: Chasing wet season visitors
I wanted a few photo ticks from far North Queensland of species that can only or most easily be seen in the wet season, so I flew to Cairns last week on a cheap Covid tourism industry recovery fare...
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Painted or Buff-breasted? Buttonquail in the spotlight
Painted or Buff-breasted? Buttonquail, that is. In the image of specimens above by Patrick Webster, that’s a Painted Buttonquail on the left, a Buff-breasted Buttonquail on the right. The reputation...
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Timber company giant rejects modest rewilding trial for endangered rainforest
The timber giant HQPlantations and the Queensland Government are continuing to resist a modest proposal to trial the rewilding of pine plantation over a tiny fraction of the 330,000 hectares that the...
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No Ruff Too Tough
The Ruff is a rare visitor to eastern Australia. Although I’ve seen quite a few in Australia, especially when I lived in Perth, I’d not yet photographed the species in this country. So when one was...
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First New Caledonian Storm-Petrel record in Australia overlooked – for 50 years
Half a century ago, it was the habit of myself and a handful of birding enthusiast friends – notably Chris Corben, Glen Ingram and Anita Smyth – to regularly walk parts and occasionally all of the...
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Plains Wanderer and more – South-east Oz Autumn 2022 Part 1
We kicked off a 6-week road trip of NSW, Victoria and South Australia on April 20 with a couple of nights at Kookaburra Camping Ground near Deepwater in the northern highlands of NSW. This is a...
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White-bellied Whipbird & Black-eared Miner to Barking Owl: South-East Oz...
Following our visit to Victoria (next post) we crossed the border into South Australila for a pleasant couple of days at Mt Gambier, with its lovely Blue Lake. We had a couple more relaxed days at...
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Buff-breasted Buttonquail: Smoke & Mirrors
What follows is a transcript of my story in today’s edition of The Weekend Australian (2-3 July, 2022). The first three images in this blog post are central to the story. The first image is of a nest...
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Buff-breasted Buttonquail: An image claimed to be of this species revealed
A previously unpublished image above and below (cropped) is claimed by north Queensland naturalists John Young and Lloyd Nielsen to be a Buff-breasted Buttonquail. It was taken at a secret site late...
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Eastern Grass Owl
Very happy to snap the above image of an Eastern Grass Owl on the Maroochy River floodplain in August, 2022. More images of this bird or its mate below. The sky is more blue in the first image because...
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Eastern Grass Owl on the decline around the Sunshine Coast
The Eastern Grass Owl is regarded generally as scarce in Australia. In south-east Queensland it is restricted to tall grassland in coastal areas, often interspersed with sugar cane plantations. The...
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New Zealand Part 1: On the hunt for Great Spotted and Little Spotted Kiwis
The five species of kiwi endemic to New Zealand have long been among my favourite birds. Unlike so many NZ birds, all five have managed to survive the predations of stoats and other introduced pests,...
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New Zealand Part 2: Westland Petrel Flying High
Other than kiwis (following post) I was keen to catch up with a few other NZ birds I’d missed during my previous 6 or 7 visits to the country. One is an endemic breeding seabird, the Westland Petrel,...
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New Zealand Part 3: Orange-fronted Parakeet, NZ King Shag, North Island...
A highlight of our 3-week trip to New Zealand was a visit to Blumine Island in the stunning Queen Charlotte Sound, part of the Marlborough Sounds that dominate the landscape of the South Island’s...
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Buff-breasted Buttonquail & Coxen’s Fig-Parrot declared Critically Endangered...
The Queensland Government has pledged to work to save the Buff-breasted Buttonquail from extinction after upgrading its status to Critically Endangered, although the delay in doing so may mean the...
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Oriental Pratincole at Seven Mile Lagoon
The Oriental Pratincole is a very rare visitor to south-eastern Australia, so the finding by Colin Trainor of five pratincoles at Seven Mile Lagoon, in the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane, on November...
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A cautionary and spooky tale of travel drama in West Africa with a twist of...
The Rockjumper company logoSome people are impressed by the fact that I’ve seen 8000+ of the world’s 10,000+ species of birds, but if you've got the time and money to pay big bird tour companies for...
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Papua New Guinea Cruise Part 1: All at Sea
Red-footed Booby We’ve just returned from a 12-day cruise from Brisbane to Papua New Guinea aboard the Coral Princess from January 26 to February 6. I’ll post separately about productive birding...
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Papua New Guinea Cruise Part 2 : Birding the rainforest of New Britain near...
Black-capped Paradise-KingfisherDuring our cruise from Brisbane to Papua New Guinea, we had an overnight port stop in Rabaul in east New Britain. This allowed an opportunity for a morning of...
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