Trip to Australia – June and July 2016

Cohunu Koala Park Review – 13th of July

Just down the road from the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre is another small zoo, the Cohunu Koala Park. This is a very strange zoo and different to all of the other zoos that I have written about in this thread in that I thought it was terrible and it's really not worth visiting unless you want to see its weirdness in person or have a spare $15 dollars that you need to get rid of. I have uploaded lots of pictures to the Australia - Other Gallery and I have posted a species list here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/cohunu-koala-park-show-species-list-459577/.

The zoo has quite a large car park and from the car park you go through a gate in a fence which I assume is to keep the free-roaming animals from going onto the road. From here there is then quite a large area of empty land with nothing in it – not even plants – except the track for the train that goes around the zoo which goes through here. There are several random national flags along the path leading up to the main entrance/exit building which looks to be quite modern and also holds the Koala enclosure (that I would look at at the end). Inside this is a small gift shop and a few snack machines as well as a small cage containing a pet Long-billed Corella, similar to that at the entrance to the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Park. Also sold at the entrance building are little bags of popcorn that are sold to be fed to the animals.

There is no particular order to the zoo, and no map as far as I know, and it seems to be random enclosures dotted around all over the place so I just went into the zoo and wandered around in as logical an order as possible in this very illogical zoo to make sure I saw everything. I started with the area right next to the entrance

where the first thing I noticed were loads of free-roaming peafowl and this continued throughout the zoo with more peafowl and lots of free-roaming animals in general. In front of the Koala area (the entrance to which was out of a different door in the gift shop) was a row of bird enclosures that can only be described as wire boxes as they were basically a row of metal-framed cubes with the sides made entirely out of wire, and a corrugated iron roof on top. Though the cages looked awful, they weren’t so tiny, and each had some branches arranged in perches, and nest boxes for the smaller birds. In these enclosures were Budgies (blue and green ones) Princess Parrots (again normal and blue) mixed with a superb parrot, cockatiel, zebra finches, and the main row of cages that were joined up were Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Galah, and Major Mitchell Cockatoo. All of these, even the larger parrots were kept in small groups rather than singularly.

Opposite the bird cages are the enclosures for Rabbits and Guinea Pigs. One of these was an open-topped low walled enclosure (with a crumbling wall) that as well as having Rabbits and Guinea Pigs also had loads of Peafowl and several small children. I have no idea if the small children were supposed to be in there or not because I didn’t see a single member of staff around the zoo at all apart from the person driving the train, the person at the till at the entrance, and the person with the Koalas for the cuddle/photo with the Koala. The lack of keepers being around hadn’t dawned on me at this point and I started to notice the odd lack of anyone official being around about halfway through my visit.
In addition to the open-topped enclosure for Rabbits and Guinea Pigs, there were also two small mesh enclosures that contained the individuals that were for sale to visitors.

Also around this same area was the enclosure for Echidnas and Bobtail Skinks with a some quite nice big wattle trees around. This wasn’t a particularly bad enclosure. It wasn’t brilliant, but it had some logs and things, a sandy substrate, and a reasonable amount of space with two very active echidnas and a not-so-active Bobtail Skink. What was bad about this enclosure though was that the ground was covered in popcorn, as sold by the zoo to feed to the animals. It wasn’t just the ground that was covered in popcorn, the echidnas also had popcorn stuck firmly onto themselves!

The other thing worth mentioning from around this area was that, like everywhere else in the zoo, there were several very big and very ugly looking models of dinosaurs and other things. As well as just being inherently ugly things, what made them worse was that a significant number of them were partially broken and had paint coming off. Around this area the models that could be seen included a Pterosaur leaning over into the rabbit enclosure, a group of Velociraptors, Humpty Dumpty, a family of cartoon koalas, and an odd blue dragon.

I then continued to a circular aviary that was divided into two halves, one for Laughing Kookaburras, and the other for Boobook Owls and Tawny Frogmouths. The enclosures weren’t bad being large enough with some perches, and this was one of only three enclosures (or places in the zoo in general) with a ground cover of plants, and having greenery around is not something that you tend to notice but it really makes a big difference, particularly considering the huge areas of bare red-brown ground that this zoo had. There was a horrible dinosaur too of course, this time a blue Stegosaurus nearby.

I then continued past the end of the Dingo enclosure that I would come back to later to the 'Crocodile Station' which is where you can pay to have a train ride around the zoo. On either side of the station were two pit-style enclosures, one with the word 'wombats' written in a funny font next to the enclosure, and the other with 'crocodiles'. Both were empty, and both would probably not have been great for the named inhabitants anyway. My guess is that they once held them and they no longer do. I then continued around to the Dingo enclosure itself, passing a feeding area for free-roaming Emus. I had already seen a couple walking around, but there were several gathered around here and there was nothing to stop, or discourage people from walking up to them.

I then continued down a path running between the farm area and the dingo enclosure. The farm area was comprised of an enclosure for pigs, and a larger walkthrough enclosure with some small ponies, goats, and donkeys. As well as people being able to enter the enclosure, the animals themselves were actually able to walk out of it because the gate was left open. This seemed to be intentional because there was a sign saying that if the inhabitants of the enclosure were not there, they would be out grazing around the park. I imagine this is a bit difficult for them though because there is no grass, so most of them stayed in their enclosure where there is hay. The ones that did come out of the enclosure and approach visitors did get popcorn though.

Opposite this was the Dingo enclosure in which the Dingoes were, thankfully, securely contained, and it would not be easy for anyone to climb into the enclosure which was good because it was at around this point that I started to notice that if anyone tried to climb into the enclosure, there was no staff member around to stop them. The Dingo enclosure actually wasn’t bad though. It was fairly large and well vegetated, particularly compared to the standards of the rest of the zoo, with grass and big trees. There was also a large mound of dirt that the Dingoes could go on top of with a large pipe underneath for the Dingoes to go in.


Continuing past the Dingo enclosure, I came to a pond, complete with a hideous sea monster thing. There were a few bushes around here though, and a bit of vegetation on an island in the middle. This pond wasn’t enclosed within any fences, but most of the waterfowl that was free-roaming around the zoo stayed around here which were a pair of Black Swans, a Muscovy Duck, a group of Domestic Geese, and a fairly large group of Australian Pelicans. Both the pelicans and the geese actually tried to attack me when I got close, which was difficult to avoid because they were sitting on the path. The other thing that I particularly criticise about this area was how terribly dirty the pond and the surrounding paths were.

In area around the pond was another animal exhibit that was a row of tiny mesh aviaries, each holding a single talking parrot with Major Mitchell Cockatoos, Galahs, Little and Long-billed Corellas, and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos being the species held.

Each aviary had a water and food dish, a perch, and a tin can for the bird to play with, but otherwise they were just bare mesh aviaries. Having a single aviary could maybe be justified as having a pet parrot, particularly if the parrot regularly came out of the aviary to be handled, but it looked like this row of aviaries had parrots living in them permanently. They did seem to be quite friendly though, coming up to the bars and sticking their heads out through them to be stroked, though one parrot decided that when it had had enough of being stroked, it would bite a child that came up to it to try and stroke it. This picture of the back of the aviaries gives an idea of how big this row was.

There were also a few odd things around here that weren’t living animals. The train track ran nearby to here and beyond that, behind some trees, was an area where huge broken dinosaurs had just been dumped. There were some non-broken models in the area too including a Triceratops, a Sabre-toothed Tiger, several giant scorpions and an absolutely huge model of a Quokka. There was also a seating area and, rather oddly, a deep-space observatory located above the toilet block with a sign saying it was being developed as funds became available. I couldn’t help think that they’d be better off developing the zoo than the observatory! I don’t know if I was supposed to go up onto the platform of the observatory or not, but there were no signs saying I shouldn’t so I did, which gave a view over the whole zoo.

This is what is shown in each of the pictures that I took from there that pretty much covers the whole zoo: (it may be worth viewing the full-sized images to see the details).

http://www.zoochat.com/673/view-zoo-deep-space-observatory-cohunu-459635/ Dingo enclosure on the left of the path, and farmyard enclosures and Emu feeding area on the right.

http://www.zoochat.com/673/view-zoo-deep-space-observatory-cohunu-459636/ Edge of farmyard enclosures on the left of the picture and kangaroo/deer walkthrough on the right.

http://www.zoochat.com/673/view-zoo-deep-space-observatory-cohunu-459637/ Kangaroo/deer walkthrough on the left of the picture and pond area on the right

http://www.zoochat.com/673/view-zoo-deep-space-observatory-cohunu-459638/
Row of tiny parrot cages on the left of the picture, picnic area in the centre, and giant Quokka on the right.

http://www.zoochat.com/673/view-zoo-deep-space-observatory-cohunu-459639/
The entrance/exit building (lower roof) and Koala enclosure (higher roof) with some of the ugly models in between.

After looking at the view from the platform of the deep space observatory, I continued on to the kangaroo/deer walkthrough which holds Red, and Western Grey Kangaroos, as well as Swamp Wallabies, Red, and Fallow Deer, as well as lots of Peafowl. The enclosure wasn’t actually that bad, it seemed large enough and there was a sheltered barn area for the animals.

There were several joeys too that I assume were bred at the park, so that must be a good sign. The ground cover in the enclosure was an odd grey sand though, and there didn’t seem to be an area where the animals could get away from people going up to them, touching them, and giving them popcorn. I don’t know if it was intended that people stay on the paths, but they weren’t, and there were no signs or volunteers/keepers to tell them to do so. At the end of the kangaroo enclosure was an adjoining enclosure housing two male Common Ostrich. This did seem to be a pretty good enclosure though with lots of space, grass, and trees, though it was a bit odd that the viewing was from within the kangaroo walkthrough.

This was actually the last enclosure at the Cohunu Koala Park, apart from the Koala enclosure that I would look at on the way out. But because the enclosures were just randomly dotted around, I walked around a bit to make sure I had seen everything. The one bit that I hadn’t seen yet was a huge area of nothingness behind the train station that was only used as an area for the train to drive around.

However it did have lots of free-roaming animals, including lots of Alpacas, Llamas, Guinea Fowl, Turkeys, and Chickens. There were also two Western Grey Kangaroos that may or may not have been part of the zoo’s collection. This was a really ugly looking area though. Although there were lots of trees, there were no ground cover plants at all, and just bare ground with piles of rubble and bits of wire all over the place. There was also a really weird castle thing that the train went through that looked really odd where it was.

After seeing that, I was confident I had seen everything in the zoo apart from the exhibit I was leaving until last which was the Koala exhibit. There was a keeper here, the first keeper I had seen during my entire visit, who was looking after a baby Llama, and also doing the cuddle/photo with a Koala that is available for an additional cost ($30 on top of a $15 entry fee). I didn’t do it of course. The Koala enclosure itself was a wooden frame with Eucalyptus leaves in holders, the kind of thing that is quite common in Australian zoos, though I personally don’t like it and much prefer a more natural looking enclosure.

They had about half a dozen Koalas, of which two were Southern Koalas, and the rest Northern, and there was a big sign about the keeping of koalas at Cohunu Koala Park, one of precious few signs anywhere in the zoo. Also in the visitor area of the Koala exhibit was a row of small bird cages, each with a single Australian Ringneck Parrot or Rainbow Lorikeet.

I had then seen everything in the zoo so I headed out, stopping to note a sign showing the zoo’s rather odd logo. I also note on their website that as well as displaying the logo, they have the slogan "About as close to nature as you’ll ever get!" What rubbish. So it’s not difficult to work out that I didn’t like Cohunu Koala Park much at all. Some of it was so ridiculous that it’s almost comical. A few of the enclosures weren’t bad, but many were absolutely awful, particularly for the parrots. I may have been slightly less harsh about this zoo if it wasn’t in Australia, but generally the quality of Australian zoos that I have seen has been excellent, and I expected more. The zoo also seemed really, really neglected. Paths were dirty and covered in animal poo, many enclosures were dirty, there were empty enclosures that were simply abandoned, and broken stuff was just left out in the visitor area. The lack of planting also made the place seem abandoned, and of course the lack of keepers or volunteers anywhere made it seem neglected. Then there’s all the weird stuff around the zoo. Why is there a half-built deep space observatory on the toilet block? And there are so many horrible dinosaurs and other models all over the place. I understand that those are a big attraction to small children, but they could at least paint them, and properly dispose of old ones rather than leaving them in a big pile. The next thing is all the free-roaming animals, and the environment that they are wandering around in is surely not great for them, and there was serious overkill on the number of peafowl all over the place. It also seems to be a potential safety hazard with the potentially dangerous free-roaming animals completely unsupervised. Normally I would also complain about the near-complete lack of signage throughout the zoo, but there were bigger problems at the Cohunu Koala Park than that.

I think a big part of the problem is that the zoo doesn’t know whether it is a wildlife park or a petting zoo, and at the moment it seems to be trying to do both and failing at both. The basic infrastructure is there, but the zoo needs some care and attention and it has the potential to be a good small zoo. Or with a big injection of cash, it has the potential to be a great medium sized zoo. But at the moment it’s neither and is a very weird, neglected, and generally pretty awful zoo.

 

Bungendore Park and Wungong Gorge – 16th of July

After several zoos visited over the last two weeks, I then had a half day trip to an area near Perth called Wungong Gorge/Reservoir/Dam (and also Bungendore Park) in the Araluen-Wungong Important Bird Area. This won’t be a particularly long post, as it was only a short trip, but I thought there was enough to make it worth posting. I had read about the area on the internet and in the Finding Australian Birds book, and it seemed to have quite a few bird species that I was interested in seeing and seemed to be one of the better places near Perth for South Western Australian endemic birds. Coincidentally, it is also quite near both the Cohunu Koala Park and the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre.

I wanted to head out early to get there not long after sunrise. Unfortunately, I was going with my family so that wasn’t going to happen, but we still left a bit earlier than usual for them, so we got there a couple of hours later than would be ideal. I had been hoping to look out for Western Brush-wallabies in the paddocks along the road leading to the reservoir which apparently come out to graze a little after sunrise, but it was too late in the day for them. I did see one new bird from the drive there though, which was an Australian Hobby. Just a year bird, and I was unlucky not to have seen them at my last visit to Herdsman Lake (I saw two on my next visit), but still a good start. We would be visiting two separate sites, starting with several hours around Wungong Dam and then an hour or so in the neighbouring Bungendore Park.

Using the information that I had about the best places to see birds around here, I went to the field directly opposite the road from the car park and around a huge pipe to look for certain species. This area seemed to be covered in birds. There were flocks of small birds hopping about in the open and in the nearby bushes. The vast majority of these were dozens of Silvereyes, followed by quite large numbers of Yellow-rumped thornbills as well, and there were a few individual Spotted Scrubwrens, Western Gerygones, and Splendid Fairy-wrens. The Spotted Scrubwrens were new, but not actually a new species for the list because they are currently considered to be a subspecies of the White-browed Scrubwren. However this subspecies is very distinct and I wouldn’t be surprised if a split occurred in the not too distant future.

I was very much hoping to find a Red-eared Firetail amongst this group, as I hadn’t yet seen one and I was very much hoping to, though there were none to be seen here, and I wouldn’t see one for another week or so when I saw one just in the bushland around my accommodation. I did manage to see one new bird though, because as I walked around this area looking out at each Fairy-wren, most turned out to be Splendid, I did manage to find a small group of female Red-winged Fairy-wrens hopping about in some low scrub. Not the males that I was rather hoping to see, but a South-west endemic that was a new species for me (I managed to spot a single male a few days later on a short trip just in the local area that wasn’t a significant enough trip to write about in detail here, but it was a stunning bird).

Once I had finished looking around this area, I headed back to the car park to do a longer walk to another area that was recommended as being good for birds. Apparently the trees around the car park are also supposed to be good for Western White-naped Honeyeater which would be a new subspecies for me (that is sometimes split, but pending further information on the validity of the split I am leaving it as a subspecies on my list for now), a subspecies endemic to the South West. However I didn’t see any here, and wouldn’t actually see any until seeing two individuals in the bushland around my accommodation near the end of the trip. The other location around the gorge that I wanted to look at was a now abandoned citrus orchard, but first I walked over to look at the reservoir itself. On the water there were some Australasian Grebes, and Autralian Shelducks, and in the trees along the bank was a White-faced Heron. In some bushes a few metres away from the waters edge though, I did see a particularly cool species, a White-breasted Robin, another South West endemic that was new to me and was one of my main targets.


I then continued to the abandoned citrus orchard, (in case anyone wishes to know in case they visit, this was along a path leading away from the car park on the opposite side of the road along a ridge area. After going along this path for 15 to 20 minutes (+stopping time to look at birds) it forks sharply, take the lower fork heading downhill as far as possible. It will be obvious when you get there because of the citrus trees, and there is also a stream at the end.) and along the way there were many Black-cockatoos, both Red- and White- tailed. I spent some time looking at the White-taileds specifically, to get solid IDs on them because the main reason that this area is an Important Bird Area is because it is home to both Baudin’s and Carnaby’s Cockatoos, both of which are endangered. The former is a species I was particularly keen to see, because unlike the Carnaby’s which are quite common throughout Perth, even right in the city centre, I hadn’t seen Baudin’s before, and the Araluen-Wungong area is the best place near Perth to see them. After lots of time looking at all of the Black-cockatoos that flew past, I was eventually able to identify a small group of Baudin’s Black-cockatoos. Success! The other particularly interesting things that I saw from this track were Inland Thornbill (a lifer, and quite a nice species), Golden Whistler,

and an interesting looking insect that turns out was Melanerythrus mactans. It was also raining slightly, but not enough to disrupt the birding for me, except for the fact that it made the muddy downhill sections extremely slippery. As well as the Black-cockatoos, I was also looking out for Western Rosellas, though all I saw were loads of Ringnecks and Red-capped Parrots.

I soon reached the abandoned orchard area which apparently is supposed to be good to find Red-eared Firetail which was the key species that I was still missing, though apparently Red-winged Fairy-wren and White-breasted Robin can be regularly seen here too, though I didn't see any of them. The orchard was quite interesting anyway though, with the flowering citrus trees covered in Monarch Butterflies,

and a stream running down the end. I walked around here for a while and it was quite nice, though there were no particularly interesting new birds to be seen. I then headed back to the car park along a slightly different route following the creek, and coming back through the same grassy area that I went to at the start. On the way I saw more of the same interesting birds that I had already seen, with the addition of both Western Yellow and Scarlet Robins. Neither new, but it brought the robin total for this area to three species, which I though was quite cool. And I do rather like Australasian Robins in general.

By the time I got back to the car park, I had already spent quite a few hours around Wungong Gorge, so we headed to the other nearby stop, Bungendore Park. This is a rather nice area of woodland with lots of nice big trees and lots of Dryandra around below the trees as well. The main species to be found around here is Rufous Treecreeper, and this is supposed to be the easiest place near Perth to see them. Sadly, I didn’t manage to find the treecreeper, though I had already seen it in Beelu National Park in the few days before going to Queensland, as well as in the Dryandra Woodland on a previous trip to Perth. It was still drizzling on and off, but I don’t think it was really enough to affect the birding too much. Before I started on one of the paths through the forest, I looked at a sign in the car park about nocturnal species around here which included Quolls, Phascogales, and Pygmy Possums. Sadly I never got the opportunity to spotlight around there as my dad refused to drive me late at night. I think all three of those would be particularly difficult to find, but hopefully I will get to try spotlighting there eventually. Maybe next time I’m in Perth.

There were a few different tracks going around the forest, and I chose one that was about a three kilometre loop, called the Honeyeater Track or something like that. I quite liked the woodland around here with lots of nice big trees, and the Banksia and Dryandra had loads of honeyeaters in them – White-cheeked, New Holland, Brown, and Singing, as well as Western Spinebills.

(the above is a White-cheeked Honeyeater)
Other things that I saw around here included Grey Shrike-thrush, and both Red- and unidentified White-tailed Black-cockatoos flying over. Some things that I did particularly want to see around here though were two parrots – Elegant Parrot and Western Rosella, though sadly I saw neither. I did, however, manage to add one new bird from Bungendore Park which was a Dusky Woodswallow that I saw a small group of flying around, and land in a tree somewhere in the distance. I would have liked to spend longer around here as the place is worth spending most of a day at, and could be done in a day along with Armadale Reptile Centre and/or Cohunu Koala Park. It’s definitely worth a revisit next time I’m in Perth, and possibly a visit at night as well.


New birds seen:

Australian Hobby
Red-winged Fairy-wren
White-breasted Robin
Baudin's Black Cockatoo
Inland Thornbill
Dusky Woodswallow

New Subspecies:

Western White-naped Honeyeater
Spotted Scrubwren


And I have one picture worth attaching with this post, which is a view along the path in Bungendore Park.

 

Yanchep National Park – 17th of July

The next day, I did another fairly significant bit of birding, which was a visit to Yanchep National Park, an hour and a bit north of Perth. The main purpose of this day trip wasn’t actually for birding, but we were going there anyway to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday in the nice restaurant at Yanchep that overlooks the lake, but I got lots of birding in anyway. There were a few species that I was particularly looking for at Yanchep, including things like White-winged Fairy-wren, Southern Emu-wren, Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Elegant Parrot, and things like that. I didn’t actually see any of those four species though, and I think that would largely be because we were at the national park at a fairly poor time for birding (got there after the morning, and left before the evening) and I felt I didn’t have long enough there to properly look for stuff. I did manage to see several new species nonetheless.

On the way to Yanchep, we stopped at a place called Joondalup which is a town to the north of Perth. Though with the ridiculous amount of urban sprawl that has happened, and continues to happen, it has become more of a suburb on the northern edge of the city of Perth. At Joondalup, there is an absolutely huge lake called, imaginatively, Lake Joondalup, and we stopped here for a while. Around the lake there is a parkland-type environment, and the trees were absolutely packed with hundreds of Long-billed Corellas. Most of the birds around the lake were typical common parkland birds, and the birds on the lake itself were fairly common waterfowl too. I did however enjoy watching a Musk Duck swim around underwater just in front of me on a viewing platform, and the water was shallow and clear enough to see it dig about in the mud.

As well as the typical waterfowl of a suburban park (Pacific Black, Australia Wood, Dusky Moorhen, Eurasian Coot, Australian Shelduck, etc.) there were also some feral domestic ducks and geese, which I guess were released former pets.

After a quick stop and picnic at Lake Joondalup, we continued on to Yanchep. For this second half of the journey, we were properly out of Perth now, so I was keenly looking out for wildlife out of the window, particularly for Emus which are found around here. Though I didn’t see any Emus, I did see a Whistling Kite soaring overhead, which was cool, as it was a new species for me. We soon arrived at Yanchep National Park, and parked by the restaurant allowing those who wanted to sit there and enjoy the view do so, and those who wanted to go off exploring to do so too. Before I headed off to explore though, I looked at the various birds in the trees above the car park which included Red Wattlebirds and various honeyeaters, but most interestingly, amongst these honeyeaters were a few Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters, which were a lifer.

Despite being winter, it was actually quite hot, and I think that restricted bird activity. To start with, I did a loop around the lake. At Yanchep there is quite a large lake, though it is very shallow and with extensive areas of marshy land, and a nice path going around that becomes a boardwalk when necessary. The animals that were immediately noticeable were the many pobblebonks. You may know these better as Western Banjo Frogs, however the onomatopoeic name 'pobblebonk' portrays the sound very well which was extremely loud and could be heard constantly throughout the time I was walking around the lake. Though I did spend quite a while looking for the frogs themselves, I didn’t see any at all.

I also didn’t see, or even hear, very many birds. There was the occasional call from a small bird up in a tree, but they all stopped before I could track them down and it felt pretty dead. Even on the lake, all I could see were a couple of Pacific Black Ducks and a lone egret wandering around in the reeds. By the time I was about half way around the lake, I heard a very interesting and distinctive call that carried loudly around the forest. It took a few minutes, but eventually I tracked it down to a largeish bird on a branch about halfway up a tree, sitting in a very typical cuckoo pose with wings hanging down. Upon getting my binoculars on to it, it was obviously a Fan-tailed Cuckoo, and I was able to follow it for a while as it went from tree to tree.

Though this wasn’t a new addition for the trip since I had seen several in Lamington National Park, it was new for the WA list. I enjoyed that sighting very much, and it was in totally different surroundings to Lamington National Park, and did look quite different as well. I had been following this cuckoo for a little while when I noticed a couple of Western Wattlebirds high on a bare tree.

Though I’d seen the species I few times, this was actually my first opportunity to get a picture. Just after I had taken that picture, I noticed something fly off from a nearby exposed branch. I only got a flash of colour and a vague shape, but my first instinct was a kingfisher. My best bet as to what it was is a Red-backed Kingfisher which would be a new species for me. I didn’t see it well enough to be sure though, so it can’t go on the list, but that definitely seems the most likely candidate for an ID because of the shape, size, and flash or blue, red, and white that I saw. I may have counted it if it was only a year list, but since Red-backed Kingfisher would be a lifer, I’m leaving that as unidentified. I did attempt to track it down, but it was gone. During this time, I had lost the cuckoo too, but at least I did get a nice view of that, and finally managed an acceptable picture of the Western Wattlebird.

So we continued around the lake, and it wasn’t long before I spotted a group of Fairy-wrens hopping about in the undergrowth. Three species are possible at Yachep – Splendid, Variegated, and White-winged. The latter would have been a lifer, and was a species I particularly wanted to see because I do like Fairy-wrens very much, but there was no doubt about the ID when a full-colour male showed up, and it was obviously a Splendid.

Though I’ve seen them many times now, they still shock me with their colour. We watched them for a while before they disappeared off into the undergrowth. As we continued around to the side of the lake where I could only see an egret at first, a few more birds started to appear. There were quite a few coots, moorhens, and Purple Swamphens, as well as plenty of Pacific Black Ducks, and Australian Shelducks. There were also loads of Silvereyes around, as well as Welcome Swallows flying over the lake, and more interestingly than the swallows were Black-faced Woodswallows that were also flying around. On the lake were a few small islands that I had seen in the distance from the other side, and now that I could see them closer, it turned out that as well as the clumps of vegetation, they also had Grey Teals and Pied Stilts resting on them.

After this walk, we went for lunch in the restaurant that overlooks the lake. On the lawn in front of the restaurant were a few Western Grey Kangaroos lounging about, and in the restaurant itself (not actually inside the building) were lots of birds trying to steal food. They seemed to be most keen on chips, and would descend on a table for leftovers as soon as people had left, and they were even bold enough to fly onto tables while people were still eating! The species doing this were Australian Magpies, Laughing Kookaburras, Red Wattlebirds, and most prominently, a few dozen Australian Ringnecks. The other interesting thing seen from the restaurant were very large numbers of Carnaby’s White-tailed Black-cockatoos flying around overhead, and landing in trees around this area. From what I’ve read it seems to be guaranteed to see loads of Carnaby’s Cockatoos around the restaurant area at Yanchep.

After lunch, we planned to do another bush walk, though first I wanted to check out the Yanchep National Park Koala Enclosure. This is an area with many large trees that has been fenced off, and had a boardwalk for visitors, and a few koala feeding areas built, and has had probably a dozen or so Southern Koalas in it.

The enclosure was pretty nice, quite natural with lots of nice trees, and plenty of space for the koalas. It just seemed a bit odd that they had built a random enclosure for koalas though, as they are obviously not native to Western Australia and had no particular reason to be here, other than as a tourist attraction. I did think there was some unused potential though, because on the ground beneath the trees for the Koalas was quite a large fenced off area that was actually divided into a few separate sections so I thought they easily had the potential to have a few species on the ground there, like Perth Zoo had with Western Brush-wallabies in their Koala enclosure, and to add a little bit more than just koalas. There was lots of educational signage though, and it was a very nice enclosure. (I have posted a few further pictures of this in the Australia – Other Gallery starting from this page).

We also briefly popped into the visitor centre and gift shop to look into visiting the limestone caves at Yanchep National Park. They turned out to be only viewable with tours that were too expensive and at inconvenient times, so instead we decided to do a walking loop through the dry bush away from the lake. Also of interest in the visitor centre were taxidermied Echidna, Koala, and Carnaby’s Cockatoo.

We chose the walking trail with the picture of the Echidna on it because I fancied seeing an Echidna, and it was about an appropriate length. We didn’t actually find an Echidna, but there were a few interesting birds around. I had a repeat experience from earlier with hearing the call of Fan-tailed Cuckoo and tracking it down, though it was higher up in a further away tree this time, and didn’t show for as long. I heard the same cuckoo call twice more on that walk, so they must have been fairly numerous. The other thing that I tracked down by their call were a group of Black-faced Cuckooshrikes flying amongst the trees, and I loved watching them rearrange their wings as they landed on the branches by flicking each wing up and down in turn in a slightly comical way. I also spent a bit of time trying to get a good picture of one, and I was somewhat successful, though not as much as I would have liked.


There was one further bird of particular interest from this walk, and that was a smallish group of Yellow-throated Miners that flew into a tree, stopped long enough to allow me to get a proper look with my binoculars, and then flew off again, and this was a lifer. The two birds that I was particularly hoping for during this walk didn’t appear sadly, and those were Southern Emu-wren and White-winged Fairy-wren. Oh well, I’ll have to try again for those another time. By the time we had finished that particular walk, it was getting towards time to start heading back, but first we walked through a patch of bushland around the back of the Koala Exhibit that had several Western Grey Kangaroos lying around in the bushes. There was also a fairly small and nondescript bird flitting about that turned out to be a Jacky Winter, another lifer. Though I didn’t get to hear it give its call that gives it its name.

We then left the national park and started to head back to Perth. During the drive until we got back into the city, I was looking out for wildlife, and still hoping to find some Emus. Though I didn’t see any Emus, there were a couple of interesting bird sightings. The first was a very large group – probably a couple of dozen – of woodswallows roosting together on an electric wire, and the second was on one of the posts holding up the wire, not too much further down the road actually, was a Black-shouldered Kite sitting prominently. I had seen the Black-winged Kite before in Kenya earlier in the year in February, however the confusingly similarly named Black-shouldered Kite was a new species for me. And that was the final thing of interest on my visit to Yanchep, so although the main focus was not birding, and I didn’t have very long at Yanchep National Park, I had managed to see a few interesting things. I think Yanchep National Park is probably worth revisiting next time I'm in Perth, and since there is accommodation there, it may even be worth staying the night to have a better chance of seeing even more interesting birds.


New birds seen:

Whistling Kite
Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
Black-faced Woodswallow
Yellow-throated Miner
Jacky Winter
Black-shouldered Kite

 

And here are a few pictures to go with the Yanchep National Park post.

They are: a view of Lake Joondalup, two views of the lake at Yanchep National Park, the taxidermied Carnaby's Cockatoo in the Yanchep National Park visitor centre, and a view of the bushland around the second walk that we did at Yanchep.

 

Peel Zoo Review – 21st of July

I had one further zoo left to visit while I was in Australia which was Peel Zoo. Peel Zoo is located not too much over an hour’s drive to the south of Perth in the small town of Pinjarra, the nearest big city to which is Mandurah about twenty minutes away by car. On the drive down to Peel, it is worth noting that I saw a wild Wedge-tailed Eagle from the car flying overhead, which was, somewhat surprisingly, my first wild Wedge-tailed Eagle for the trip.

Though Peel isn’t a huge zoo, I wanted to visit from Perth because I had heard it was quite a nice zoo with some interesting species there. To start with, a species list can be seen here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/peel-zoo-show-species-list-july-460521/ and I have uploaded quite a few pictures to the Peel Zoo Gallery. The only map I can find is this rather low quality image of one http://www.peelzoo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PeelZooMap_750pxW_LoRes1-600x417.jpg however it is good enough to give a rough layout of the zoo.
The zoo is in quite a nice setting in an area of parkland by the Murray River (not the big one in the south east obviously, but a smaller one) in the Ravenswood Sanctuary which is a recreational park thing with restaurants, various attractions, and some real estate areas. The zoo, obviously, is one of those attractions.

The Murray River is just outside the entrance to the zoo, and it is quite an attractive entrance with some planting and a water feature, though there is a less attractive cage just outside the doorway holding two pet Little Corellas, though this was a larger cage than at the entrances to either Cohunu Koala Park or Armadale Reptile Centre which also had corellas in small cages by the entrance. Inside where I bought my ticket, there was a little gift shop, and I was given a piece of paper that was the guide to the animals at the zoo. At this point, it would be appropriate to explain the signage system at the zoo. Each enclosure is numbered with 1 to 76 and also has a QR code and with the exception of maybe half a dozen signs at most around the zoo, that is the entirety of the signage on enclosures as can be seen in this picture. These numbers then corresponded to the numbered list on the piece of paper I had just been given at the entrance with the enclosure number, species common name, and the names of the individual animals given. And that’s it. There’s no information about the animals, no picture, and not even a scientific name. I should also add that I did scan one of the QR codes just to see whether there was any more information, and it was just the species common name. I would say the average zoo visitor may not know which quail was a King Quail and which was Japanese with the two species sharing the enclosure and no suggestion of which was which. I found it annoying enough that the zoo didn’t put proper signs on each enclosure, but I wouldn’t have minded so much if the numbers corresponded to some proper informational signage. Even including an additional column for scientific names would have been an improvement! I found the ridiculous signage style to be quite annoying actually, and I should also mention that the species list on the piece of paper didn’t even list everything! There were numerous unsigned species, the list did not include details on the species in the walkthrough aviary, and there were listings like 'finches' with no further details. I’d have thought information on what the finch species were was far more important than knowing the individual names of each of the Tasmanian Devils or that the rabbit’s name was Vespa! I have attached a picture of the sheet with the animal names in the post below in case anyone is interested.

Minor rant about the signage aside, I will continue with the review of the zoo. The area around the entrance

has a few picnic tables and around these are several peafowl, chickens, and guineafowl roaming around. Though they can roam freely around the zoo, they seemed to mostly stay around this area, and there was even a peacock sitting on the wall above the toilet. The entrance area also houses the zoo’s small reptile collection in open-topped outdoor enclosures (except the Frill-necked Lizards which were in an enclosed terrarium), and all the reptile enclosures seemed adequately sized, though the water area for the Oblong Turtles was a little bit small. Rather oddly in one of the Blue-tongued Skink enclosures was a rather poorly taxidermied ostrich! Also at this entrance area was a large aviary for Blue-and-gold Macaw and Laughing Kookaburra, and this was enclosure #1 (the reptile enclosures are actually listed as the final enclosures as numbers 71 to 76).

I then exited the area continuing around to enclosure number two as is, I assume, the intended way of going around the zoo. Enclosures #2 to #16 held the vast majority of the zoo’s small mammal collection with a variety of small native mammals including Possums, Quolls, Bettongs, Long-nosed Potoroo, Quokka, Squirrel Glider, Southern Koala, a few domestics (Ferret, Guinea Pig, Rabbit) and most interestingly for me was Black-footed Tree-rat which was a species I had not seen before. Sadly, their two individuals were not very active and remained curled up in their boxes (that had a transparent side allowing for viewing). Apart from the Quokka which had an open-topped enclosure, all of the enclosures were mesh aviary-type enclosures, and whilst not being particularly attractive for viewing, they mostly seemed to be pretty good with many exceptionally big enclosures for the inhabitants, for example the squirrel gliders.

Within this small mammal section, there was also an enclosure for Emus that was rather odd since it actually went around the back of all the small mammal enclosures with viewing from a small bit at the end that was tucked around the corner. As a result of this enclosure being squeezed into a corner, it seemed quite small, though according to the map, the enclosure gets much wider and much more open towards the end. Seemed a bit pointless though since most of it was not visible from the public paths.

After the small mammal area, I came to two walk-in enclosures, one for Western Grey Kangaroos and one opposite for sheep. The sheep enclosure was extremely muddy due to some extremely heavy rain in the last couple of days (many of the enclosures were muddy as a result of this) so there were no people in there, but there were a few people feeding the kangaroos with the pellets provided by the zoo in the other enclosure, and some Common Bronzewings and Purple Swamphens were also around to pick up dropped pellets.

Continuing past this, I then entered the bird section, or more specifically the parrot section, as all of the species held there were parrots.

This section had a row of aviaries as well as eight aviaries arranged around a circle, and they seemed to all be pretty average enclosures. They could maybe have done with being bigger for some of the larger cockatoo species, but for the smaller parrots especially they were pretty good. Behind these aviaries, and stretching along the edge of the zoo on this side behind a lot of enclosures was a paddock for Red Deer, Fallow Deer, and Alpaca, though as with the sheep enclosure, this was very muddy too. Rather interestingly, I saw a wild Red-capped Parrot through one of these parrot aviaries and in the deer and alpaca paddock behind.

After looking around these aviaries, I continued on to the large walkthrough aviary which holds a mixture of parrots, pigeons and doves, and pheasants with quite a large number of species – everything on the bird section of the species list from Crested Pigeon to Princess Parrot.

There were lots of branches, and perches, and nest boxes for the birds, as well as a large feeding area, though the lack of much greenery at all made it seem a bit bare. I suppose live plants may not survive for very long with the number of large parrots in there. There was a box of food provided just outside the aviary that visitors could feed the parrots with, and they were very friendly, landing and people and coming up for food, and one Sun Conure landed on my shouldered and refused to go away! Something that I thought was particularly interesting in this aviary was that it contained a hybrid between a Corella and a Galah that was rather striking in appearance.

After I spent a while watching the birds in that aviary, I exited to a further section with birds, again mostly parrots, though there were some finches and quails as well. These aviaries followed a similar design to the others being typical mesh aviaries, though easily large enough for the smaller species held in this section. There was also another Quokka enclosure here, with the aviaries being arranged around that enclosure.

I then continued to the area where some of the larger mammals were held. First were enclosures for both Common and Southern-hairy Nosed Wombat, and Short-beaked Echidna. Both species of wombats were extremely visible, and the common was just sitting there right next to the glass. The enclosures all seemed fairly good, nothing too special, though due to the recent rain, the wombat enclosures in particular were extremely muddy. The deer and alpaca enclosure mentioned above stretched down along the side of the zoo up to around here. Further along the path, on one side was a row of Tasmanian Devil enclosures, and on the other was The Billabong, a small enclosed lake exhibit. This was the first of two areas with Tasmanian Devils and there were several similar looking enclosures in a row, each with some logs and wood in the middle and most being quite small and holding a single devil. These were probably the smallest Tasmanian Devil enclosures I have seen, though there doesn’t seem to be space in the zoo to build larger ones, and the zoo has quite a lot of success with breeding their devils.

Opposite these enclosures was The Billabong which consists of a lake surrounded by a large area of land that is enclosed, with viewing into this exhibit from all around this end of the zoo.

I would imagine the land area is usually bigger than it was when I saw it, because with the aforementioned recent rain, I suspect the water level had risen significantly, however there was still a very substantial area of land. The species held here included some native waterfowl, as well as exotic Chinese Goose and Sebastopol Goose and there were also Emus, Swamp Wallabies, and Red-necked Wallabies. Here I noticed a few stray Emu eggs lying around, and later I saw an Emu that was sitting on a clutch of at least a dozen eggs. On the whole, I liked this particular exhibit very much, with lots of trees making it a very nice shady area, however I wasn’t a fan of the number of domestic geese or the fact that there was lots of waterfowl that was, I assume, either clipped or pinioned. I then passed two further mammal enclosures, the first being quite a large enclosure for Dingoes, at least it was signed (or more accurately numbered) for Dingoes, as the animals themselves were nowhere to be seen, but it looked to be a fairly good enclosure. And there was also slightly odd shaped and odd looking netted enclosure for Woylies (Brush-tailed Bettong).

Next I came up to the zoo’s bird of prey section which consists of seven aviaries arranged around a circular shape, in a similar way to parrot aviaries earlier, as well as a separate predatory birds aviary. Each bird of prey aviary was a bit on the small side to be honest, though they are only small species held, and they were five species of owls as well as Australian Kestrels. The predatory birds aviary was quite a bit larger, and held here were Laughing Kookaburras, Bush-stone Curlew, Boobook Owl, and a Grey Butcherbird. This predatory bird enclosure adjoined The Billabong as well as a paddock for Red Kangaroos.

Next along from the birds of prey was quite a large circular aviary that was lushly planted and held Red-tailed Black-cockatoo, Eclectus Parrot, and Rufous Bettong. This was the only aviary that I thought was anything special, not to say that the others were bad necessarily, but they were just pretty standard things. After that aviary, was the final row of enclosures at the zoo holding a few more mammals. Firstly was quite a big Eastern Quoll enclosure on one side of the path, and that brought the total number of Quoll species at this collection up to three with the Northern and Spotted-tail Quolls in the first row of small mammal enclosures. Opposite the Eastern Quoll enclosure was a reasonably large enclosure for two Bengal Cats. These seemed to behave no differently to a domestic cats, coming up the mesh and purring. Obviously a bit of an odd thing to have in a zoo, but I don’t see it as being hugely different to having domestic farm animals or rabbits or anything like that, and I wouldn’t say having them was drastically different to displaying Dingoes. Not something I would particularly choose to have in a zoo, but I don’t see them as any different to domestics in a petting zoo or childrens' farm.

I then came up to a large walkthrough aviary that seemed to be the same shape, size, and design as the walkthrough aviary earlier. This time though, there were no birds in it, but Tasmanian Devils instead.

There were five separate devil enclosures, and the animals held there were the breeding devils. These enclosures seemed to be larger than the ones in the other row of devil enclosures which were for the single individuals, and there was nice planting, piles of wood, and things like that. So this was quite an attractive row of enclosures for the devils, though it seemed a shame to me to not utilise the huge aviary fully since it was completely netted over and big enough to be another large walkthrough aviary.

After exiting this Tasmanian Devil breeding area, I passed a little picnic lawn and was back to the entrance area where I started from. Having now seen everything in the zoo, I went back to have another look at a few interesting things again before leaving the zoo and meeting up again with my family to have a meal in a nearby restaurant overlooking the river.

After lunch, we headed back to Perth, however on the way we passed the turnoff for Serpentine National Park and decided spontaneously to stop on the. It was actually getting quite late by then, and we only had an hour and a half before the gates to the car park were locked for the night and we had to be out before then. All around the car park at Serpentine were loads of Western Grey Kangaroos as well as various common birds like magpies and things. There were also quite a few Red-capped Parrots and Red-tailed Black-cockatoos around. Because we didn’t have a huge amount of time and didn’t want to risk getting locked into the park overnight, we just did a walk along a trail until we were halfway through our time, and then turned around and headed back. The landscape at Serpentine is very nice with waterfalls, rocky hills, and other interesting terrain. I didn’t see any wildlife around that I hadn’t already, but it was nice to visit and I did see interesting things like Golden Whistlers, Grey Shrike-thrushes, and stuff like that

We headed out of the national park about fifteen minutes before the gates closed, and as we were waiting at the corner in the car for a gap in the traffic to turn onto the main road, I noticed that at the edge of a roadside field just on the edge of the trees was a Western Brush-wallaby sitting there just about visible. That was certainly a welcome surprise sighting!

New bird seen:

Wedge-tailed Eagle

New mammal:

Western Brush-wallaby


I would also like to note that this is the final zoo review for this thread, though I do have one more post to write for this thread, and one more set of pictures to upload from my visit to Rottnest Island.

 

And here are some attachments to go with the above post. They are a picture of the sheet of paper that I was given at the zoo with the lists of species in each enclosure, and some views of Serpentine National Park.

 

I posted a few days ago but apparently the post was not accepted (internet may have dropped out while I was typing).

Just going back to your Bungendore and Wugong Gorge post, the Golden Whistler has recently been split with some subspecies elevated to species status, and what you saw in WA was a Western Golden Whistler (Pachycephala occidentalis), as opposed to the Eastern Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis).

Also, the Emerald Dove has also been split and what you saw in Queensland is now known as the Pacific Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps longirostris). This is a distinct species to the other population, the Asian Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) found from India to Indonesia.



Hix

 

Thanks for pointing this out, Hix. Very interesting.

I was already aware of the Emerald Dove split since the split is included in HBW where I keep my wild bird sightings, however the Golden Whistler split is surprising, particularly as occidentalis isn't even recognised as a valid subspecies on HBW! Going from a dodgy subspecies to a full species seems a bit, well, drastic. Since in addition to seeing Golden Whistlers in WA I also saw them in Lamington National park, that may mean an armchair tick for the trip list. Does anyone other than the IOC accept the whistler split (yet)?

So that means two possible additional ticks from this trip depending on taxonomy - Gilbert's Honeyeater (if split from White-naped Honeyeater) and Western Whistler (if split from Golden Whistler). Anyone have any thoughts on these two?

 

Cornell University's Bird Lab / eBird does - that's where I heard about it.



Hix

 

Aside from the of course extremely irritating signage, it wasn't a bad zoo. There were nice bits, and it was laid out quite nicely in quite nice surroundings with a decent size collection, and a large variety of parrots. For the most part pedestrian, pretty basic, and ordinary is an accurate description though, and it wasn't anything too special.

 

Rottnest Island – 23rd of July

My last particularly significant day of this trip was a day trip to Rottnest Island. I had tried to persuade my parents to allow me to spend a night at Rottnest, however, a day trip was the most I would get, starting with an early morning ferry, and leaving on the last ferry of the day in the late afternoon. We chose to take a ferry from Fremantle, about forty-five minutes by car from where I was staying in Perth. I tried to drag my family out of the house as soon as possible to be sure to get there on time, but we ended up leaving with barely enough time and it would have been alright if it wasn’t for the fact that we got lost. We didn’t get lost as such in that we knew where we were, we just didn’t know where the road that we were supposed to take was. Though it was pretty close, we did just about make it for the scheduled 'boarding closes' time and the boat actually left ten minutes late.

At the back of the boat was a small outdoor deck area so I went there to look out for sea birds. There were lots of cormorants seen as well as a few pelicans, but the best part was when I spotted a Black-browed Albatross flying overhead which was very exciting. The journey to Rottnest took about half an hour, and it was quite enjoyable looking out for sea birds. When we arrived at Rottnest, my brother and father, who had been sitting inside the boat rather than outside where I was, asked if I saw the whale… what? It turns out, on an announcement that I didn’t hear because I was outside, the captain said we may see whales, and they saw one, along with most of the people in the boat. And I didn’t! I was of course rather annoyed, but I would look out for whales from the island and on the boat on the way back.

On Rottnest, I had a few species that I was particularly looking for, the Quokkas of course, as well some birds that I particularly wanted to see like Rock Parrots, and waders and things. My main resource for deciding where I wanted to go on Rottnest and planning a route was the book Finding Australian Birds which has detailed information and a map of Rottnest with details on particular birding locations around the island. We started by heading inland towards the salt lakes of Rottnest, almost immediately though, we found Quokkas. The road just ahead of us was covered with about a dozen very tame Quokkas hopping about, and they had absolutely no fear of people whatsoever.

If I wanted to, I could have patted them, and there were people doing just that, though you’re not supposed to touch the Quokkas. They were eating the dropped fruit of an overhanging tree, and although this is also not allowed, there were people feeding them too. The Quokkas here were very inquisitive, and one Quokka that seemed particularly curious about my camera allowed me to get some pictures of it staring right into the camera. Also around these Quokkas were a few Laughing Doves which are an introduced species around Perth, and there was also a Peacock around here. Apparently they were introduced to Rottnest and at one point were feral and a self-sustaining population, but they have now been largely removed from the island and only two males remain, so they aren’t tickable any more in my opinion.

After a while with this group of Quokkas, we continued past them towards the area of lakes in the North-eastern part of Rottnest. As you would be able to see from google maps or any map of Rottnest Island, there are several very large lakes that take up a considerable part of the island’s area. These are very shallow salt lakes that at different times of year can have different amounts of water in them, at some times of year they can be almost dry expanses of salt, though as you may recall from my Peel Zoo review, I mentioned that there had been a large amount of rain recently, so the lakes were fairly full. I explored the area around the lakes quite thoroughly and it is a fascinating landscape. The huge expanses of shallow water are surrounded by rocky beaches and those are surrounded by a terrain of low plants, mostly succulent plants and other salt-tolerant plants. There were lots of small plants with little bunches of blue flowers too, and I later found out that this was a species endemic to Rottnest, the Rottnest Island Daisy. We started to walk around Herschel Lake, and it wasn’t long before I found a particularly interesting bird and one that I had been wanted to see for a long time, and it was a small group of White-fronted Chats.

I saw several around here hopping about by the shore of the lake and perching on the low vegetation, and they were really cool little birds, particularly the boldly coloured males. They were really common around this area, and since it was so soon after leaving the settlement area, I assumed they would be common across the island but it turned out this was the only place I saw them, and I saw them again when I returned to this area right near the end of the day as a last look before catching the ferry. For anyone interested, this was the area along the path between Herschel Lake and Garden Lake. The other bird that I saw around here was a pair of Australian Shelducks. Not particularly unusual, but they were by far the most common species of waterfowl on Rottnest, and there were loads of them on and around all of the lakes

The next interesting bird was also around here, on the shore of Herschel Lake, which was a pair of Red-capped Plovers which are such a nice species of wader. I was expecting larger numbers of waders though, and I think the lack of numbers may be explained by high water levels in the lake making them too deep or flooding too much of the beach around the shore of the lakes. I then went along a path that still followed the edge of Herschel Lake but on a slightly higher area on the edge of the golf course. In the slightly larger bushes around here were lots of silvereyes, and they proved to be very common throughout the forested or more thickly vegetated parts of the island. The other species that were very common and noticeable throughout the island were Welcome Swallows and Tree Martins that could be seen flying around all over the place. As we were walking along the path, I suddenly noticed that right next to the path and in the bushes there was a sleeping Quokka. Of course being nocturnal, those Quokkas that weren’t trying to scavenge off people were sleeping during the day, so this was the first Quokka displaying what seemed to be natural behaviours that I saw. I didn’t want to bother it by getting too close, and I certainly wasn’t going to touch or feed it, but it seemed entirely calm about me being right in front of it. It opened its eyes, lifted up its head with a sleepy expression, looked at me for a bit and then went right back to sleep. This entire time I was within easy arm's reach of it.


While I was looking at the Quokka and the birds and things, my family had gone up ahead and from a few hundred metres away they called out 'there’s a lizard!' I rushed ahead to see what it was and this lizard had apparently moved into the bushes a bit, but from the movement of the vegetation I was able to find it, and it turned out to be a very large King’s Skink. The first reptile of the day. There is a variety of herps found on Rottnest including geckos, legless lizards, frogs, snakes, skinks, etc. and I was particularly hoping to see Dugite and Bobtail, both of which have subspecies endemic to Rottnest. King’s Skink was an excellent start though, as that was a species I had not seen before. Around the golf course that I was walking around, introduced Ring-necked Pheasants were supposed to be quite common. I didn’t actually see any, but I wasn’t too bothered because Ring-necked Pheasants don’t interest me a huge amount.

We then continued around Herschel Lake for a while and then turned around and headed up towards Lake Vincent. There was lots of limestone weathered and eroded into interesting formations, and the low succulents continued all the way around here, giving lots more red colouration than typical groundcover vegetation. I saw a few more Red-capped Plovers around, but the next particularly interesting bird came in the form of three very small and largely nondescript waders. I spent a little while going through the field guide, but I wasn’t able to work it out right then, but since they were so close, I took lots of pictures for identification later, and they turned out to be Red-necked Stints.

I watched these birds for quite a while as they ran back and forth around some Red-capped Plovers that just seemed to watch them, and then I continued on, past an impressive looking limestone shelf that must have been eroded by the lake.

I decided to investigate the lake at one point where it came very close to the path, and noticed that on the lake bottom were lots of little brine shrimp. There were also Pacific Black Ducks and Australasian Grebes on the lake, in addition to the many Australian Shelducks mentioned earlier. After going around the lakes for a while, we headed up away from the lakes heading North-east to explore some of the woodlands around Rottnest. The route that we chose was marked with a bird symbol, so that must have been positive, and we planned to go around the forests on the northern part of the island and then back around to the settlement passing along the other side of the golf course to be back there to have lunch. There were a few woodland birds that I was looking for on this part of the walk, as well as Rock Parrots which should be around in the coastal vegetation.

The woodlands at Rottnest were very interesting. The trees were mostly quite low growing and windswept giving them a bent over look, and below the top crown of leaves were bare grey trunks with succulents growing on the ground. A lot of the trees were actually endemic to Rottnest including the Rottnest Island Pine, and according to Wikipedia, Rottnest has three endemic tree species (in addition to the endemic daisy mentioned earlier). It wasn’t too long before I found a woodland bird that I was particularly interested in, a Red-capped Robin. This was a female so was a brown colour with a slightly rufous cap. The most numerous birds around here were probably the Silvereyes, but one bird that was surprisingly numerous in comparison to the mainland were Spotted Scrubwrens that hopped and fluttered about along the branches and were very interesting to watch. Another bird worth noting that I saw here were Singing Honeyeaters, and although I had seen lots on the mainland, the ones on Rottnest are a separate subspecies and are supposed to be larger. Also in the woodland were a few groups of Quokkas lying around sleeping under trees, again not at all afraid of people, but they seemed to just be exhibiting natural behaviours and sleeping under the trees.

After leaving the forest, we went along a path that followed the coastline and went near to some lakes and near to the forest, but with areas of low scrub and a few trees. There were sand dunes and a few low hills separating the path from the sea meaning the sea wasn’t actually visible, though I did go down a few tracks to have a look at the coast at some spots such as Little Parakeet Bay. These areas had nice scenery and views of the sea and some common birds like Silver Gulls, Caspian and Crested Terns, Australian Pelicans, and cormorants. I scanned the water with my binoculars for marine mammals, and also looked out for more unusual sea birds, but I didn’t see anything at these stops.

Along the path itself, I saw things like Spotted Scrubwrens here and there and also a stunning male Red-capped Robin that seemed to be catching insects out of a spider web.

The main things I was looking out for along here though were reptiles of any kind, any waders on the lakes, and probably highest on my list was Rock Parrot. I think I may have heard Rock Parrots twice, but I’m not completely sure, and they weren’t from very close to the path and were hidden in the low scrub. Apparently Rock Parrots can be difficult to see and are usually only seen when flushed. With the reptiles, I did see King’s Skink a couple of times, but nothing else, nor did I manage to actually photograph any of them as they moved through the scrub surprisingly quickly. I was somewhat more successful on the wader front as I spotted four species around here which were Red-capped Plovers, Pied Stilts, Banded Stilts, and Australian Pied Oystercatcher. I only saw a couple of individuals of each though and didn’t see the 'rafts' of stilts that are described as being visible here. The waders that I was particularly hoping to see but missed were Sooty Osyercather, Banded Lapwing, and Australian Avocet. Any of those would have been a lifer, and they are all supposed to be common on Rottnest but oh well. I did see an Osprey soaring above one of the lakes though, which was cool.

There were two other things along this walk that are worth mentioning though. One was a dead Quokka that was little more than a skeleton, and the second was a Nankeen Kestrel perched high on top of a lone exposed pine. This walk had actually taken a lot longer than we expected, and it was about two by the time we got back to the main settlement, not so late, but later than planned (I always carry some kind of food around though, so being late for lunch wasn’t too much of an issue).

In the settlement on Rottnest were loads of Quokkas sitting on the decking of Cafés lounging around in alleyways, and all of the shops had barriers over the doors to stop the Quokkas getting in. We had lunch overlooking the ocean, and I watched out for any sea birds or marine mammals or anything while we were eating and I’m pretty sure I saw some kind of whale out in the distance, but with only binoculars and no scope, I couldn’t see it well enough. After a quick lunch, we had enough time to do something else before the ferry, but it would have to be quite a bit shorter than the first time because the last ferries of the day (which we had booked) all left Rottnest at 4:25. There were two places I still wanted to go to on Rottnest, one was on the western side of the island (the opposite end) to see the colony of New Zealand Fur Seals that is sometimes joined by Australian Sea Lions, and the other was walking right along the coast on the eastern side to try again for Rock Parrots as well as look for Purple-crowned Lorikeets and do some sea watching for mammals or birds. Though there is a bus that does a loop around the island and would get close enough to the fur seal colony, there wasn’t really time to go all of the way there and back before the ferry so sadly I had to give up on that idea. Instead, I decided to try again for Rock Parrots.

So I headed north from the main settlement walking right on the beach/cliff edge and I wasn’t too far out of the settlement when I saw a Rock Parrot! I was walking along a narrow path along a beach with tall grass along either side, and suddenly an olive-green bird shot up out of the grass and flew above the grass at about my head height for about fifty metres before dropping back down into the grass again. Luckily I happened to be looking right where the parrot took off from so I was able to follow it for the duration of its flight and I got a rather good look at it. I was extremely pleased with that sighting because the Rock Parrot was probably top on my list of birds that I wanted to see on Rottnest. There was no further Rock Parrot action along that beach, and I headed up to walk along the path that ran along a cliff edge to look out for sea birds and things. There were some Quokkas around too including a mother and large joey and they seemed to be starting to wake up for the evening. I walked along this path very slowly to scan the sea and the sky above it along the way. There were also some trees behind that Finding Australian Birds says should have Purple-crowned Lorikeet but I didn’t see those. There were lots of common sea birds like Silver Gulls and things, but there was one really awesome sea bird sighting, and that was a Southern Giant Petrel flying over the sea not too far away, close enough to see clearly with my binoculars and not to need a scope for.

My family had had enough of birds at this point and were tired from lots of walking, so wanted to go back to sit down and wait by the ferry. But there was still about 25 minutes before the ferry was due to leave, so I wanted to have a quick look at the lakes nearest the settlement in case some new waders had shown up. They hadn’t, but I got a great view of an Australian Pied Oystercatcher walking around

and also of White-fronted Chats in the same area as I saw them at in the morning. What was interesting though is that I finally found a Rottnest Bobtail! It was sitting under a bush, and I didn’t really want to get my fingers too close to move the bush aside to get a proper look, but it was clearly a Bobtail and I was pleased to see the endemic subspecies. I then headed back to the ferry, stopping to have a quick look at the particularly friendly Quokkas in the same place as the first ones I saw in the morning, before we boarded the ferry.

I sat on the deck at the back again to look at Rottnest as we were leaving and I got a nice view of the whole island. Just as we were leaving the island, we were only a couple of hundred metres away at that point and hadn’t got up to full speed yet, I noticed that as well as there being pied cormorants flying past, there was something different with them and it turned out to be a single Australasian Gannet that I was extremely excited to see. Particularly because it was a surprise species that was not something I had even thought about before then. I was very much hoping that we would pass a whale again this time, and if we were going to pass a whale, I would certainly see it, so I was extremely pleased when we did pass a Humpback Whale not too far from the boat. And as if the journey back couldn’t get any more successful, I saw another albatross, and it was a good enough view to identify it, and to top it all off, it was a different species to on the way there! An Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross this time.

So I was, overall, very pleased with how successful my day at Rottnest had been, and there were only four significant things that I missed – some of the reptiles, some of the waders, Purple-crowned Lorikeet, and the fur seals – but I had seen a lot of other stuff so I can’t complain. If I was doing this trip completely by myself though, without the constraints of parents, I would have spent a night on Rottnest since there is lots of accommodation, some of it not too expensive, and I would have left on the last ferry of the day 24 hours later than I did. Next time I’m in Perth maybe!

New birds seen:
Black-browed Albatross
White-fronted Chat
Red-necked Stint
Red-capped Robin
Banded Stilt
Rock Parrot
Southern Giant Petrel
Australasian Gannet
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross
(also endemic Rottnest subspecies of Singing Honeyeater, L. v. insularis)


New mammals:

Quokka
Humpback Whale


New reptiles:

King’s Skink
(also endemic Rottnest subspecies of Bobtail Skink, T. r. konowi)

 

And attached pictures to go with the above post.

They are: The brine shrimp, a view of the landscape along the edge of the lake with the interesting vegetation and impressive limestone formations, part of the huge Lake Vincent, a view over Lake Vincent to a lighthouse, the edge of the forested area, and a view from within the forested area.

 

And because I thought it was such an amazing island with such awesome scenery, and I took lots of pictures of the landscape, here are some more attachments. Why not?

And they are: a view from the path that I went along after leaving the forest and before lunch (just over those hills is the ocean), a wide view looking across the Eastern corner of the island, Little Parakeet Bay, a view across the sea from the path that I walked along after lunch (the mainland and the city of Perth can just be seen on the horizon), the area where I saw the Rock Parrot, and finally, my last look at Herschel Lake before departing Rottnest.

 

So that's it for this thread! I flew out of Perth and back to Warsaw a few days after that Rottnest Island visit, and didn't do anything really significant during the days in between.

I hope you have enjoyed my posts and pictures, and I look forward to writing about a trip to Australia again sometime in the, hopefully not too distant, future!

 

A brilliant thread Laughing Dove. I must confess I have dipped in and out rather than read everything, but you have presented your whole trip beautifully and the pictures lend a great deal too. Congratulations on all the detailed work you put into letting us share your interesting travels from a distance.

 

An excellent thread - one of the best! It certainly makes me want to visit Australia (although I doubt whether I would ever have either the patience or the skill to see even a fraction of the bird species described over this fascinating travelogue). Thank you!

 

Thank you both for the kind comments.