I'm staying in Broadbeach. We ended up doing David Fleay's today which was really great, and then we did a small amount of birding. We didn't have as much time to bird in the mangroves and bush around David Fleay as I would have liked due to some difficulty getting there by bus.
I have added a few pictures of highlight species to the David Fleay gallery, I will upload some enclosure pictures etc. when I get back to Perth (probably). Tomorrow we are doing Currumbin and hopefully also some birding in the afternoon but the final day is still undecided, either an additional zoo or some birding. Not including the rides would Sea World or Dreamworld both still be full day zoos? If they are I think the price may be worth it though I'm still undecided about which would be better to do. Am I right in assuming Sea World would be better in bad weather with more of an indoor aquarium? It's quite a tough decision for that last day whether to do Dreamworld, Sea World, or some birding...
SeaWorld is not a full day without the rides. Half a day at most, unless they've made significant changes and added more wildlife shows (they used to have waterski shows and things like that, too). Best to check their website Sea World Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia Hix
I did Currumbin today, it was really nice, not huge numbers of wild birds but the zoo was really nice and I don't think Gold Coast is particularly good for wild birds. (you know it's a good zoo if you take over 1300 pictures ) We have decided that tomorrow we will be doing Sea World. Thanks for all of the help from everyone.
I think that is an approximately good metric then, I would probably rank Walsrode at around 3x Currumbin. I think you would have liked some of the owls at Currumbin, TLD: Eastern Grass Owl, Barking Owl, and Rufous Owl as well as lots of other stuff of course.
Sea World was interesting and quite nice. I hadn't ever visited a zoo like that before which wasn't a theme park or an aquarium really, it could possibly partly be termed a dolphinarium so it was a nice experience. The Australian Humpback Dolphin was very cool too.
Well, you seem to be increasing your life lists considerably - by my count in the last week increased your bird list by 77 lifers. Hix
Yep, lots of lifers! Many of them particularly nice ones that I was really looking for. The fact that I have never been to Eastern Australia before means almost everything I see is a lifer.
I am now in Brisbane in quite a nice central hotel just opposite the Roma Station. I had a great three days in Lamington with lots of new, fantastic birds and mammals sighted in the absolutely stunning scenery and forests and the O'Reilly's (the guesthouse that I stayed at) guides were great in helping to suggest where to find certain things and doing the guided bird walks. I plan to write more details at some point and I have lots of pictures which I will be uploading when I get to Perth, but I have posted my bird and mammal lists on the ZooChat 'big year' thread so have a look if you are interested. This afternoon we got to Brisbane and after checking in to the hotel we went to the Botanic Gardens for the afternoon which was quite nice. Tomorrow is supposed to be very rainy and possibly stormy so the plan is to visit the Queensland Museum (I'm assuming that's indoors, and the good museum is the Queensland Museum/Sciencentre rather that the Brisbane Museum or somewhere else?) which is apparently very good and the day after we plan to visit the Lone Pine Koala Centre which is supposed to be better weather that day. If we have time at the end of the day after either activity we will visit the Roma Street Parklands or possibly somewhere else nearby for birding.
yes, the Queensland Museum; it has (or had) a little outdoors "dinosaur garden" but otherwise all indoors. I hadn't heard of the Museum of Brisbane before, but I googled it and it appears to be dedicated to the city of Brisbane itself.
I didn't think the Brisbane Museum was the right one but it seems to be the more widely promoted of the two in leaflets and stuff so I wanted to be sure, thanks Chli. The only problem with doing the museum tomorrow is that lots of people might have the same idea as me to do the museum in bad weather so it may be busy, but never mind.
The Queensland Museum used to have a small live collection on a porch out the back. It included an aviary and a couple of tanks, including lungfish. No idea if it they are still there.
Went to the Queensland Museum today, it was very nice and I enjoyed it. Didn't see any live exhibits on a porch, but there were a couple of live exhibits for reptiles and invertebrates in one of the halls. Although it only takes half the day at most, the weather is too bad now to do anything else so we haven't been able to do any birding. According to the weather forecast tomorrow should be better and we will be visiting Lone Pine
Had a very nice final day in Brisbane today and spent most of the day in the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which is a small zoo but very nice, with a few cool things including some nice reptiles, a White-bellied Sea-eagle, two species of Wombat, three fruit bat species, and two very active Platypuses (what's the correct plural?) in a brighter enclosure than Fleay Wildlife Park allowing better pictures. In the late afternoon I visited the very nice Roma Street Parklands where I saw a Figbird. I fly to Cairns very early tomorrow morning
if you want to be all Greek about it then platypodes or platypoda are "technically" correct, but nobody except people being pretentious would actually use those forms, so for normal usage platypus or platypuses are equally correct. However, definitely not platypi.
Actually, I was told by somebody of Greek extraction that platypodenda was probably correct. But I think in general usage the word platypus is like sheep - both singular and plural. Hix
I don't think it can be because that just isn't how the pluralisation of the Greek pous works. Also if you Google "platypodenda" the only result is a post by you on Zoochat. I think you invented a new word. I use "platypus" for the plural, myself.
I didn't invent it, somebody Greek told me that was a pluralisation of foot. If it's not a real word it's not my fault. I'm just boosting my post count. Hix
