Australia - Heading into the Blue Mountains

This was a private Zoothera Birding tour that also incorporated a countdown to my own personal 6,000th lifer and 50th birthday.... 

We began at the Blue Gum Swamp Track before daybreak in the forlorn hope of finding an owl, before daylight broke to a whole new world of birdcalls. It was slow going for the first couple of hours and seeing our first Spotted Pardalote was the highlight. What a bird! We also saw Grey Fantail, Striated Thornbill, White-eared and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, and a brief Olive-backed Oriole.

We enjoyed our first Eastern Spinebills today.....

Eastern Spinebill showed well today

Walking back to the car we saw Australian Golden Whistler, Rose Robin, Eastern Yellow Robin and Brown Thornbill.

Brown Thornbill

From here we headed deeper into the Blue Mountains to Evans Outlook and our best shot at seeing the New South Wales endemic - Rock Warbler. Along the way roadside birds included Red Wattlebird, Australian Magpie, Magpie Lark and Galah. 

The view at Evans Lookout is stunning...

Enjoying the view at Evans Lookout

But we enjoyed the Rock Warblers here even more...

Rock Warbler

The approach road was very good and we saw our first Satin Bowerbird here. The owner of the adjacent house invited us into her property to look for other birds and the generosity of the Australian folks we encountered throughout the tour was amazing. One of my favourite birds today was this Scarlet Robin, that was a bit flighty and never showed close but was nevertheless absolutely stunning....

Scarlet Robin

There was also our first Laughing Kookaburra, Pied Currawong, Crimson Rosella, White-throated Treecreeper, White-browed Scrubwren, and a few others.

Laughing Kookaburra

We eventually left here and driving to our next birding site saw Masked Lapwing, the incredibly common Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and some Australian Wood Ducks in a roadside pond.

We were pushing it a bit to get to Lake Wallace but timed it to perfection with a couple of hours of daylight to go. This was our spot for Musk Duck and sure enough we saw a few. It took  while to get closer views as they were primarily out in the middle of this large lake but we eventually tracked one down to a quiet little corner just before the sun dipped behind the hills...

Musk Duck

We also saw Little Grassbird, White-faced Heron, Red-rumped Parrot, Eastern Rosella, Dusky Moorhen, Australian Swamphen, Blue-billed Duck, Hardhead, Fairy Martin, Hoary-headed Grebe, Australasian Grebe, Grey Teal, Australian Shoveler, Little Raven and Australian Reed Warbler.

Another great bird was Superb Fairywren...

Superb Fairywren

And these Pink-eared Ducks were just stunning....

Pink-eared Ducks

It was certainly a great day for the first time birder in Oz with 40 lifers...