What a lovely few days in Mackay! The best part was spending time with my sister but the birding was a close second.
One of the big highlights was seeing Brolgas at the local sports field! They are such cool birds. They look like they’re wearing bright red swimming caps.
This one stood for ages with its face pointed directly upwards. It was raining a little so maybe it was basking in the rain.
I also found this Rainbow Bee-Eater sitting out in the rain near the sports field:
Another exciting moment was spotting Sahul Sunbirds right outside the house!
I went on two bird walks at the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens and really enjoyed it—the boardwalk section was lovely.
I love these photos of Plumed Egrets. The second one was trying to balance on a pipe in the lake.
I also spotted this Comb-Crested Jacana (I’ve seen a lot of them lately) and love how you can see the blue ring around its eye in this photo:
This Muscovy Duck was just chilling in the grass in the rain:
And apparently these Great Cormorants are not super common at the botanic gardens, but there were three both times I was there.
My next birding area was Blacks Beach. I went to the Blacks Beach Constructed Wetlands first, where I saw this bedraggled Torresian Crow:
These Wandering Whistling-Ducks were another lifer!
I also saw some Australasian Grebe parents and babies. I thought this little one was just so cute:
This was also the first fairywren I spotted since I left Brisbane—we see them so often in Brisbane that it was a bit strange not to see one for so long. This one’s a Red-Backed Fairywren.
I saw a lot of these Peaceful Doves in Mackay. It’s hard to get a sense of scale from the photos but they’re really tiny!
I also visited Blacks Beach Reserve, where there’s a walk out to the spit, but I had to turn around because the path to the spit was flooded and I was being chased by a vicious cloud of mozzies. I did spot a group of cute fluffy juvenile Spangled Drongos though.
Later on, grabbing a coffee at a local cafe, I spotted this beautiful Radjah Shelduck in a tree:
And then later on, my sister took me up to Lamberts Lookout at Slade Point, which was lovely …
… and we spotted this super cool Nankeen Kestrel, which was just hovering in the (very strong) wind looking for prey.
And that’s the end to my birding during a wonderful visit to Mackay.
Birds
- Australasian Figbird
- Australasian Grebe
- Australasian Swamphen
- Australian Brushturkey
- Australian Magpie
- Australian Pelican
- Australian Spectacled Monarch
- Australian White Ibis
- Bar-Shouldered Dove
- Black-Faced Cuckooshrike
- Black-Faced Monarch
- Blue-Winged Kookaburra
- Brolga
- Comb-Crested Jacana
- Crested Pigeon
- Dusky Honeyeater
- Dusky Moorhen
- Fairy Gerygone
- Great Cormorant
- Hardhead
- Helmeted Friarbird
- House Sparrow
- Little Bronze-Cuckoo
- Little Pied Cormorant
- Magpie Goose
- Magpie-Lark
- Masked Lapwing
- Muscovy Duck
- Orange-Footed Megapode
- Pacific Black Duck
- Peaceful Dove
- Plumed Egret
- Plumed Whistling-Duck
- Rainbow Lorikeet
- Red-Backed Fairywren
- Rufous Shrikethrush
- Sahul Sunbird
- Silver Gull
- Silvereye
- Spangled Drongo
- Spotted Dove
- Torresian Crow
- Wandering Whistling-Duck
- Welcome Swallow
- Willie Wagtail
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