Paradise Riflebird – first Aussie tick in two years!

We arrived in Australia on New Year’s Eve, which happens to be Dan’s birthday, spent New Year’s Day doing a ‘Big Sit’ in his garden – seeing around 65 species and, during the course of which, bringing up his 100th ‘Yard tick’. Yesterday we had our first proper birding excursion to the Barrington Tops – high elevation rain forest, which hold a number of birds at the southern limit of their range. Two in particular being much needed Australian ticks for me – Paradise Riflebird and Rufous Scrub-bird. The first was relatively straightforward but the second required a little more effort, being described in the field guide as ‘extremely elusive’. Given that we had our two young grandsons in tow, sitting quietly in the dense undergrowth waiting for the bird to hop up off the forest floor on to a log, proved to be a test of everyone’s ‘field craft’ but eventually our patience paid off and up it popped!

Two excellent additions to the list, bringing up 490 & 491 respectively! Only another nine to go…