26 Sep - 19 Oct
This is the second part of the seven week trip I took to Australia between early September and late October when I, of course, made no visits to Priorslee Lake
I have treated this as a separate and independent tour. Some of the more widespread birds may also appear in this set of photos if they have sufficient merit. All photos were taken on this tour. All were taken on a Canon SX50HS Bridge camera – a camera that produces stunning results for its c.£300 price tag. It is a pity it is still not sold as its replacement (SX60HS) is, in my view, nowhere near as good. Almost all are ‘untouched’ – as they came off the camera. A few I took ‘at sea’ had to have the contrast adjusted
These photos are essentially selective. I took c.10000 photos on the trip. I whittled this down a lot when I threw out all the out of focus and generally naff shots. I then produced a ‘best’ list of ‘photos with merit’ which was still too many. A ‘stars’ list, from which this extract of about 250 is culled, was as far as I have gone. But these decisions are essentially ‘of the moment’ and tomorrow I would probably change some of these
We had finished Tour 1 of the Northern Territories with a spare day in Darwin. We started Tour 2 with a spare day in Cairns before meeting the other guys on the trip There were three distinct phases to the trip
- the first week we drove from Cairns to the Iron Range on the Cape York Peninsular and back. In the far Northwest of Queensland there are the largest surviving tracts of tropical rain-forest – yes we were north of the Tropic of Capricorn
- once back in Cairns we flew to Mount Isa, a mining town in interior Queensland for a week of serious Outback-ing before flying back to Brisbane
- from Brisbane we flew to Lord Howe Island located 370 miles east of Port Macquarie in the Tasman Sea and nominally part of New South Wales. The target here was seabirds both nesting on the island and ‘at sea’
So on with the narrative and the photos. Full Album Here
Welcome Swallows
Forest Kingfishers
A male Olive-backed Sunbird
Rainbow Bee-eater
Ball's Pyramid off Lord Howe
The Gibson’s (Wandering) Albatross