Greetings,
I visited Norfolk Island with my two sons (5 & 7 y.o) in mid-April of this year. All birding was done in their company, so it was by no means a hard-core birding trip.
I benefited from reading several Norfolk Island trip reports on Birding-Aus, the most current to our trip was Jenny Spry’s from the previous month, and I have nothing of significance to add to the locations and other trip information that she provided.
We went over to Phillip Island, and did a fishing trip the next day – with the hope of getting to the continental shelf (but didn’t get there). We did however see Wilson’s Storm-Petrel on that fishing trip, which seems to be previously unrecorded on Norfolk Island? I have some bad (but good enough to confirm i.d.) photos.
Another bird of interest was having the opportunity to watch so many Red-tailed Tropicbirds at close quarters and with light from above, below, sideways, and every other possible direction. I couldn’t get the tail to look even remotely white, irrespective of the angle of the light, so I’m more convinced that the white-tailed, coral-red-billed tropicbird I saw in January 2001 at Hippolyte Rock, Tasmania was a Red-billed Tropicbird (at that time unrecorded in Australia).
On non-birding matters, we loved the fabulous fungi all over the place, including a stunning luminous mushroom (I’ve got photos of that, too, taken at night using only the illumination of the fungus if anyone wants to see), and a crazy forest floor star-shaped liquid-filled insect-attracting plant (photos on request), I think someone called it star-of-the-forest, but I can’t find out any more about it.
And finally, a non-natural history highlight – my sons and I did the enjoyable morning bird tour with Margaret Christian, along with three women from Sydney, who all turned out to be teachers and two of them musicians (as am I). Once this was realised, and following a phone-call from Margaret, we all got invited to a music evening (jam session/performance) that Margaret happened to be going to that night, and over the course of the evening I got to play with just about every musician on the island. It was a nice interlude of not feeling like a tourist, but briefly a member of the community.
Below is a bird list. Kermadec and White-necked Petrels were only seen as young on Phillip Island – Kermadec fully-feathered, White-necked were fluffy-balls.
We wandered around the National Park a bit at night, but no sign of any Boobooks.
Cheers
Philip
*-*-*-*-*-*-* Philip Griffin philipgriffin at gmail dot com
Red Junglefowl California Quail Feral Goose Mallard Pacific Black Duck Kermadec Petrel White-necked Petrel Black-winged Petrel Wedge-tailed Shearwater Wilson’s Storm-Petrel Red-tailed Tropicbird Masked Booby Little Black Cormorant Greater Frigatebird White-faced Heron Swamp Harrier Nankeen Kestrel Purple Swamphen Bar-tailed Godwit Wandering Tattler Ruddy Turnstone Pacific Golden Plover Double-banded Plover Sooty Tern Brown Noddy Black Noddy Grey Noddy White Tern Feral Pigeon Pacific Emerald Dove Crimson Rosella Norfolk Island Parakeet Sacred Kingfisher Norfolk Island Gerygone Pacific Robin Norfolk Island Whistler Grey Fantail House Sparrow European Goldfinch European Greenfinch Welcome Swallow Silvereye Slender-billed White-eye Common Blackbird Song Thrush Common Starling ===============================
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