Eastern Australia - 3 weeks March & April 2017 (1 Viewer)

Hopefully you will still be able to struggle around, Stuart.

If I was replanning I would probably try to time it better to get a pelagic in and I would definitely go with the professional guiding option. There are probably better times of year to visit but we enjoyed the Melbourne Comedy Festival and unlike most of the British festivals, shows are mainly in the evening so can coexist with birding.

I've finally started to put my list together properly and I've spotted a few more missing species, which is good because when I initially totted them up I ended up with about 298 species in total. Getting over 300 is meaningless, but nonetheless satisfying.

So

Sydney area - Australian White Ibis
Daintree area (Barramundi fishery) - Plumed Whistling-Duck
Various places - Straw-necked Ibis

and we're working on Black-faced Cormorant which I'm sure we saw in Victoria. More might emerge.

List complete. Missing from the above:

Black-faced Cormorant
Pacific Baza
Red-backed Kingfisher
Eurasian Starling

A total of 301 species in just under 3 weeks. Of those, trying to be as realistic as possible, I think we would have found about 220 on our own (i.e. visiting similar areas but without guides and accepting that we probably wouldn't have got into Werribee). Some of the 80-odd species that we wouldn't have found without guides were pretty good ones, though.

About 250 species were lifers.

We saw about 20 mammal species, all self-found. 17 were lifers.

If we return to Australia (not impossible) we'll have more of a plan, I think, to fill in some of the gaps. I would definitely like to try a pelagic and I feel that we missed out on Cassowary, Platypus and Wombat. I think I'd want to spend a day or two north of the Daintree River in the hope that it might not rain constantly. Tasmania and the west coast will also be on the agenda.

Overall we had a pretty good time. Eating out was consistently good. For Brits pretty much everything is expensive but not unreasonably so. I miss Bundaberg Ginger Beer.