Adelaide (1 Viewer)

Hi all, just asking what would be the best time of year for Birding near the Adelaide area, and are there any recommended sites worth visiting ?

Thanks from Mark

Hi Mark

Although we don't have a dedicated "Adelaide" article, the one for South Australia has a lot of links which should perhaps prove useful to you.

Hope it gets you started anyway.

markspirito said:

Hi all, just asking what would be the best time of year for Birding near the Adelaide area, and are there any recommended sites worth visiting ?

Thanks from Mark

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Hi Mark,

Only just saw this. Sorry for slow response.

it of course depends a lot on how far you are willing to travel from the city, and if there are particular birds you're after. The avian biodiversity around Adelaide is not as high as some other Australian cities, but that said, you can see some good birds at a few sites around the city and even more if you're able to travel an hour or 90mins by car. In October I did a 12 hour twitchathon that visited many of the good sites and saw around 160 species.

That was in the late spring (late Aug-Nov) when it's breeding season and late enough that many wintering waders have returned for the Austral summer having bred in the northern hemisphere. Summer can also be good though it can be extremely hot (last weekend I went to Tolderol Game Reserve early am to beat the geat. It hit 44 deg later in the day). Winter has lower diversity, but on a fine day the light can be beautiful. Autumn is good for waders getting ready for northwards migration.

Ebird is used by a number of local birders so a hotspot map could give you an idea of what you might see.

Sites I would recommend with driving distance from Adelaide in brackets: Brookfield (90) for mallee / dry country birds; Thompson Beach (70) for waders, Magazine Rd (15 or 30 on public transport) for water birds and waders; Cleland and Morialta Conservation Parks (15 public transport) for Cooler/wetter climate bush birds; Laratinga (30) for waterbirds, crakes, etc; Monarto (50) for mallee birds, and Tolderol (60) for wetland species including bittern and waders.

See my blog for few posts about local birding including a description of the twitchathon https://thefeatheredvariety.wordpress.com

There is also a very active Facebook group, South Aussie Birding with a community of people very willing to help.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Ian

Thanks Ian, some very useful info there we may be visiting during your spring time , all being well

Many thanks again
Mark

markspirito said:

Thanks Ian, some very useful info there we may be visiting during your spring time , all being well

Many thanks again
Mark

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You're welcome. Feel free to DM me or email specific questions.