SOUTH COAST ORCHESTRA TOUR - Day 2 - Goulburn to the Shoalhaven!!!

For the next part!! Saturday June 8th.

In the previous post I explained my morning's birding, with the spotlighting of the White-eared Honeyeater, a rather embarrassing lifer! I just thought I would post a picture of the early morning light on a Pied Currawong that decided to hang around the cabin.

Pied Currawong

Breakfast at 8:30am with a welcome Red Wattlebird going off outside the window. Welcome Swallows drifted around in and out of the morning fog and at 9 or 9:30, a bit hard to remember really but we were generally running late, we got going in the coaches.

On the road, species such as  White Winged Chough (all over the railway lines), Magpie, Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo, Black Shouldered Kite, Nankeen Kestrel, Wedge Tailed Eagle, Brown Goshawk, Eastern and Crimson Rosella, Red Rumped Parrot and a couple of hundred Straw Necked Ibis were seen.

On Bus Photography - Wedge Tailed Eagle

We arrived at our camp and I could tell it was going to be AMAZING for birdlife. The moment I stepped out of the bus, at least 20 species were heard and seen, if not more. Golden Whistler, Grey Shrike Thrush, Rainbow and Scaly Breated Lorikeet, Noisy Miner, Lyrebird, Lewin's and Yellow Faced Honeyeaters, Superb Fairy Wrens, New Holland Honeyeater, Eastern Spinebill, Whipbird, White Throated Treecreeper, Willy Wagtail, Grey Fantail... and the list goes on!!!

We put all our stuff into our cabins and headed off to Nowra to perform with the Shoalhaven Youth Orchestra and others. The highlight of this trip was a Wedge Tailed Eagle in the distance and a lonely Black Shouldered Kite huddled on a dead tree... I think everyone on the bus was too busy taking selfies and socialising to look out the window!!!

To give some idea of window dirtiness, the sky was blue....

A long rehearsal in the Nowra School of Arts followed by a concert which was greatly applauded brought about the end of our trip into Nowra with no more than a few Rainbow Lorikeets, Starlings, Australian White Ibis, Rock Dove, both Rosellas and a couple of Welcome Swallows and unidentified honeyeaters.

A delicious supper of CHOCOLATE MOUSSE was had, more selfies were taken, and zilch birds were seen or heard, aside from an incredibly distant Boobook.

The next day's birding will be recorded in my next post, a lot more eventful!

Hope you enjoyed reading this!