We drove further north to Budawang NP. From here, we set off on a 3-day hike to summit the Castle and walk into Monolith valley.
Our campsite was a small clearing in thick scrub with a lovely flowering banksia in the middle. This attracted lots of birds in the morning and evening but with such low light and extremely quick birds I struggled to get many decent shots. We saw Striated Thornbill, Silvereye, White-browed Scrubwren, Eastern Spinebill, Red Wattlebird, Pied Currawong, Crimson Rosella and White-naped Honeyeater (a new spotting for me) around our campsite. We also heard a Lyrebird going through it's repertoire of bird calls one evening.
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| Striated Thornbill, Acanthiza lineata |
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| White-browed Scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis |
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| Silvereye, Zosterops lateralis |
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| Pied Currawong, Strepera graculina |
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| Red Wattlebird, Anthochaera carunculata |
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| Eastern Spinebill, Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris |
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| White-naped Honeyeater, Melithreptus lunatus |
On our walk through the Monolith Valley I came across this little brown bird. It was feeding on the ground and was very quick to move about. I followed it for ages but couldn't get a nice clear shot. Turns out this is a Pilotbird - a new spot for me.
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| Pilotbird, Pycnoptilus floccosus |
Another new spot were these cute little finches.
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| Beautiful Firetail, Stagonopleura bella |
Bob found this snake curled up in a rock crevice. We got very excited, thinking that it might be the endangered Broad-headed snake that is only found in a small area south of Sydney. After some research we discovered that it is in fact a young Diamond Python and not the endangered snake we were hoping for.
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| Diamond Python, Morelia spilota spilota |
On the walk out I spent another frustrating 15 mins trying to capture this little bird. Happy I persevered because it's another new spot.
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| Brown Gerygone, Gerygone mouki |
There were also lots of pretty flowers in bloom along the trail.
I encountered a total of 4 new bird spots on this hike and was excited to have been able to see such a beautiful python up close.
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