It is now October 8th, home not quite two weeks. All photos have been processed and added to Ebird reports. Five blog posts have been written and published. Writing the blogs and going over photos and Ebird reports has been a great way to “keep the trip alive” and also to get a distanced perspective on the trip. From that perspective my most important take is that it was a great trip in almost every way. Now looking back here is a summary of how I see the trip and I have included a gallery of my top 2 dozen bird photographs – roughly 12% of the species photographed.

PEOPLE: Without question the best part of our trip was the people. In every location and in every situation, our intersections with people were terrific, not a single negative. Check in and even security at airports was great and people were friendly and helpful. At airports in Australia there were volunteers. mostly senior citizens, who were in the concourses helping travelers find their way. Hotel staffs were the same – friendly, helpful and competent. Waiters at restaurants were mostly young people who were in Australia on work visas – mostly from Europe or Asia or occasionally South America but not North America or Africa – and were again competent, helpful and engaging. Our bird guides Christian Doerig and Doug Herrington were excellent as were Birding Pals Ross and Thea Monks competent, friendly and engaging. Casual intersections – either the professor at the first restaurant, dog walkers in parks, other birders, the crowds who came to Melbourne for the NFL game, people on the trams, in the shops – everyone – warm and friendly.

PLACES: Each place we visited was great. Melbourne was probably our favorite – somewhat influenced by that coffee and those pastries and it was where we had the most diverse experiences. We loved the Great Ocean Road. We loved the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney. Uluru/Ayers Rock was a unique and beautiful experience. Even without a Southern Cassowary, Tropical Queensland from Cairns north with the beautiful water, crocodiles, the tropical forest and the party vibe of Port Douglas was a great add to the itinerary. Food aside, O’Reilly’s really is similar to some of the cherished lodges in South America and the birds are so accessible and charismatic adding a different dimension to the experience of a beautiful forest immersion. Finally our Brisbane time was maybe too limited with one full day for me with the Monks, a great time, but not shared by Cindy. The riverfront was great as was our hotel and the restaurants were fun and like Melbourne and Sydney, many architecturally cool buildings. Another day would have broadened our experience there.

FOOD: There were limitations at O’Reilly’s and Uluru and prices were higher than expected, but this was a great culinary trip with exceptional coffee, especially in Melbourne, varied menus with food from every country you could want and with great preparation and presentation and both familiar and new tastes. I am probably missing some, but I can recall meals that were Italian, Mexican, Colombian, Korean, Greek, “American”, Thai, Indian, Spanish, Argentinian and “Australian”. If Barramundi and Coral Trout were available here in Edmonds, we would be happy to add them to our diet here. And repeating a comment from an earlier blog, if Brunetti Oro from Melbourne was in Edmonds, weight control would be a real problem.

WILDLIFE (NOT BIRDS): Australia is famous for having more dangerous animals than anywhere else with the possible exception of Africa. It is also famous for the unique world of marsupials. The Great Barrier Reef is a treasure. We could have and maybe should have spent more time searching out some of it unique wildlife. We did not see them in great numbers, but we had great intersections with kangaroos and did see a koala in the wild and also in a preserve and had a couple of wallabies. There were Saltwater Crocodiles on the Daintree River – enough to check the box. Half of the 200 plus snakes in Australia are venomous and a dozen of them are considered dangerous. We saw only a single non-venomous snake. No dingoes, no platypus, no wombats, no echidnas, no sharks, no box jellyfish. On our Africa trips, our main focus has been on birds but the mammals have been as much a part of the visits as the birds. Australia was more like our trips to South America – dominated by birds with a mammal or reptile or two as icing on the bird cake. If we return, I will not give up on the birds (or coffee) but would spend more time looking for non-avian animals.

BIRDS: With the exception of two shorter trips to the Netherlands and Italy, this trip had less birding, intensity and percentage wise, than any of the other international trips for Cindy and me and was completely different from my solo trips which are essentially birding only. We were “in-country” for 18 days in Australia. Cindy sat out my days with the Monks and Doug Herrington which with the day with Christian Doerig were essentially birding only days. So from my perspective I would say there were 3 days of birding only and another 3 days lost to our many internal flights and getting to our hotels. Otherwise, on average, maybe 40% of the time on the other days, were birding. Putting that together, something less than half of the trip – maybe the equivalent of 7 full on days can be seen as birding days for me. So from that perspective, how was the birding? My answer is EXCELLENT! Repeating numbers written elsewhere, the totals for the trip were: 218 total species, 37 lifers, photos of 203 species including 161 life photos and photos of all but one of the new lifers!! The biggest disappointment was missing a photo of the Southern Cassowary. Before this trip, my Australia list was 271 species and I had photos of 33 of them. Presented another way, I got life photos of about half of the species I had seen previously but not photographed – mostly because I did not see the same photos as before – mostly because I did not bird some of the same areas and also did not spend nearly as much time birding. If we had spent the same number of days birding on this trip as I did in 2003, the percentages (and all other numbers) would have been much higher. So … EXCELLENT!

• BIRDS +1 – FAIRYWRENS: There are 10 fairywren species in Australia. I have seen 6 of them but only have photos of 4 of them. I missed a photo of a Lovely Fairywren seen on this trip and did not see and thus did not get a photo of the White-winged Fairywren seen in 2003 but not this time, so not even a photo op. Wish I had them all. I have seen 41 of these species
• BIRDS +2 HONEYEATERS: Amazingly there are 78 species of honeyeaters in Australia. Many have “honeyeater” in their names, but the group also includes wattlebirds, friarbirds, myzomelas, miners, spinebills, chats and one gibberbird. I have seen 41 of these species, 27 on this latest trip. I have photos of the ones seen this year but none before – lots of opportunity.

The following photos have been chosen as favorites without necessarily being of the “best” birds as that is hard to define and is unfair to those not chosen all of which have their special place.

AUSTRALIA IN THE FUTURE: Given our ages, other places on our “to visit” list and the distance involved, it is probably unlikely that we will visit Australia again. HOWEVER, we really enjoyed this trip; many previously seen but not photographed species remain and are tempting and … we have never visited either Northern or Western Australia…so maybe…