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All animals on this page were photographed in the wild unless stated. All images can be clicked to view a larger version.

Southern Cassowary

The Cassowary is Australia’s largest land animal. It normally weighs about 60kg and its eggs are the third largest of all birds at an average 584g (after the Ostrich and Emu). Even though it is large and colourful, it can be hard to see in the rainforest. At close quarters it is quite frightening as we encountered a mother and her chicks on a walk in Lacey Creek, Mission Beach. This was one of the highlights of our trip as it is an endangered species, with estimates of only 1500 remaining. This means there may be fewer Cassowaries in Australia than Pandas in China. My brother, Jono, and I, on another walk, saw a mother washing it's chick in a stream. Amazing.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

These are noisy buggers! They are found absolutely everywhere and we saw them from the Blue Mountains to Cape Tribulation. On Hayman Island they were considered to be a slight pest and we were warned not to leave the balcony doors open as they will steal anything. I loved them.

Azure Kingfisher

I could not remember seeing one in the UK and was stoked when I spotted this one on the Broken River, Eungella NP. We would just watch it diving in the water to get fish and carrear up and down the river channel.

King Parrot

This was taken at Pebble Beach, NSW. The kid and his sister were covered with lorikeets and parrots.

Rainbow Lorikeet

We saw there everywhere. The couple below were like sqwabbling twins, mimicking each others' movement.

Laughing Kookaburra

This boy was a complete star. I first heard one in the Blue Mountains - I could not believe that one bird could make such a wierd racket. I found out they were from the Kingfisher family - I thought it was a make of cricket bat. The more rare Blue Winged Kookaburra is pictured to the right.

Blue Winged Kookaburra

Royal Spoonbill

Apart from Victoria's Riflebird, this is the favourite bird I saw. It was really shy and coy. It took me a few days to come out from behind a tree at the right time. He had a brilliant way of swishing his bill from side to side in the water to feed. This one hung out near the Combi in Hervey Bay.

Black Swan

This picture was taken at Eungella Dam, 100 miles inland from Airlie Beach. We had ventured there on 35km of unsealed road from Eungella checking out a rubbish dump on the way for giant Goannas.

Macleay’s Honeyeater

The Honeyeater was a fairly common bird found in North Queensland, but you would never get tired of watching them feasting on nectar from flowers. They were hummingbird-like.

Victoria’s Riflebird

Victoria’s Riflebird is one of 12 bird species endemic to the Wet Tropics region and is only one of four birds-of-paradise indigenous to Australia. We saw this beautiful boy in the Atherton Tablelands at Paluma. Male riflebirds slap their wings together as they arch them above their head in dramatic courting displays. We did not see this but the sight looks incredible. Check it.

 

Galah

This cheeky boy took a liking to Holly in the Kurranda Bird Sanctuary. In fact, she had Lorikeets and parrots swarming over her and nibbling her ear.

Stone Curlew

We nicknamed this one, who seemed to live with us on Magnetic Island, "Professor Yaffle". He just seemed to wonder around the place like he owned it constantly looking down his nose at us.

Australian Pelican

On our first trip from Sydney, Holly had spotted a Pelican over a bridge whilst I was driving. I was gutted that I had not seen it, but like so many other birds, I was unaware how many I would see on the rest of our trip.

Australian Darter

This Eungella Darter was drying his wings out on the river.

Yellow Faced Lapwings

These boys darted around our campsite on Magnetic Island. They were also seen quite regularly by the side of the road trhoughout Queensland.

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