2008	2009
Part I: September 26-October 16 with Chris Benesh & second guide Part II: October 14-29 with John Coons & second guide Pelagics pre-trip from September 24 Tasmania extension to November 3	Part I: September 25-October 15 with Chris Benesh & Megan Crewe Part II: October 13-28 with John Coons & Jay VanderGaast Pelagics pre-trip from September 23 Tasmania extension to November 2

Fee for the itinerary in two parts—$11,350 (Part I only—$6775; Part II only—$4875); Pelagics ext. $875 from Sydney; Tasmania ext. $1875 from Tasmania (2008 fees).
From Sydney or Darwin (Part II). Limit: 14
Tour fees do not include flights within Australia as these are less expensive if they are included with your international ticket.

Good accommodations, easy to moderate terrain, cool to hot climate. Our staff travel agents can book your air travel for this tour. Contact us at (800) 728-4953 for more information.

 The PELAGICS PRE-TRIP and TASMANIA EXTENSION offer exciting and entirely different adventures to complement the main parts of our tour.

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Australian Owlet-Nightjar by participant David Cahlander

Our tour will take us to wild places in each of Australia’s important geographic regions, where we’ll see more than 450 species of birds and a good variety of the larger mammals.  We’ll pass through most of the country’s great cities along the way, beginning in Sydney, then traveling to Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Alice Springs, Darwin, Cairns, and Brisbane.  Visits to several coastal areas of great scenic beauty will find us watching colonies of Little Penguins on the shores of Bass Strait, searching for albatrosses off the rocky headlands of Torndirrup National Park, and scanning the throngs of close shorebirds at the Cairns Esplanade.  Indeed, Australia features wonderful birding and wildlife experiences throughout, and austral springtime brings out the best in this continent rich in natural wonders.

Australia, the “Island Continent,” has been isolated since the hemispheres began and is home to one of the most exciting and unusual assemblages of native wildlife on Earth.  Of the seventy-six native families of Australian birds, eight occur only in Australia and seven are shared only with neighboring New Guinea.  Some 300 of the 760 species known from Australia are endemic!  There are huge Emus and the awesome Southern Cassowary; tiny fairywrens, among the world’s most vividly colored birds; handsome currawongs and odd mud-nest builders; bizarre frogmouths and Australian Owlet-Nightjars; lyrebirds, largest of all passerines and master singers at their display grounds on the forest floor; and strange kingfishers—including the giant Laughing Kookaburra—giving voice to haunting rolls, wild chants, and hair-raising cries from the middle of the desert to the canopy of the dark rainforest.  And there are megapodes, buttonquail, woodswallows, parrots, pittas, pardalotes, fruit-doves, flowerpeckers, treecreepers, honeyeaters, thornbills, logrunners, and whipbirds, not to mention the birds-of-paradise and bowerbirds!  Among the thirty-two families of mammals native to Australia are some of the most peculiar on Earth.  A few of the special mammals we should see are Platypus, Koala, several species of kangaroos and wallabies, giant flying-foxes, and numerous arboreal possums and gliders.

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REGISTRATION FORM (pdf format)

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Contact our office by e-mail in Austin, Texas at fieldguides@fieldguides.com.

• 1+ 800-728-4953
• 1+ 512-263-7295
• 1+ 512-263-0117 (fax)

Field Guides Incorporated, 9433 Bee Cave Road, Building 1, Suite 150, Austin, TX 78733

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