AUSTRALIA
KAKADU, KUNUNURRA & CAPE YORK

$6975 (includes all flights within Australia except the flight from Darwin to Cairns; 2008 fee). 17 days
From Darwin. Limit: 10
Good accommodations (one night in a simple, clean motel), mostly easy terrain, warm climate. Our staff travel agents can book your air travel for this tour. Contact us at (800) 728-4953 for more information. May be combined with PAPUA NEW GUINEA (2008).

Birding The Grotto near Kununurra for White-quilled Rock-Pigeon, by guide John Coons

We’ll begin in Darwin at the Top End of the Northern Territory and the gateway to the paperbark swamps, rivers, billabongs, and sandstone escarpment of Kakadu National Park.  Here the forests are home to a wide variety of species including the huge Blue-winged Kookaburra, Red-winged Parrot, the beautiful Rainbow Pitta, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Green Figbird, and Double-barred Finch.  At Kakadu we will seek such specialties as Chestnut-backed Buttonquail, Partridge Pigeon, Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Black-backed Fruit-Dove, Hooded Parrot, the scarce White-throated Grasswren, White-lined Honeyeater, and Sandstone Shrike-Thrush.  Kakadu also preserves some of the best examples of Aboriginal rock paintings in Australia.

At Kununurra at the edge of the Kimberley plateau in western Australia, we’ll visit gorges, freshwater lagoons, mangrove swamps, and riverine forests where a few of the specialties possible in this infrequently birded region include Australian Bustard, White-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Spinifex Pigeon, the rare Yellow Chat, White-breasted Whistler, and several finches including Crimson, Star, Zebra, Masked, Long-tailed, and the highly nomadic and stunning Gouldian, and Yellow-rumped and Pictorella munias.

The quite remote and very comfortable Bamaga Resort near the tip of the Cape York Peninsula in far northern Queensland provides access to some very special Australian birds of New Guinean origin.  Among the possibilities in the area are the spectacular Palm Cockatoo, Yellow-billed Kingfisher, the recently split endemic Frill-necked Monarch, White-streaked Honeyeater, and Trumpet Manucode.  Finishing at Cairns we’ll visit famed Cassowary House in hopes of seeing its namesake.  This innovative tour offers both the seasoned and the first-time visitor to Australia a memorable experience in some of the continent’s finest birding locales.

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