Tuesday 9 July 2013

Where in the World is Calgary Birder? Let me tell you....

If you've been following along with this blog over the past couple of months you will have seen a series of posts providing clues on the destination of our, soon to begin, month-long family adventure.  Here are the answers to those clues, each of which ties into one of the four legs of our journey.  You can click on each image to link-out to more information on the birds, not to mention the original source of the photo.
Clue #4 was the Laughing Kookaburra.  A member of the kingfisher family (Halcyonidae), this is an iconic bird of Australia and as such represents our first destination, Australia's iconic city of Sydney.
After getting over our jet lag we'll be heading to Darwin for some camping around Kakadu National Park.  With 280 species of birds and some wetland tours on the agenda, it's likely that the Nankeen Night-Heron will be among our sightings.
Following on from the Darwin camping trip, we'll be camping once again out of Alice Springs, where the Dusky Grasswren might be seen hopping around among the desert grasses.
After nearly 3 weeks in Australia we'll be heading home via Fiji, where the selection of island was absolutely in no way whatsoever based on picking the one with the largest number of endemic birds ;)  By strange coincidence, our destination of Kadavu does in fact have the largest number of endemics and this, the Kadavu Honeyeater, is among them.  With a week to relax, snorkel, and hike, perhaps I'll turn up a few!

I'm not sure how much internet, time, or inclination I will have on the trip, but there are a few Alberta related scheduled posts while we are gone.  After the trip there should be lots of pictures to show and stories to tell - stay tuned....

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