It wasn’t a birding trip. Yet birds are everywhere in the world so how could I not notice birds in Australia and New Zealand! Here are some birding moments from my trip!

I consider myself a “birder in learning mode” since I have only been at this activity a few years. My acknowledgment of certain birds was due to “that bird looks similar to a bird I know”. Considering not having my binoculars or a 500 mm camera lens to look through and see any bird better, I think I did okay! (I did use 18-270 camera lens and cropped photos.)

Oystercatchers and this one is a sooty oystercatcher:

I love pied-billed grebes and here was a Great crested grebe:

So many types of cormorants! How about this one drying its feathers, a little pied cormorant:

There’s all kinds of herons, but I thought this is either a green or night heron, and I discover it is a Nankeen night heron:

As I learned at home, sometimes one needs to take a close look to truly identify a bird.The magpie made me look closely to discover the difference between an Australian magpie and a magpie-lark! Fun fact: the magpie-lark is neither a magpie or a lark! Check out the photos:

The magpie-lark is actually more closely related to fantails. Here’s one, New Zealand fantail, that took me forever to photograph as it jumped around in the tree! I see more of these birds during my travel but have no time to photograph them as they are crazy active!

I discover house sparrows are all over Australia and New Zealand! And so are common chaffinch and masked lapwing.

At times I found myself on a mission to find a specific bird. One was the tui. This was a bird in New Zealand, always pictured with a white-tuft of feathers. I wanted to see it! After many days and awful photos, this was my best photo of a tui:

I remembered some song about the laughing kookaburra in an old gum tree, so that was another bird I hoped to find. And I did:

My biggest birding surprise! I was walking at Clifton Beach in Australia, returning to Palm Cove. While thinking about upcoming plans, I notice a bird in tall grass. Hmmm… sort of a different look to this bird from all I have seen in previous weeks. I photograph it with my phone. What a surprise when I discover it is a bird I have been looking for in Southern California, USA! Here it is:

I hope I did not drive my fellow travelers crazy as I looked and listened for birds, spoke of Merlin Bird ID, and kept all aware of how many birds I saw per day. There seemed a genuine interest from others as they shared their observations and photos of birds. My Australian group was truly patient with me since by the end of my travel, I saw 70 new birds in Australia and 15 new birds in New Zealand! My love of birds and eBird list has grown!