BIRDING ON THE SUNSHINE COAST

Greg Roberts

The most attractive feature about the Sunshine Coast from a birding perspective is the wide variety of habitat on offer within a geographically short range. A 20-minute drive from my home in Yandina can place me in or on rainforest, dry vine scrub, wet sclerophyll forest, open eucalypt forest, freshwater wetlands, wallum heath, coastal sandflats, beaches, coastal rocky headlands, mangroves, or grasslands – all the habitats of southeast Queensland. For instance, I have Grass Owl 11km to the east of my home, and Sooty Owl 15km to the west.

Grey Shrike-thrush at Yandina

Several bird species which are rare or uncommon – or are normally difficult to find – are reliably viewable at several Sunshine Coast sites.

In the Blackall and Conondale Ranges in the hinterland, several pairs of Marbled Frogmouth inhabit the extensive areas of rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest. The region is the stronghold for the plumiferus race of the species, which had not been seen or heard for several decades until it was rediscovered here in the mid-1970s. Masked Owls and Sooty Owls occur widely in forests, sometimes sharing&hellip Read more

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Changes in Sunshine Coast Bird Populations
Monday, April 4th, 2011