Our first day Down Under

 The trip out here was long (30 hours door to door) but really not unpleasant.  We landed at 5 am, but ours was the only plane landing so immigration and customs were quick. Protecting the native flora and fauna is really important in Australia, so there are elaborate screening processes to make sure no invasive species creeps in on the soles of your shoes or in your luggage. Today turns out to be a bank holiday in Australia in honor of Queen Elizabeth, so the hotels are crowded and the roads are empty.  We are staying in Margate Beach, a bit north of Brisbane and right on the ocean. The village to the north of Margate is Redcliffe (settled in 1799) and the home of the BeeGees (there is a whole side street devoted to murals about them, including a copy of the 1959 recording contract their parents signed on behalf of the sons). 

It rained much of the day, but we scurried out to look for birds every time it let up, and ended up with 25 new species for the day. Of course, being in a new hemisphere, perhaps the more surprising thing was that we saw 5 species that we have seen before.  It was a bit surprising that almost all the species we saw were quite large birds, very different from our hunting for tiny warblers, hummingbirds and sunbirds on other trips. In keeping with this theme, on our way to dinner tonight we saw two species of bats, both were enormous! One of the birds we really hoped to see was the Rainbow Lorikeet. As often happens we got very excited to see a few on our first walk of the day, but by the end of the day we had seen dozens — but no complaints, as they are truly spectacular birds. 

Pictured: Rainbow Lorikeet, Blue-faced Honeyeater, female Maned Duck, female Magpie-lark