Tag: Australia

Who is that Masked Bird?…by Brad Marks

For some reason I continually forget February is a short month – even worse since leaving the grind when I had the end of the month “Explain how you earned our money” reports to remind me the calendar is about to roll (and the bank account grow). I am sure someone out there is going “Just look in the bottom right corner of your screen nitwit!“. The important thing is I need to stay on top of the posts or we will miss our self-imposed monthly quota. I had intentions of digging into my photo backlog queue and writing up a post today, but Linda offered to go chase a Snowy Owl that had been spotted about an hour away…that requires zero decision time ha. We ended up finding TWO of them which made my day (missed that check all of last year). In my jubilation, forgot about the post until it was too late, but you are in luck. Brad was at the ready with another of his adventures from “Down Under”. Last time I brought you a new bird that traveled to us, this time we are bringing you a new bird that Intrigued packed its bags for.

Take it away Brad…. (Note, Brad and Jan are out on assignment so replies might be delayed)

On our first full day in Cairns (pronounced “cans”), Queensland Australia (north side), Jan and I went outside our beachfront hotel after breakfast to see what we could see before our first group activity started.  Even in October, Cairns is very warm and humid.  Remember, it’s on the other side of the Equator, the seasons are reversed.  Essentially, we were in Australia in “April” for them.  Cairns is in the tropics so temperatures don’t vary all that much winter to summer.  Well, except from Fahrenheit to Celsius for travelers.  The high temperature that day reached 28C, or 82F, with 110% humidity.  A very warm day for me, but about average for this time of year for Cairns.  Important stats to know when carrying very large glass outside after it has been sitting in an air-conditioned hotel room overnight.  We let the cameras and lenses warm up slowly to prevent condensation on all of the glass elements.  Wandering around with a large camera and 200-500mm lens garners a lot of attention. 

Talk about having egg on your face ha… hit the jump to learn more about this exotic looking bird.

Continue reading Who is that Masked Bird?…by Brad Marks

Old Gum Tree…by Brad Marks

Sorry for the lag in posts, the first of the year bird count reset means we are in a target rich environment, especially down here in south Texas. Sun up to sun down we are chasing birds and then by the time I get the spoils offloaded to the storage drives (and the secondary storage drives), make the eBird submissions, update Intrigued’s Average Year bird tracker and write up the day’s trip report I am absolutely exhausted. My brother Ron was also able to join us for a few days so I’m trying my best to get him caught up – yes, our brotherly “competition” transitions to “collaboration” when we are in the field together. My slow start is picking up steam as I’m now on firm ground in the Texas top 100 birders list and steadily climbing. Even bagged a premier rarity for the Rio Grande Valley today – a nice gift for my birthday (today). More to come on that success, but for now, if you are interested you can get up to speed on where we’ve been on our Average Year status page (note, I have not been able to get the charts updated yet) – link here. Best of all, I’ve been meeting a number of wonderful and extremely helpful birders this trip – our feather community never ceases to amaze me.

While I recover from my birthday celebration, going to put you in Brad’s capable hands to bring you another very special bird from their trip “Down Under”. Take care everybody, I’ll be back once things start settling down here.

Take it away Brad…

The title of this story should get your braincells remembering a song from childhood.  That is, if you are over a certain age.  I’m not admitting to anything at all, mind you. 

Jan and I were on assignment down under.  We had just completed a long day visiting Taronga Zoo in Sydney and traversing everything there is to see at Sydney Harbour.  We spent a little while trying to find P. Sherman at 42 Wallaby Way (from Finding Nemo by Disney), but then decided it was probably time to find our hotel.

Sydney is a lovely city to visit.  There’s a bit of nearly everything for any visitor.  Sydney has tall buildings for the architecture lover.  There are great restaurants liberally sprinkled through the downtown area.  A few blocks away from the harbour is fantastic shopping, even some very high-end stores with queues forming outside an hour before the stores opened.  Not to mention the Sydney Opera House (a life goal) and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, both right on the water.  In my humble opinion, Intrigued readers really must visit Sydney.  No, I’m not being compensated by their tourism council.  And yes, I’m using Australian spellings where they differ with their American cousins for this story.

On the way back from the harbour area, Jan and I decided to walk through the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.  It was on the way to our hotel after all, and a great chance to look for birds.  Within seconds of setting foot in the botanical garden, our first photo subject was prepped and ready to go for us.  I was looking to the right side of the path at a Noisy Miner and Jan was looking to the left.  She lifted her arm to point at a bird in the tree and asked, “What’s that?”  Before I could turn to focus my attention, she had raised her camera and was firing away.

Laughing Kookaburra found by Brad and Jan

Not going to see one of these hanging out in one of our local trees, that’s for sure. Hit the jump to learn more about this kooky looking bird!

Continue reading Old Gum Tree…by Brad Marks

Cuteness Overload in a Tree (COiaT)…by Brad Marks

Welcome to the New Year everyone! I am getting a late start mostly due to lack of consistent connectivity…that and the fact the birding counter reset to 0 a few days ago. If you are a birder, you know that the beginning of the year is the BEST time to bird as practically every thing you see with wings is a check! As for the connectivity, we are currently in Big Bend National Park and this place is HUGE. For a reference point, the road from one end of the park to the other is ~43 miles. The park itself is over 800,000 acres of which a large number of those produce a slashed circle on your cell phone bar. I’ll get more into this park in future posts, but right now (while I have a few bars of signal) I want to get you to something I kind of let out of the bag in our Christmas greeting. Brad and Jan had the opportunity to explore “Down Under” late last year and I wanted to start off 2026 with one of their observations.

You are in for a real treat, take it away Brad!…

Sometimes, photo assignments turn out to be vacations in disguise.  Shhh, don’t tell Intrigued HQ; Jan and I sold this trip on being a four-week long photo adventure, promising to bring back thousands of photos.  Well, we actually did bring back tens of thousands of photos.  We also had a very nice vacation along the way in a spectacular part of the world.  This trip/vacation/assignment ticked several life goal boxes: crossing the equator, crossing the International Date Line, crossing the Pacific Ocean, visiting a new continent, seeing the Indian Ocean, and seeing unique wildlife.  You get the idea.

To maximize our coverage area and create the most photo opportunities, on our first full day down under we signed up for a guided tour leaving Melbourne early in the morning.  After picking up the other tour participants, the guide and driver named Brian (at least it will be for this story), gave us an overview of the agenda for the day.  Once everyone was onboard, and he thought most of the tour group was awake (the tour started before sunrise), he asked if there were any goals we had for the trip.  Waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else suggested a goal, I blurted out mine for the day.  No one else was really awake it seemed because there we no other suggestions.  I realized later that of the nine people in the tour minibus, there were only four English speaking participants.  Brian mentioned something about my goal being very nice, but that it had a very low likelihood of being achieved for reasons listed later.

Several hours into the tour, Brian had begun to warm up to the group and suggested we might be able to meet my stated goal after all. As we approached a small bridge over a stream in the middle of nowhere, literally, he slowed dramatically.  Dozens of tourists had parked haphazardly on the road and were staring up into the trees.  Brian said that when there are a bunch of people pointing up in a tree in the middle of nowhere it’s usually a sign of something high up in the trees.  Impeccable logic.

He didn’t want to add to the dangerous parking situation so he continued driving across the small bridge to park at the first safe available place.  The road was elevated above the surrounding fields by several feet allowing the creek/river to flow under the bridge with ease.  As Brian opened the sliding door on our touring minibus, Jan hopped off first and spotted a brown lump in the tree in front of us at eye level. 

Koala captured by Brad and Jan Marks while in Australia

How cute is that! – Hit the jump to read more about this adorable creature.

Continue reading Cuteness Overload in a Tree (COiaT)…by Brad Marks