Kangaroo Island Birding Tour, South Australia - 3 Days

The pick-ups will start at 9:00 a.m. at the hotel or airport. If you want to get to Kangaroo Island earlier, you can talk to our friendly staff about adding more nights to your stay. Start your three-day bird-watching trip with a short walk in American River, a small coastal village. Glossy black-cockatoos, grey currawongs, little corellas, galahs, and black-faced cuckoo-shrikes can all be found in the bush. Along the shore, you can often see pied oystercatchers, royal spoonbills, black swans, grey teal, Australian white ibis, Australian pelicans, and rufous night herons.

The Kingscote oxidation ponds usually have a good variety of waterfowl, and the Cygnet River estuary, which is right next to them, is always worth a look.

Have lunch at Reeves Point, where you can learn about the history of the island's settlement and often see a lot of birds (species vary with season).

After lunch, you can go out on the water with Kangaroo Island Marine Adventures to see Busby Islet up close. Here, you can see many birds from a boat while looking at their nests, which are safe in a protected conservation area. Australian pelicans, royal spoonbills, black-faced, pied, little pied, and little black cormorants, Australian white ibis, and maybe even migratory species from other countries could breed there from November to March.

The nesting birds are constantly bothered by white-bellied sea eagles and swamp harriers. On this trip, you can usually see a lot of black swans feeding on seagrass meadows and have a chance meeting with a bottlenose dolphin.

Accommodation: Kangaroo Island Lodge. Deluxe water view room.

Morning tea and lunch provided.

After breakfast, we start the day at Roper's Gums, a tall eucalyptus forest where you will learn about the endemic glossy black-cockatoo recovery plan and the private conservation efforts at Cygnet Park, where a former pasture has been turned back into a diverse bushland. After having morning tea on the floodplain of the Cygnet River, head to Seal Bay Conservation Park.

Keep an eye out for birds of prey as you drive to Seal Bay. Some of the birds that could be there are wedge-tailed eagles, swamp harriers, Australian kestrels, black-shouldered kites, collared sparrowhawks, brown goshawks, and brown falcons.

At Seal Bay, you can take a private tour with a guide to see Australian Sea-lions. Birds like caspian and crested terns, sooty oystercatchers, and hooded plovers are often seen on the beach with sea lions. White-bellied sea eagles and eastern ospreys can be seen flying overhead. Cormorants, both great and pied, often rest on the headland to the west.

Next is Point Ellen, where you might see rock parrots, fairy terns, or little penguins in their burrows near the beacon during certain times of the year. Listen for southern emu-wrens, purple-gaped honeyeaters, and western whipbirds in the coastal heath and mallee while you're having morning tea.

The rest of the day is spent exploring the vast wilderness of Flinders Chase National Park. The day starts in the Rocky River precinct. Cape barren geese, crescent honeyeaters, little and red wattlebirds, striated and spotted pardalotes, Australian ravens, koalas, Kangaroo Island kangaroos, short-beaked echidnas, Rosenberg's goanna (during the right time of year), and tammar wallabies are some of the animals you might see here.

Visit the famous Remarkable Rocks, a beautiful natural sculpture on a clifftop. Stop for a gourmet poached chicken picnic lunch and look through your binoculars for Australian kestrels, tawny-crowned honeyeaters, southern emu-wrens, and the hard-to-find western whipbird.

Admiral's Arch is close by. It is a sea cave where you can often find Australian ravens, sooty oystercatchers, crested terns (which in 2006 and 2007 included Antarctic terns), pacific gulls, and a large colony of long-nosed fur seals. If the wind is coming from the south-west, there is a chance of seeing pelagic species here as well.

Accommodation: Kangaroo Island Lodge. Deluxe water view room.

Morning tea and lunch provided.

Duck Lagoon is a freshwater billabong where you might see white-eared, white-naped, and brown-headed honeyeaters, crimson rosellas, superb fairy-wrens, black swans, grey and chestnut teal, yellow-billed spoonbills, pacific black duck, Australasian and hoary-headed grebes, chestnut-breasted shelducks, little pied cormorants, and (

Go to the north coast of the Island after morning tea. Visit Lathami Conservation Park, where the glossy black-cockatoo lives and is protected. Kangaroos, tammar wallabies, scarlet robins, striated and brown thornbills, grey shrike-thrush, short-beaked echidnas, golden whistlers, and beautiful firetails are all common sights.

Look for Australian pelicans, eastern reef herons, hooded plovers, and white-bellied sea-eagles at Stokes Bay, which is nearby.

Travel inland to a private lunch site where your guide will cook a seafood barbecue for you. This area is home to koalas, crescent and new holland honeyeaters, eastern spinebills, grey fantails, rainbow and purple-crowned lorikeets, yellow-tailed black-cockatoos, and a variety of smaller bush birds.

Continue exploring this afternoon at D'Estrees Bay to see hooded plovers, ruddy turnstones (seasonal), eastern ospreys, rock parrots (seasonal), and one of the MacGillivray Wetlands before heading back to the airport for your flight. Why not stay longer and have more time to look around? Our helpful staff can give you ideas.

Morning tea and lunch provided.