Australian Magpie (Cracticus tibicen)

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Tara

The Australian magpie (Cracticus tibicen) is a medium-sized black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea. It’s virtually impossible to visit Australia and NOT see a magpie or “Maggie” as we call them. They are literally everywhere, especially in the major cities. They await you at picnic sites hoping to steal your food. They will swoop on you in breeding season if they think you are a threat to their chicks. They can be annoying if you are trying to photograph other birds and the maggies are scaring them off. But they do have a beautiful melodious warbling sound, it’s one of the first sounds I hear when I wake up in the morning though it is not loud enough to actually WAKE me up!

Don’t worry about trying to find Australian Magpies. In most places in Australia, they will find you!

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS BIRD

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Birds in Backyards

ABC – Good info on why they swoop!

Magpie Alert – good map showing swooping hotspots! I can see reports in a few streets near me – mostly attacking cyclists. My husband says he was swooped once while on a walk.

State of Queensland (Department of Environment and Heritage Protection)

VIDEOS

Trust me, this is only a small bit of their song, it really is beautiful!

Amazing footage of a swoop on a cyclist from the cyclist himself!

He later appeared on the local news.

And here is a swoop from a spectator point of view, the guy’s Mom really freaks out!

This maggie clearly doesn’t like the postman, maybe he got too many bills that day?

Maybe it’s better to make friends with them!

I don’t approve of allowing cats outdoors where they can kill wild birds. Magpies are extremely clever and seem well in control of this situation but other small song birds wouldn’t have been so lucky.

And I’ll leave you with this adorable clip of a juvenile maggie singing to some rainbow lorikeets!

Brisbane – Gateway To Outback Queensland

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Tara

After almost 3 years of owning this blog, I am finally going to blog about my hometown – Brisbane! Australia is high on the wish list of eco-tourists, especially those who wish to see lots of parrot species and many other birds too. And don’t forget Australia’s amazing mammals such as kangaroos, koalas and wallabies (not the rugby playing ones)!

Australia is a huge country and Queensland is a huge state so you won’t be able to see it all in one go if you have the usual 2-4 weeks annual leave. Far north Queensland will need a separate series all on its own. In this series, we will be looking at South-east Queensland and some of its best eco-tourism hotspots. Brisbane is a great place to start your birding/eco-travel adventure and if you have miles and points you can save a bundle!

GETTING TO BRISBANE

Brisbane is the main international airport serving South-east Queensland although the Gold Coast airport also has some flights from New Zealand. There are several options for using your miles to get from your home country to Australia. It has been harder to get business class awards recently, especially to/from the USA so you may have to suck it up in economy. Just keep your eye on the prize that awaits at the end of that long flight!

Brisbane specifically is served by:

STAR ALLIANCE

Air New Zealand – Auckland, Christchurch

Eva Airlines – Taipei

Singapore Airlines – Singapore

Thai Airways – Bangkok

ONE WORLD

Qantas (home carrier) – Auckland, Hong Kong, LAX, Singapore, Tokyo

Jetstar (Qantas affiliate and only available using QF points) – Denpasar, Honolulu

Cathay Pacific – Hong Kong

SKYTEAM

China Airlines – Taipei

China Southern – Guangzhou

Korean Airlines – Seoul

NON-ALLIANCE AIRLINES

Virgin Australia (partners with Delta) – Apia, Auckland, Christchurch, Denpasar, Honiara, LAX, Nadi, Port Vila, Queenstown, Wellington

Emirates (Partners with Qantas, Alaska, Korean) – Dubai, Singapore

Etihad (Partners with AA & Virgin Australia) – Abu Dhabi

Hawaiian – Honolulu

DOMESTIC ROUTES

The only two airlines you are likely to be able to redeem miles on are Qantas and Virgin Australia. I have a post with more information on domestic connections.

QANTAS

QF BNE routes

VIRGIN AUSTRALIA

VA domesitc BNE

WHERE TO STAY ON POINTS

If you plan to spend a day or so in Brisbane and will be relying on public transport, your best bet is in the CBD where buses and trains are plentiful. Out in the suburbs you can wait 30 minutes or more to catch a train or bus (speaking from experience). If you will be renting a car (which you will be if you are heading to the Outback), then avoid the CBD as parking is expensive. Brisbane really isn’t the best place to get the best value out of hotel points unless you are swimming in them.

Hilton Brisbane – 60,000

Brisbane Marriott – 35,000

Four Points by Sheraton – 10,000

I think you would be better off using Brisbane as an EARN miles opportunity and use Pointshound or Rocketmiles to book your room. In any case, readers of this blog probably won’t be hanging around the city for long with all the birds awaiting you in the bush!

I Had Forgotten How Much Fun A Road Trip Can Be

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Tara

Over the last few years, we have been concentrating on elaborate overseas birding trips funded by airline miles. Now that the miles opportunities are slowing down, we’ll be doing more road trips out of our home town of Brisbane to birding hotspots. This has always been part of the plan as I mentioned back around New Years. We are actually very lucky in that there are many to choose from within a 3-4 hour drive!

I thought I’d point out a few advantages road trips have over trips that involve flying.

You can pack as much as you want without regard to size or weight. And you don’t have to fight for overhead bin space.
You can leave anytime you want, no worries about catching the last bus to the airport or calling a taxi.
You can stop and eat when and where you want. Grab some fast food or take a leisurely lunch with a scenic view!
You can bring food from home to BBQ, cheaper than eating out.
You can bring camping gear to save on accommodation.
No security (TSA/airport) searches.
No waiting in line unless you hit traffic during school holidays or Christmas/Easter breaks. Just don’t travel at those times.
You can play any music you like while driving.
No screaming kids (unless they are yours)! And if they are yours at least you aren’t bothering other people.
Stretch out and be comfortable – no cramped airline seats.
No currency conversions/devaluations (especially since the AUD has been nose-diving)!
No immigration & customs hassles to deal with – at least for Aussies. There’s no other country we can drive to!

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging about some cool places you can drive to from Brisbane. We just returned from Lake Coomunda (green dot near Oman Ama) and Karara/Gore/Durikai (red dot). Then I will cover a road trip we did last year which was a bit longer and involved driving to Bowra Station near Cunnamulla (not on this map but to the west of Inglewood), the Stanthorpe/Girraween area (blue dots) and Lamington National Park (purple dot).

This is by no means a complete list of birding hotspots in Queensland, they are just the ones I have been to personally.

Cuban Amazon Parrot (Amazona leucocephala)

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Tara

The Cuban Amazon (Amazona leucocephala) also known as Cuban Parrot or the rose-throated parrot, is a medium-sized mainly green parrot found in woodlands and dry forests of Cuba, the Bahamas and Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

There are four subspecies of the Cuban amazon^:

A. l. leucocephala (Linnaeus, 1758). Present throughout Cuba, including Isla de la Juventud (formerly known as Isla de Pinos).
A. l. bahamensis (H. Bryant, 1867), also called the Bahama amazon. Two extant populations in the Bahamas; one on the Abaco Islands and one on Great Inagua (with sightings from nearby Little Inagua). Now extirpated populations were present on the Acklins and Crooked Islands and possibly also elsewhere in the Bahamas.
A. l. caymanensis (Cory, 1886), also called the Grand Cayman amazon. Restricted to Grand Cayman Island.
A. l. hesterna Bangs, 1916. Now restricted to the island of Cayman Brac, but formerly also on Little Cayman.

The birds I saw while on our cruise were the Cayman Parrot subspecies. Now that Cuba has opened up to tourism, we should be hearing about more sightings of the nominate subspecies as well!

LEARN MORE ABOUT CUBAN/CAYMAN PARROTS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Cayman Islands Government

VIDEOS

This video was taken in the same aviary we were in back in 2008.

And here are some in the wild in Grand Cayman.

Grand Cayman Island – Shore Visit From 2008 Cruise

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Tara

This was a cruise we did back in 2008 so I may be a bit fuzzy on the details but at least I still have the photos! We were on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas doing a 7 day RT Miami cruise to Labadee, Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios & Cozumel.

I do recall we had booked a diving trip that was cancelled due to bad weather so we were on our own. We ended up taking a bus to a wildlife park that was called Boatswain’s Bay back in 2008 but is now called Cayman Turtle Farm Island Wildlife Encounter. It seems to have the same attractions as it did back them but they seem to be pushing the turtles more now. Of course I was keen to see Cayman Parrots! We did walk through the whole park, including the turtle farm but but spent most of our time in the walk-in aviary with some very friendly birds!

With more time, you can see wild Cayman Parrots but on a cruise you may not have the time to get there and back safely. Definitely for a land trip though!

Back in the day, people were constantly telling me to go to hell…………………so I finally did!

Since we were using local buses, we headed back a bit early so had time to walk around the port area, check out some shops and watch some guy who was hawking photos with his macaws.

Display only, unfortunately this painting wasn’t for sale!

Look at all the tourists! We bought some parrot t-shirts at Margaritaville, then back to the ship!

Cozumel – Shore Visit From 2008 Cruise

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Tara

I do remember vividly trying to get someone to share a taxi to the Mayan ruins at San Gervasio and literally everyone from the ship just wanted to go to the beach! So annoying! We had to pay for the taxi ourselves, visit the ruins and had the taxi drop us at a museum afterwards.

I really wanted to buy this but the museum wasn’t selling!

Outside the museum was this cool exhibit of mini-ruins.

I can’t believe we did such silly touristy things!

We hung around the shops for awhile, this was by far the most tourist port we had been to!

And yet another Margaritaville!

This time I let the man talk me into a silly photo with the macaws.

Back to the ship one last time!

Is The New Lifemiles Promo Right For You?

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Tara

While I do believe that credit card miles are the easiest and cheapest to acquire the fact remains that there are many people around the world who don’t have good deals on credit cards that earn miles. Australia does have a few deals going but playing the miles and points game here is mostly centered around buying cheap miles and redeeming them for premium class airfares at a huge discount. I don’t recommend buying miles on spec as the program could always devalue before you can spend them. Assuming I couldn’t get free miles from credit card sign up bonuses, I would wait until I was within 6 months of booking a trip before I would actually pay for miles, even at a discount.

The New Lifemiles Promo

The maximum you can acquire from this promo is 352,906 miles which will get you a few RT Star Alliance trips in business class. It would probably work out cheaper flying business class by this means than paying for economy tickets the normal way.

EXAMPLE – ROUND TRIP TO THE GALAPAGOS

This is one of the harder awards to get as I already said in my Lan post. There has been talk on Flyertalk that Avianca does occasionally have phantom award space on the United portal so I don’t consider United a reliable source for a Galapagos award.

Here’s the cost of using Lifemiles to go RT from Guayaquil to Baltra airport in the Galapagos.

10,000 miles per person on the outbound.

Please note that availability to/from SCY San Cristobal is much more difficult. This makes a difference to me since we are birding and not going on a cruise so chose this island as having the most land-based birds.

10,000 miles per person for the return flight from Baltra GPS.

You need 40,000 Lifemiles for 2 people to go RT from Guayaquil to the Galapagos. With the current promo, if you only buy the minimum to achieve the trip you are in the 4th tier which gets a 105% bonus. You still have to buy 20,000 miles to get at least 40,000 miles so you end up with 41,000 miles (I had 406 left over after my redemptions for next year so ignore those).

This ends up costing you $660 USD.

If you want to max out the promo, it will end up costing you $4950 for 352,500 miles.

So to determine if this is a good deal, lets look at our RT trip to the Galapagos for 2 people. When you buy miles, you still have to pay the taxes on top so you are only saving the cost of the base fare. In this case it’s $416 per person so $832 for both. You can save $172 if you use the Lifemiles promo to book these tickets. Before you buy the miles, you want to check the booking engine to make sure the award is available, especially if you don’t have much flexibility on dates. Personally, if I was ready to book right away and would otherwise have to pay cash, I’d be happy to save $172, otherwise I would hold off until I got closer to the booking window.

So this is basically the math you have to do before participating in these promos. They can be very useful in the right circumstances!

***Apologies for posting this after other bloggers beat me to it, we were out camping in the Aussie Outback!

Freedom Of The Seas’ Parrot Themed Swimming Pool

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Tara

Just for fun because I thought it was pretty cool! There were all kinds of parrot statues around the swimming pool on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas!

Black-billed Parrot (Amazona agilis)

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Tara

The Black-billed Amazon/Parrot (Amazona agilis) is a parrot endemic to Jamaica. Sometimes called the black-billed parrot, this amazon parrot is mostly green with small patches of red on the wing and sometimes flecked on the head. Its bill makes it easy to separate from most other amazons, including the yellow-billed amazon, which also lives in Jamaica. It is the smallest Amazona parrot at 25 cm (10 in).

Since I couldn’t get a decent photo it’s Wikipedia to the rescue!

They are endemic to Jamaica with a somewhat smaller range than the Yellow-billed Parrot. We got a glimpse of one near Ocho Rios, you need a really good guide to find them! Would have been better without the rain!

LEARN MORE ABOUT BLACK-BILLED PARROTS

VIDEO

This bird was harder to find on video. Fast forward to 18:50 to catch a good clip of them here.

Our First Ocho Rios Visit From 2008

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Tara

As I mentioned before, we had been to Ocho Rios on a previous cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas in 2008. I had found out about the Enchanted Gardens online and we also had to do the touristy things – Dunns River Falls and the market. We DIY’d the day. We took a bus to and from the falls. Then we hired a taxi to Enchanted Gardens and kept the driver for the return trip and had him drop us off at the market. We walked through the town and visited some small shops as well, then had the traditional jerk chicken in a local non-touristy restaurant, then hit the Margaritaville and back to the ship. Very few cruisers DIY in this port but being experienced travelers we had no problems at all!

Dunn’s River Falls

Enchanted Gardens

The little Olive-throated Conure on the end was the one I named Tiki. The guide said he didn’t have a name so I gave him one!

Ocho Rios Market

Parking $100 per hour! Glad we walked!

Local restaurant – great jerk chicken!

Shopping center near the cruise ship and Margaritaville

Adding to our collection of parrot t-shirts! This was a huge ship, at the time it was one of the largest cruise ships in the world but it has since been surpassed.