Birding Tour Australia: Tasmania – Endemics and the Orange-bellied Parrot

This small group tour of the Australian island state of Tasmania looks for all Tasmanian endemics (we usually see them all well) and also includes a day-trip flight to look for the Critically Endangered (BirdLife International) Orange-bellied Parrot, not everyone offers this option within their tours so do check as this is the only realistic way to see this species.

The handsome Orange-bellied Parrot is the primary target on this tour.

Adjoined to the mainland until the end of the last glacial period about ten thousand years ago, Tasmania is both geographically and genetically isolated from the Australian mainland. Through the millennia this island has developed its own unique set of plants and animals, including twelve avian endemics: Forty-spotted Pardalote, Tasmanian Nativehen, Green Rosella, Yellow Wattlebird, Scrubtit, Tasmanian Scrubwren, Tasmanian Thornbill, Dusky Robin, Yellow-throated Honeyeater, Black-headed Honeyeater, Strong-billed Honeyeater, and Black Currawong. Beyond the endemics Tasmania also harbors several species which winter on the mainland and breed on Tasmania, such as Orange-bellied Parrot already mentioned above, Swift Parrot another Critically Endangered (BirdLife International) parrot and another major target on this tour, and Tasmanian Boobook (some of which seem to overwinter in Victoria).

Forty-spotted Pardalote is one of the Tasmanian endemics we will target on this tour.