Australia Part 5: Birds & Rock Art in Kakadu NP. Bardedjilidji, Ubirr & Anbangbang, Sep 9 2024.

Описание: After a nice breakfast we started with a visit to Bardedjilidji, and probably arrived too late in the morning. That's what you get when you prioritize a nice breakfast at your hotel, I guess.
When arriving to B we didn't really know exactly where to go, and what to look for. The fact that part of the trail closest to the river seemed closed due to Croc activity didn't help. So, we didn't stay very long, but moved on to Ubirr instead. There we stayed much longer, but it was already plenty of people around. Our hope for getting the 3 Target Birds wasn't high. Those were Sandstone Shrikethrush (we actually got that one, but no photo evidence), Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon and Banded Fruit Dove (those two were sadly not where we were looking). We walked the trails, watched & filmed the rock art and climbed to the overlook. Very nice views from there, that's for sure, including a decent look at a Black Falcon!
After a few hours at Ubirr the heat started to get to us, combined with all the other tourists, so we opted to go back to Crocodile Hotel for lunch and siesta.
In the afternoon we went south, to "Nourlangie", i e Anbangbang Rock Shelter. The temp hovered around 35 C, so we took it somewhat easy. We had no real hope for our 2 remaining target birds, but one still has to try! As it turned out we actually got another important target bird that we somehow hadn't thought about: White-lined Honeyeater. That was a real bonus, we were happy. In the end we walked quite a decent part of trails, after the rock art the number of tourists dwindled. Well, it was getting a tad late as well...
A stair that went on upwards forever (not steep, though) at long last led us to another lookout, I'm a bit uncertain of the correct name. No special pigeons on those cliffs, but we had a nice view of our first Wedge-tailed Eagle, that's enough to lift spirits, for sure :-)
Since time was closing in on 6 PM we turned back to the car, and spotted some nice birds when we didn't have that long left to go. A Pacific Emerald Dove was seen rather well, as was a Silver-crowned Friarbird. A Great Bowerbird rustled among the dry leaves quite far away, so we didn't make any photo-session pursue. No, we continued back to the car and drove to the hotel. We were rather content with our 3:d whole day in the Northern Territory as it were, and also a bit exhausted by the heat.
The walk to and from the restaurant was accompanied by roosting Little Corellas this evening too.