Cairns Bird Watching Tours | Private Charter Exclusive Access | FNQ

Cairns Bird Watching Tours | Private Charter Exclusive Access | FNQ

Cairns Birding Tours - Small Group Private Tours

Bird watching is best experienced early in the morning so expect your private naturalist guide to pick you up at 6:30am and you return at around 4:30pm back to Cairns.

The Shared Earth Reserve on the Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns is owned by Forever Wild whose work is to protect Earth’s last wilderness for our future generations.

Our Naturalist Guides are highly experienced and very passionate, their passions for birdwatching and photography guarantee you an unforgettable day.

You will reach your first destination around 8:00am; Clancy’s Lagoon is surrounded by walking tracks from where you can observe an array of bird species.

We will then take a short morning tea break before heading towards our second location: Pandanus Lagoon where waders and waterbirds live including a very large colony of Black Sawn.

You will also be able to observe kangaroos, echidnas, dingos, snakes and other reptiles.

This portion of the tour is approximately 12 kilometres amongst the wetlands.

After a well-deserved lunch under a shady billabong we still have a couple more hours of birdwatching; for this portion of the tour we will head to the nearby Atherton Tablelands to locations such as Lake Barrine and Yungaburra.

To maximise your birding experience, we can also combine the Tropical Wetlands with the Daintree Rainforest.

Enjoy the morning at the Shared Earth Reserve then head back to the Daintree Rainforest for a wildlife river cruise.

Our private birding and nature tour is designed for small group, two to six guests but we can cater for up to thirteen guests.

Transportation is a modern 7 seat capacity fully air-conditioned Imax or a 13 seat Hi-Ace for larger group.

Cairns Birding Tour Highlights

• Exclusive access to the Shared Earth Reserve, (Mareeba Wetlands) 5,000 acres of lagoons, trails, bird hides and dirt roads with a myriad of bird watching opportunities.
• Highest bird count in a single day was an impressive 98 species on our birding tour.
• Highly experienced and passionate naturalist guides.
• Wide variety of bird watching habitats: lakes, swamps, billabong, creeks and savanna woodland

Birding Opportunities

You will observe many bird species on your Tropical Wetlands Birdwatching private tour such as 6 different Quail species, Magpie, Geese, Black Swans, 11 different duck species and three different Grebes, Darters and Cormorants, Pelicans, Crakes, Rails, Swamphens, Moorhens, Coots, Herons, Egrets, Bitterns, Ibis, Spoonbills, Storks (Jabiru), Cranes including Brolga, Sarus Crane, Bustards, Sandpipers, Godwits, Common Greenshank, Stints, Jacanas which thrive on the water lilies, Curlews, Stills, Avocets, Lapwings, Plovers, Dotterels, Terns.

Some of the birds of preys you may encounter are: Osprey, Kites, Hawks, Eagles, Harriers and Falcons.

Five different pigeons species inhabit the Shared Earth Reserve and doves have also been recorded.

Another regular sighting is the famous Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo. We have great sightings of Black Cockatoos at the Wetlands and on the road into Mareeba Wetlands.

Parrots including Lorikeets, Rosellas & Red Wing Parrots are quite often seen as well as 9 different varieties of Cuckoos, Keels and Coucals AND Frogmouths and Night jars.

A crowds favourite... the Kingfishers especially the Azure Kingfisher (stunning bird), a delight to see around the lagoons.

Both the laughing Kookaburra and Blue Winged Kookaburra are regularly spotted as well as Bee eaters, Rollers, Tree Creepers and Pardalotes.

Numerous Honeyeaters, Robins, Bee Eaters, Thrushes, Monarchs, Magpie Larks, Fly Catchers and Wagtails are seen throughout the Wetlands.

Don't miss the Great Bowerbird.

The open savannah and eucalypt habitats within the Mareeba Wetlands give great opportunities to observe Finches, Fairy Wrens and Manikins.

There are a lot of bird species to discover and/or re-discover in the Tropical Wetlands; each tour is unique and every time you join us on a private Tropical North Queensland birdwatching tour you will experience something distinctively unique.

Alternative Itinerary

We are very fortunate to live in Tropical North Queensland where we can experience several different bird watching habitats and they are all very easily accessible.

We can taylor made your day to suit your needs; we can shorten the above day and add the Daintree Rainforest and include a Daintree bird watching river cruise.

See more private charter rainforest tours and wildlife tours in Cairns and Far North Queensland in Australia.