Birds on Fraser Island
There are over 350 species of birds found on Fraser Island making them by far the most common animal life on the island. There are a number of migratory birds that use Fraser Island as both a rest stop and a feeding ground on their annual pilgrimage from southern Australia to Siberia. An example of these migratory birds is the Eastern Curlew which can be heard in the dune areas at night with its high pitched squeeling. These birds usually stay on Fraser from August to March each year. The best time to observe any of these birds are at sunrise and sunset with each different area of Fraser Island providing different vegetation, thus different varieties of birds. On average most keen bird watchers can expect to see up to 25 species of birds in an hours’ bird watching on Fraser Island. The record for the most bird species seen in 1 hour lies with Steven Bennett, (a local of the area) seeing 43 varieties of our winged cousins although his wife Simone disputes this fact profusely.
Some of the most common birds on Fraser Island are the-
Three Kookaburras
- The Kingfisher can be found all over Fraser Island with the largest being the Kookaburra or Laughing Jackass. These large Kingfishers grow up to 45cm in length and have a light brown dirty look about them. They have an off-white coloured head with brown lines funning from front to back, dark brown wings and shoulders and light blue tips on the end of their wings. They prefer the open woodland areas however can often be seen and heard around many of the islands’ resorts.
- The smaller Kingfishers are a lot more colourful with the Rainforest Kingfisher being a bright aqua blue. These birds grow to around 20 centimetres and stays in pairs all the time. The best time to spot this beautiful creature is when it is feeding around dawn or dusk.
- The Sacred Kingfisher is bottle green in colour with a cream neck and grow to between 19cm - 23cm. It is commonly found across most parts of Fraser Island and is regularly sited in woodlands, mangroves and paperbark forests, tall open eucalypt forest and melaleuca forest. They feed mainly on the land and only occasionally capture their prey in a water environment. When eating, the Sacred Kingfisher springs off its perch to catch its prey then returns to the branch or foliage to devour its freshly caught meal.
- The Azure Kingfisher has bright blue wings and a bright orange breast. It is the noisiest of the Kingfishers with its high pitched shrill that can be heard as it drops off the lower branches of trees for a quick feed of fish or other water creatures including frogs, tadpoles & aquatic insects. As with all Kingfishers, the Azuras’ have a very large beak that is often longer than its head.
- The White Breasted Sea Eagle is a giant kite that is perhaps the largest bird of prey seen on Fraser Island. A mature adult can have a wingspan reaching a massive 2.2 metres in length and weigh up to 4 kilograms. The easiest way to spot these beautiful birds is by their distinctive shape and size. They have quite broad wings, a wedge shaped tail, a sharp looking curled beak and small spikes on their soles for grasping prey. They are black and white underneath, have a white belly and the tops of their body is a light grey running all the way along their wingspan. They are most common in beach and river mouth areas and pursue their prey on the beach by slowly gliding and soaring from a great height along the beaches of Fraser Island. Their diet consists of fish, eels, other birds and gulls, blue tongue lizards and other small mammals. They can even eat the famous ‘porcupine fish’ that is deadly to humans.
- The Brahminy Kite is a raptor with broad wings and a short tail. It has a full wingspan of around 1.3 metres and has a pale chestnut or rusty brown coloured body with black tips on the wings. It also has a distinctive white head. These kites can be seen slowly soaring and gliding along the beaches of Fraser Island however a close up encounter is a rarity. They feed mainly on Fish, crabs, sea snakes and cuttlefish and nest in mangroves or tree tops at around 10 metres in height.