Melbourne Birding Tours

Image:  Southern Emu-wren - Chris Tzaros
Join us for for a birding and wildlife tour of Melbourne, Victoria. A local specialist birding guide will take you to the best locations.
Duration:
1-3 days
Group Size: 
14 people
Tour Overview

We are offering several suggestions for excellent day birding & nature tours around the Melbourne area, if none of these suit you then do get in touch for us to craft a day specific to your wishes.

The tours can be combined as a longer tour package of several days and do get in touch if you are interested in longer tours around the state of Victoria

OPTION 1. Mallee and box-ironbark woodlands.
OPTION 2. Coastal Heathlands and Otway Forests.
OPTION 3. Wet Forests.

Tour Dates
Additional Price Information:

Click below for a pdf document which includes prices and tour descriptions for Melbourne and other city birding tours.

Inala Nature Tours - Australian City Birding Tours 2024-25

Adjoining Tours
Booking Enquiry

Tour Itinerary

OPTION 1. Mallee and box-ironbark woodlands.

Your guide Steve Davidson will collect you from your Melbourne Hotel at an agreed time early in the morning.

Birding in the drier woodlands of central Victoria to look for Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Long-billed & Little Corella, Little, Purple-crowned & Musk Lorikeets, Shining Bronze-cuckoo, Fan-tailed Cuckoo, and a range of honeyeaters like Yellow-tufted, Fuscous and Black-chinned. En route we look for Laughing Kookaburra, White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike, White-browed Babbler, Brown Treecreeper, Speckled Warbler, Chestnut-rumped Heathwren, Little & Wedge-tailed Eagle, Brown Goshawk and Restless Flycatcher. Further on we reach the extensive Greater Bendigo National Park, a vast area of mallee woodlands, heathy mallee and box-ironbark woodland.  Birds we can expect here include Crested Bellbird, Gilbert’s Whistler, Shy Heathwren, Variegated Fairy-Wren, Purple-gaped, Yellow-plumed, Tawny-crowned, Blue-faced, Singing & White-fronted Honeyeaters, Brush & Common Bronzewings, Noisy Friarbird, Red Wattlebird, Chestnut-rumped, Yellow, Buff-rumped & Inland Thornbills, Western Gerygone, Olive-backed Oriole, Crested Shrike-tit, Peaceful Dove, Painted Button-Quail, Black Falcon, Collared Sparrowhawk, Southern Boobook, Hooded, Scarlet  & Red-capped Robin, Rainbow Bee-eater, White-browed, Dusky & Masked Woodswallows, Black-eared, Horsfield’s Bronze & Pallid Cuckoos, Red-rumped Parrot, Eastern Rosella and Diamond Firetail. Return to Melbourne late afternoon.

Meals included: Morning & Afternoon Tea + Lunch.

OPTION 2. Coastal Heathlands and Otway Forests.

Your guide Steve Davidson will collect you from your Melbourne Hotel at at an agreed time early in the morning.
Today we head south-west of Melbourne to the start of the famous Great Ocean Road, where we will visit the extensive heathlands of the Anglesea area, both along the coast and inland on the foothills of the Otway Ranges.  We will search firstly for the region’s most elusive and secretive species, the Rufous Bristlebird. Other species to be found in this region include Brush Bronzewing, Blue-winged Parrot, Peregrine Falcon, Hooded Plover, Southern Emu-wren, Chestnut-rumped Heathwren, Olive Whistler, Pink Robin, Grey Currawong, Spiny-cheeked, Tawny-crowned, Crescent & Singing Honeyeaters, Eastern Curlew, Striated Fieldwren, Satin Bowerbird, Black-faced Cormorant, Kelp & Pacific Gulls, Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, Pacific Golden Plover and Grey Goshawk. If we are lucky we may see large numbers of recently arrived migratory Short-tailed Shearwater offshore as well as Fluttering Shearwater and Shy Albatross. Return to Melbourne late afternoon.

Meals included: Morning & Afternoon Tea + Lunch.

OPTION 3. Wet Forests.

Your guide Steve Davidson will collect you from your Melbourne Hotel at at an agreed time early in the morning.
We head east of Melbourne and commence birding at a small reserve containing tall stands of Mountain Ash – the largest flowering plant in the world, and a dense gully supporting a small temperate rainforest.  The star bird of these forests is undoubtedly the Superb Lyrebird, and we shall endeavour to secure a good sighting of this iconic species. In this location, we should also connect with a few birds that are on the very western edge of their range in Victoria, including Brown Gerygone, Wonga Pigeon and Black-faced Monarch. Also, here we have a good chance of seeing Pilotbird, Large-billed Scrubwren, Satin Flycatcher, and Red-browed Treecreeper.  Other birds we are likely to connect with here include Superb Fairy-Wren, Eastern Rosella, Grey Butcherbird, Australian King Parrot, Mistletoebird and Grey Shrike-thrush. The topography and woodland types change as we extend deeper into the Bunyip State Park as do the birds, ranging from foothill woodlands with a heathy understorey that contain species such as Scarlet Robin, Southern Emu-wren, Pallid & Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Crescent, White-eared, New Holland & Brown-headed Honeyeaters, Australian Raven, Rufous Whistler, Grey Currawong and Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo.  Further along we reach areas of riparian forest, dry ridge forest and finally wet sclerophyll forest.  Birds characteristic of these habitats include Beautiful Firetail, Lewin’s Honeyeater, Brush Cuckoo, Pied Currawong, Eastern Yellow Robin, Eastern Whipbird, Rose Robin, Gang-gang Cockatoo, Rufous Fantail, Cicadabird and Golden Whistler.  Return to Melbourne late afternoon.

Meals included: Morning & Afternoon Tea + Lunch.

Additional Information:
Inclusions & Exclusions
Additional Information
Terms and Conditions
Inclusions:

Morning Tea, Lunch, Transport outlined in itinerary and specialist guiding.

Exclusions:

All items not mentioned in the itinerary.

What to bring:  Please wear shoes suitable for forest trails, bring a water bottle and it is always wise to have a jacket in case of changeable weather.   Please also carry any individual medical items you may need. i.e. Epi-pen, Asthma inhaler and of course remember to bring your binoculars and/or cameras.

All further information, directions and invoice will be sent to you once you send in a booking enquiry for this tour.

There are terms and conditions relating to payments, cancellations, refunds, insurance and responsibility for our tours.

Learn more

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Inala Nature
320 Cloudy Bay Road, Lunawanna
South Bruny Island 7150
Tasmania, Australia

Travel Vault policy certificate number:
EV2203UKFI0166

Phone: +61 3 6293 1217

Inala Nature acknowledge and pay respects to the palawa people as the traditional and original owners, and continuing custodians of this land, lutruwita, and acknowledges Elders - past and present. Inala Nature Tours and the Inala Foundation Inc are located on lunawanna- alonnah, also known as Bruny Island, the traditional land of the Nuenonne people.

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