No, not like picking up rubbish (it's actually a pretty tidy state), or even vigilante killings of unscrupulous land developers, i mean cleaning up on all the tasmaina endemics. after a good start on Bruny i went camping on scenic Maria Island for 2 days where i picked up the remaining endemic, forty spotted pardalote, as well as loads of cape barren geese. One thing that quite literally put a dampener onthe trip was really heavy rain on my final night camping in australia, i woke at about 2am to find water properly pissing through the seama of my faithful $15 (that should be a pound sign, not dollar, gay aussie keyboards) tent from argos, still it did well to last 6 months. Maria, (pronounced Mariah,as in Carey) is alovely scenic island, and like most island in austrlaia claims to be one of the first convict colonies (Sydney is the current one). The birding was pretty good with the beach holding nesting hooded plover and Pied Oystercatcher. The grassland are heavily grazed by bennets wallabies and forester kangaroos and are ideal feeding areas for Cape Barren Geese and Tasmanian Native Hen. The woodlands held Scarlet Robin and black headed honeyeater along with the Pardalote and there was constantly Pacific Gulls and Black faced cormorant offshore, generally a nice place.
I fly out of hobart to bangkok tomorrow morning via melbourne so theres no more birding in oz, finishing on a respectable 462 species for the oz list and on 561 for the whole trip which will hopefully get a good boost in thailand, maybe even taking my world list to 1000, whoopee doo.
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