Tin Can Bay, Queensland is the gateway to Fraser Island (which is an adventure unto itself) but you don’t need to leave the mainland to find some good birding.  It’s a 3 hour drive from Brisbane so you should spend at least 1 night here to maximize birding time either in a holiday park/campground, hotel or backpacker lodge.

We started the morning looking for Shorebirds at Cooloola Foreshores arriving around 7:30am.  We were greeted by a Whistling Kite in the car park at Mullen’s Creek.

I’m the first to admit that Shorebirds are not my area of expertise but it was still interesting to look for them.  Some of them make huge journeys from Asia & North America to spend winter (Aussie summer) in the warmer climates.  More information can be found on Birds Queensland & Birdlife Australia.  My photos aren’t good enough to represent the individual species as the tide was out pretty far and I wasn’t up to wading out there.  We did get a repsectable bird list for the area with sightings of:  White-faced Heron (that’s the one near the boat), Whistling Kite, White-belied Sea-Eagle, Godwit, Pacific Golden Plover, Red-capped Plover, Greater & Lesser Sand Plover, Whimberel, Eastern Curlew, Red-necked Stint, Gull-bill Tern, Little Tern, Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, Leeuwin’s Honey-eater, Golden Whistler & Peaceful Dove.

Next we moved on to the Tin Can Bay Foreshore Bird Walk.  It was getting hotter by now so I only visited a couple areas but still managed to see two lifers – Mangrove Honey-eater & Collared Kingfisher via a fellow birder’s scope.  There were also some more common species such as a Pelican being chased by a Whistling Kite, Masked Lapwings, Noisy Friarbirds.  Closer to the picnic area we found Galahs, Rainbow Lorikeets, Magpies and a very handsome Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike.