Bird watching all year round at Araluen Botanic Park

• Australian White Ibis – occasional
• Australian Wood Duck
• Little Pied Cormorant – spring and summer
• Pacific Black Duck
• Rufous Night-Heron
• White-faced Heron
• White-necked Heron – occasional

This is the main breeding season for most of the birds in the Park depending on the weather and the increasing length in daylight. There is an abundance of food for nestlings, water and shelter though some birds may move into the quieter areas of the bushland to breed. Cuckoos call frequently. Sacred Kingfishers return in October and mark the change to much longer and warmer days.

Raptors:

• Brown Goshawk
• Square-tailed Kite – a natural predator. Circles around treetops hunting for prey (small birds). Uncommon raptor known to live locally in the Perth Hills.
• Wedge-tailed Eagle – intermittent. Mostly overhead in summer. Long term residents of the Canning Valley and adjacent bushland. (A sighting of either a Peregrine Falcon or an Australian Hobby)

Owls:

• Southern Boobook
• Tawny Frogmouth – not a true owl but also a dusk/nocturnal bird of prey

Eat insects, small creatures and may also be scavengers

• Australian Raven – common
• Australian Magpie – common
• Grey Butcherbird
• Grey Currawong
• Laughing Kookaburra – from the ES, but liked SW WA too much to leave
• Sacred Kingfisher – seasonal migrant breeding in spring and early summer

Seed eaters, especially from marri gumnuts and other native plants. Larvae (grubs) in branches. Native flowers and orchard fruit.

• Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoo – endangered WA subspecies naso
• White-tailed Black Cockatoo – mostly autumn to spring eating the Marri gumnuts.
• Two species of White-tailed Black Cockatoos in SW WA that are hard to tell apart unless very close. In the Park more likely to be Baudin’s Cockatoo, seen and heard in big flocks.
• Australian Ringneck – south-west WA subspecies, often called a Twenty-eight.
• Galah
• Little Corella
• Red-capped Parrot
• Western Rosella

• Common Bronzewing (pigeon)
• Red-browed Finch – from the Eastern States. Escaped from captivity in Kalamunda in the 1960s and gradually spread into suitable habitat in the Hills.
• Red-eared Firetail – a finch, confined to specialised habitats in SW WA

• Mistletoe Bird – eats mistletoe fruit and spreads the seeds. Nomadic – following the availability of fruit. Will also eat other fruits, insects, nectar and berries if mistletoe fruits are not in season.

• Australian Golden Whistler
• Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike
• Dusky Woodswallow
• Grey Fantail
• Rainbow Bee-eater – only occasionally in summer
• Red-winged Fairy-wren
• Rufous Whistler – uncommon
• Scarlet Robin
• Splendid Fairy-wren
• Spotted Pardelote
• Striated Pardelote
• Varied Sittella
• Western Gerygone
• Western Silvereye – also eats nectar and fruit
• Western Thornbill
• White-breasted Robin
• Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Including the cuckoos who parasitise the nests of small insectivorous birds including the honeyeaters:

• Fan-tailed Cuckoo
• Shining Bronze-Cuckoo

• New Holland Honeyeater
• Singing Honeyeater
• Red Wattlebird -uncommon
• Western Spinebill
• Western White-naped Honeyeater