Darwin Botanical Gardens

Visited: late dry season

Recommendation: The Darwin Botanic Gardens are a beautiful and diverse botanical garden situated in the heart of Darwin, and cover an area of approximately 10 hectares. Established in 1871, the Darwin Botanic Gardens are one of the oldest botanical gardens in Australia and they are home to a wide range of birds and animals. If you are in Darwin then there is a very good reason to visit - resident Rufous Owls.

I always try and visit botanical gardens whenever I arrive at a new place, and Darwin was no exception. But I was actually looking for one specific bird, the Rufous Owl. I knew they'd been found in the area. I knew they were a resident of the botanic gardens, and I haven't seen them since I was last in Townsville over on the east coast of Queensland. So I was very keen to find them, and whatever else I might see. 

The botanic gardens are absolutely stunning, with these very interesting different areas. It's much more tropical than I'd been seeing in places like Alice Springs. It was lush, with huge trees, wide open areas. And it was a very, very pleasant place to spend the time. Not far from the cafe and the gift shop is a fake, enormous python, which I was super excited to see initially. And it was only after photographing it and monitoring it to see when it moved that it kind of dawned on me and somebody else confirmed that it was fake. I don't really understand why that is. It's supposed to be some kind of art installation, and some kind of in-joke with the garden, but I don't really get it. I don't really understand why that might be funny. But that was my only disappointment of the day. 

Northern Lashtail Dragon (Lophognathus gilberti)

The Rufous Owls had been seen at the back of the gardens, so I headed up there. And on the way, there were so many dragons, lizards, and skinks running around. It was really difficult to get very far without being distracted by them. And it was my first sightings of this Northern Lashtail Dragon. They're very, very beautiful, these dragons with the black face. and thankfully this one sat long enough for me to photograph it. 

There were other common birds here, like the Orange-footed Scrubfowl, a megapode, and the Masked Lapwing. But I always think, well, they might be fairly common birds, but they're only common because they're successful, and maybe we should be a bit more generous with our opinion of them. I know it's difficult to be a fan of the masked Lapwing with the noise that it makes and how it is so aggressive if you go anywhere near its nest or chicks. But if you look at it with fresh eyes, it's actually a very interesting, beautiful bird and unique with that yellow mask on its face. 

Varied Triller (Lalage leucomela) 

Accompanying me around the gardens (or so it seemed) was a family of Varied Triller. Adults and juveniles were calling and chattering. The female, above left has a barred breast whereas the male is clean white. The bird on the right is a juvenile with indistinct plumage.

Higher up were White-gaped Honey-eater and the Rose-crowned Fruit-Doves, and I haven't photographed either of them to a huge extent, so I was very pleased to see them. The honey-eater is a sort of medium-sized, fairly dumpy-looking bird with just this splash of cream, not even white, colour on the face. The fruit-dove, alternatively, is incredibly beautiful, but quite difficult to see. This one is not quite so stunning as it's a juvenile, but I'd never seen a young one before, so it was still quite interesting to see it.

Rufous Owl (Ninox rufa) 

And sitting just below the Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove with the Rufous Owls, which I was thrilled to find by myself, just sitting quietly and watching. And even as I stood there, several of the people wandered by and were either quite taken aback with how big and stunning they are, or were out there looking for them to photograph them as well. So they were quite the star attraction of the Botanic Gardens.