Up at 0230 and out to Pinkarra Hills, where I put in another owling session to try and locate the Barking Owl heard the other day by Will Hemstrom. No such luck, although plenty of Southern Boobooks calling, a couple of Bush Stone-curlews, and a Squirrel Glider among numerous flying foxes.

Heading west, I stopped at a few more spots to trying for Barking Owl, again without success. It is surely a rare species in Brisbane! Prior to dawn, I drove from east to west from Mount Crosby along Stumers Road through to Kholo Road; to check the road went all the way through (which it does) and also for one last ditch effort to try for Barking Owl. The habitat along here looks really nice – with variegate dry sclerophyll, wet sclerophyll gullies, weedy patches, and farmland. As pointed out by Louis Backstrom on this blog a few days ago, Stumers Road is a place that will be well worth exploring.

Still, dawn found me at Shelley Road Park – I was keen to get right to the western frontier of the city and spend a couple of hours birding there before moving back to Stumers Road. In the end, I didn’t find any rarities at Shelley Road Park, with the highlights being 12 Nankeen Night-herons roosting in a tree by the council building. I notched up 71 species in the 2 hours, which was a pretty good total. Just nothing mega…

With my remaining time, I birded at a few random stops along Stumers Road – again nothing mindblowing, but a good variety of birds and a real sense that anything could turn up here. A bit disappointed, but not really surprised at having not year-ticked, I returned home.

With no year ticks today, my year list remained on 290 species. I spent 4 hours 50 minutes birding, walked 4.628 km and drove 110.5 km. My chronological year list is here.