Endemic Birds of Tasmania

Twelve bird species occur in Tasmania and nowhere else on earth, and this seven-day small-group tour is designed to find them all. Bruny Island, where you spend two of the six nights, holds the complete set across dry forest, coastal heath, beach and farmland, including the endangered forty-spotted pardalote, down to roughly 1,500 birds and dependent on stands of white gum. Maria Island, a car-free national park with no permanent residents, holds almost all of them and gives a second attempt at anything missed. Kunanyi / Mount Wellington is worked for the wet-forest skulkers, and Gould’s Lagoon on the Derwent for Latham's snipe and Australian, spotless and Baillon’s crakes.

The tour also includes a return scenic flight into Melaleuca in the Southwest Wilderness, an area with no road and no ferry, and the only known breeding site anywhere for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot. The wild population was down to 17 birds in 2016; 86 returned to Melaleuca at the December 2025 census, two-thirds of them wild-born. A feeding table and hide near the airstrip offer some of the best views of the species.