Birding Tours in Australasia (Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands)

Geopolitical and biogeographical overview of Australasia

Australasia (including Oceania) is an unforgettable travel destination, blending vibrant cities, paradise islands, and rich cultural heritage. Spanning from Southeast Asia across the South Pacific, the region invites travelers to explore Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and the breathtaking archipelagos of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.

Biogeographically, this realm is a unique ecological zone separated from much of Asia by Wallace’s Line, a major faunal boundary shaped by deep-water channels. Millions of years of geographic isolation have allowed native wildlife to follow highly distinct evolutionary paths. Mammalian life is famously represented by marsupials and monotremes, while the flora features adaptable eucalyptus and ancient Gondwanan rainforests.

The Australasian realm spans tropical, temperate, and arid environments, while the younger Oceanian realm includes many volcanic and coral islands. These contrasts help explain the region’s exceptional ecological variety.

Climate, topography, and avian diversity

Australasia and Oceania feature extreme geographic isolation and stunning marine and terrestrial landscapes. These landscapes range from the arid, sunbaked expanses of the Australian Outback to the lush tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea and the volcanic peaks of New Zealand. Key geographical highlights include the Great Barrier Reef—the world’s largest coral reef system—the Southern Alps, and Puncak Jaya.

According to the latest AviList taxonomy (v2025), the bird list for Oceania (including Australasia and the Antarctic and Pacific islands) stands at an impressive 2,255 species. This rich biodiversity includes many globally threatened species, while numerous island species have become extinct relatively recently, especially in Polynesia. Thirty endemic families and numerous endemic species occur in the region, including the following highly sought-after monotypic and endemic bird families:

• Monotypic families found in Australasia (including Oceania): Magpie Goose, Plains-wanderer, Kagu, Osprey, Mottled Berryhunter, Wattled Ploughbill, Blue-capped Ifrit, Stitchbird, and Hylocitrea.
• Endemic bird families found in Australasia (including Oceania), excluding those already mentioned above: emu and cassowaries, kiwis, owlet-nightjars, New Zealand parrots, New Zealand wrens, lyrebirds, scrubbirds, Australasian treecreepers, bowerbirds, grasswrens, fairywrens and emu-wrens, bristlebirds, pardalotes, honeyeaters, logrunners and chowchilla, Australasian babblers, jewel-babblers and quail-thrushes, whiteheads, boatbills, sittellas, whipbirds and wedgebills, Australasian bellbirds, shriketits, tit berrypecker and crested berrypecker, white-winged chough and apostlebird, birds-of-paradise, melanpittas, satinbirds, longbills and berrypeckers, New Zealand wattlebirds, and Australasian robins.

Range of Australasian bird tours

We offer a comprehensive range of professional itineraries across the region. The sections below provide direct access to useful digital resources, including:

• Detailed tour itineraries, including maps and tour-specific useful information
• Comprehensive trip reports
• Client testimonials
• Curated photo and video galleries

Our Australasian birding tours are outlined below and cater to a wide range of experience levels, offering introductory routes for first-time visitors to Australasia as well as highly specialized itineraries for seasoned regional travelers. Please contact us if you would like advice on selecting a suitable Australasian bird tour.

Australasian Birdwatching Tours

Australia Birdwatching Tours

We offer six carefully designed birdwatching tours in Australia, each created to make the most of its itinerary. We are proud of these tours and will help you get the best possible value from your time and budget while birding this mega-diverse country.

Our Eastern Australia tour is a great starting point and is our most popular Australian bird tour. A list of 400 species is likely on this tour, including great birds such as Southern Cassowary, Plains-wanderer, Malleefowl, Shy Albatross, Mallee Emu-wren, Golden Bowerbird, Regent Bowerbird, Splendid Fairywren, Superb Lyrebird, Paradise Riflebird, and many more, along with Red Kangaroo, Koala, Platypus, and Short-beaked Echidna. This is an ideal first tour to Australia or Australasia.

The Northern Territory – Top End tour offers Purple-crowned Fairywren, Gouldian Finch, Hooded Parrot, Rainbow Pitta, Magpie Goose, Beach Stone-curlew, and Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon, along with impressive ancient rock art that reflects the long human history of this remarkable landscape.

If desert birding appeals to you, our Northern Territory – Alice Springs and Uluru tour is an excellent choice. Spinifex Pigeon, Gibberbird, Australian Pratincole, Bourke’s Parrot, Spinifexbird, and Budgerigar are some of the big draws on this short tour. Sunset at Uluru should be experienced at least once.

A much greener place in Australia is the island state of Tasmania. Here, once more, the focus is on local endemics, including the Critically Endangered (IUCN/BirdLife International) Orange-bellied Parrot and Swift Parrot, along with Forty-spotted Pardalote and many more.

Western Australia has long been isolated from the rest of Australia, and from much of the world, allowing many regional endemics to evolve—the focus of this tour. These include challenging birds such as Noisy Scrubbird, Western Bristlebird, and Western Whipbird, for which we have a strong track record. Many more endemics await here too, including Western Shriketit and Red-capped Parrot.

The latest addition to our Australian birding tour repertoire is a thrilling expedition through the deep Australian Outback of South Australia and Queensland, finishing in the Cape York Peninsula rainforest. This tour offers many great targets, including Letter-winged Kite, Red Goshawk, Grey Falcon, Golden-shouldered Parrot, eight secretive grasswrens, Trumpet Manucode, and Magnificent Riflebird.

New Zealand Birdwatching Tours

One of the most stunningly beautiful countries on the planet, New Zealand offers a comprehensive bird tour that will satisfy your endemic birding goals while allowing you to enjoy extraordinary scenery along the way. Our tour also includes several pelagic boat trips and ferry crossings for extra seabirding. This tour targets most of New Zealand’s special birds, including kiwis, the Critically Endangered (IUCN/BirdLife International) New Zealand Storm Petrel, Stitchbird, Blue Duck, Kea, New Zealand Kaka, Wrybill, and Black Stilt. We also look for more albatrosses and other exciting seabirds than you can imagine. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, endemic-filled trip not to be missed.

New Caledonia Birdwatching Tours

For most people, birding in New Caledonia is about one very special bird: Kagu. However, several other excellent endemic birds occur on Grande Terre, where we base ourselves for the tour, including Cloven-feathered Dove, New Caledonian Crow, Crow Honeyeater, and New Caledonian Thicketbird. We can also offer custom extensions to Lifou and Ouvea if there is interest, adding a few extra endemics such as Ouvea Parakeet and Large Lifou White-eye.

Vanuatu Birdwatching Tours

We offer a short Vanuatu extension to our New Caledonia tour, where we look for lowland endemics such as Vanuatu Megapode, Tanna Fruit Dove, Vanuatu Kingfisher, Vanuatu White-eye, and more. We can also organize an expedition for more difficult montane endemics, such as Mountain Starling and Santo Thicketbird.

Fiji and Samoa (Pacific) Birdwatching Tours

Birding in the island paradises of Fiji and Samoa is a real treat. This tour links up nicely after our New Caledonia tour. While birding in Fiji, we visit the islands of Viti Levu, Taveuni, and Kadavu, where we focus on island endemic species and subspecies. Top targets include the spectacular trio of Orange Dove, Golden Dove, and Whistling Dove, though other species, such as Taveuni Silktail, are also highly sought after. We also take a pelagic trip for the extremely rare Fiji Petrel. In Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa), we again look for island endemics, such as Mao, Flat-billed Kingfisher, and Samoan Whistler.

Papua New Guinea Birdwatching Tours

Our mainland Papua New Guinea bird tour is all about the stunning birds-of-paradise, with highly sought-after beauties such as Blue Bird-of-paradise, Ribbon-tailed Astrapia, King of Saxony Bird-of-paradise, Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise, Queen Carola’s Parotia, Princess Stephanie’s Astrapia, and Raggiana Bird-of-paradise, to list a few. This tour also offers many New Guinea endemic species and families, with additional highlights including Brown-headed Paradise Kingfisher, Crested Satinbird, Sclater’s Crowned Pigeon, Mottled Berryhunter, Flame Bowerbird, Blue-capped Ifrit, and Wattled Ploughbill. This is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure not to be missed.

We offer a premium extension to the above tour in New Britain. On this exciting tour, we search for numerous New Britain endemics, along with many Bismarck Archipelago endemics and some Solomon Islands endemics too. Possible highlights include Melanesian Megapode, Golden Masked Owl, Blue-eyed Cockatoo, Black-capped Paradise Kingfisher, and Bismarck (New Britain) Pitta.

Indonesia Birdwatching Tours

Politically part of Asia but biogeographically part of Australasia, the following four tours across Wallacea and New Guinea offer some fantastic endemic birds.

Our West Papua bird tour offers yet more birds-of-paradise—up to 15 species—as well as highly sought-after endemics, with highlights likely to include Wilson’s Bird-of-paradise, King Bird-of-paradise, Red Bird-of-paradise, Arfak Astrapia, Black Sicklebill, Vogelkop Lophorina, and Western Parotia, along with Red-breasted Paradise Kingfisher, Western Crowned Pigeon, Blue Jewel-babbler, Mottled Berryhunter, and Vogelkop Bowerbird, one of the best avian architects and builders on the planet.

Nearby, our Biak, Numfor, and Kofiau birding tour focuses on paradise kingfishers, including the rarely seen Kofiau Paradise Kingfisher, along with numerous single-island endemics such as Biak Scops Owl, Numfor Leaf Warbler, and Kofiau Monarch.

Sulawesi and Halmahera form part of the western edge of Australasia, and our tour to these two islands is packed with endemic birds. Standardwing and Halmahera Paradise-crow are two endemic birds-of-paradise from Halmahera, while Sulawesi provides the exciting quartet of Hylocitrea, Malia, Geomalia, and Maleo. Other tour highlights include Ivory-breasted Pitta, Sulawesi Pitta, North Moluccan Pitta, Green-backed Kingfisher, Scaly-breasted Kingfisher, Purple-bearded Bee-eater, Knobbed Hornbill, Moluccan Owlet-nightjar, and many more.

Our Lesser Sunda Islands birdwatching tour in southern Wallacea takes in six islands and focuses on finding the endemics of these remote places. Highlights are many and include Sumba Hornbill, Sumba Buttonquail, Timor Friarbird, Alor Myzomela, Flores Hawk-Eagle, White-rumped Kingfisher, and Elegant Pitta, to list a small sample. Komodo Dragon is likely to be the non-avian highlight on this exciting tour.

Custom Anytime Australasian Birdwatching Tours

We can also arrange customized tours across Australasia, including private versions of the tours above or itineraries focused on specific target species, such as Tuamotu Sandpiper in French Polynesia, Princess Parrot in Australia, Superb Pitta in Papua New Guinea, or Shore Plover in New Zealand. We recommend booking custom birding tours as far in advance as possible, as our guides are often booked two or three years ahead.