BIRDING IN THE GARDEN – CAIRNS ESPLANADE
Our flight was right on time, the whole airport experience was
chilled and relaxed, we arrived in Cairns on time and the weather was lovely.
The temperature gauge read 30C but it felt like 20C with a nice cooling breeze.
It took all of 15 minutes to find
our new home for the next two weeks, we were in the north section of town in a
suburb called Stratford. The house was in fact a ‘tree-house’, it was perched
high on a hillside in the trees, it was spectacular to say the least. A huge
wooden veranda overlooked the hillside and afforded magnificent views to the
coast, I could scope the treetops below me, superb! The house was huge, with
fantastic wooden floors and massive picture-windows everywhere, an open-plan
ground floor had a central spiral staircase, leading to the spacious bedrooms.
Oh boy, we have struck gold here!
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| Masked Lapwing on the beach at Cairns |
A Bush Turkey strolled along the drive, several
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos came to the verandah and lots of beautiful Pied
Pigeons flew about in the treetops. Danny and Sarah our hosts showed us around
before they left for their 4 week holiday in Nepal.
After a lovely coffee and biscuit session with our next door
neighbours (who happened to be our hosts parents) we settled into the
tree-house, the veranda felt like it was a canopy-hide, the birds came very
close. I notched up Australasian (Green)
Figbird, Dusky Honeyeater and Laughing Kookaburra in the first few minutes.
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| Figs in the twigs - Figbirds that is, female on the right |
We then unpacked and later we drove down town to visit the
famous esplanade in Cairns, it was packed with tourists from all over the
world. The huge expanse of exposed beach/mud was littered with feeding waders,
terns and gulls. We added Gull-billed tern, Great Knot, Terek Sandpiper,
White-breasted Woodswallow to the list but plenty more species were on show.
We even heard a Rufous Owl calling from the trees around the public swimming
pool on the esplanade. As we got back to the car we noticed a huge Ibis roost
in the trees near a large hotel, we identified Strw-necked and Australian White
but others may have been present. A Beach Stone-Curlew flew across the road in
front of us as we left town in the dark.
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| Pied Pigeons - migrants that are just arriving in numbers from Papua New Guinea |
Here are some of the main birds seen today, those in blue are new for the list:
GULL BILLED TERN
WHITE BREASTED WOODSWALLOW
AUSTRALASIAN (GREEN) FIGBIRD
PIED IMPERIAL PIGEON
DUSKY HONEYEATER
WHIMBREL
GREAT KNOT
BAR-TAILED GODWIT
RED-NECKED STINT
STRAW-NECKED IBIS
AUSTRALIAN WHITE IBIS
COMMON MYNAH
BLACK FRONTED DOTTEREL
TEREK SANDPIPER
BEACH STONE-CURLEW
RUFOUS OWL (HEARD)
SOME PICTURES OF THE TREE-HOUSE
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