103 SPECIES SEEN - 36 LIFERS
AT LAST.......a full day's birding in one of the best areas of Australia!! Roly and I got up early and set off at 5:30am. we headed for the Tablelands near Atherton driving north out of Cairns passing near Kuranda and then onto Mareeba. We stopped short of Mareeba to view some fields where I saw Australian Bustard the other day, sure enough the bird was still there but not displaying. In the very next field we found another 3 Bustards and two Sarus Cranes, we could also here Singing Bush-Larks and we saw a Australian (formerly Richard's ) Pipit.
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| two of the Bustards - the cranes were too far away to digi-scope |
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| Red-winged Parrot (female) |
Our next stop was another site for the Finch, we looked at a small paddock which was full of doves, about 50 Peaceful Doves fed alongside a Squatter Pigeon and my first Bar-shouldered Dove,. Double-barred Finch, White-winged Triller, Brown Honeyeater and my first Yellow Honeyeater, were seen there too, wow!
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| Squatter Pigeon |
Further along the same track we found a field full of Cranes, some were displaying. Most of them were Sarus Cranes but a few were Brolga Cranes. A hundred or so Sulphur-crested Cockatoos fed there too with a few Masked Lapwings (these birds are different from the ones found in NSW - they lack the black shoulder patch - maybe a split in the future).
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| Brolga Cranes |
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| Sarus Crane - see how the red colouring goes down to the neck |
Next we drove into and through Atherton to reach Hasties Swamp, this is a place that comes highly recommended by my good friend John Hale and it lived up to my high expectations. We had a great time there, you could sit for hours sifting through the thousand of birds present. At least 3 thousands sat on the water or banks, they were mainly Magpie Geese and Plumed Whistling Ducks but good numbers of ducks were there too including the Freckles Duck which is very rare for Queensland being at least 1500km out of its range, we saw three of them!!
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| HASTIES SWAMP - as seen from the track |
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| Latham's Snipe |
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| Plumed Whistling Ducks |
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| Scarlet Honeyeater |
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| Leaden Flycatcher - male |
From Hasites we nipped into Atherton to buy some lunch and then set off for a Wet-Rainforest walk at a place called Wongabel. The well maintained track led us through some pristine forces which was full of birds, we soon amassed a great list which included a couple of star birds such as; Catbird, Victoria Riflebird (several females and only one male), Pied Monarch, Long-billed, Yellow-throated and Atherton Scrubwrens, Grey-headed Robin, Bower's Shrike-thrush, (Little Shrike-thrush was heard but not seen), Womp-poo Fruit-Dove, Brown Geryngone and several more good sighting.
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| Pied Monarch |
Mount Hypipamee and the famous crater was our next venue, our target species were Bridled and Macleay's Honeyeaters which were both seen very well in the car park, the crater was nice to see too!
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| Bar-Shouldered Dove |
Lastly we visited the large lake at Barrine, this large body of water is surrounded by pristine primary wet-forest which supports the magnificent Bull Kauri pine, this broad-leaved species rises to over 45 meters, what an impressive tree. We walked about 1km along the track which circumnavigates the lake. Even though it was very late in the afternoon many birds were still calling especially the doves, we had good views of Wompoo Fruit-Dove and fleeting views of Brown Cuckoo-Dove and Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove (Roly only).
Our star find was the Chowchilla, this little skulker was extremely hard to locate but after an hour we finally got views of one, in the meantime we listed Grey Fantail, Eastern Whipbird, Catbird and several Lewin's Honeyeaters.
It was now getting dark so we headed back to the car, several Northern Bettongs scurried across the path (a small marsupial) as we finished our walk in the near-dark.
We got home at 7:45pm, it had been a long day but well worth the effort.
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