Today was my second full day out with Roly and it was just as good as the first, we saw over 100 species and I got another 17 new species for my Australian list, 14 of them were lifers!
Roly's wife Helen joined us as we left the tree-house at 4:45am!! We had to drive from Cairns to Daintree in time to catch the 6:30am boat. We made it in good time and listed a few species along the way, Black Kites were very common, White-breasted Woodswallows were perched all along the power lines as were Forest Kingfishers, the occasional Laughing Kookaburra and many welcome Swallows did the same.
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| a typical scene along the creek from our boat. |
On the boat we were joined by 5 other people as we set off on time, Helen and I saw an Osprey as we left the mooring and then we saw our first pair of Shining Flycatchers. Murray, our boatman-guide was excellent on bird ID and over the first hour he showed us nesting, Shining Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied Sunbird, Large-billed Gerygone and Wompoo Pigeon. Most nests are like hanging socks but the pigeon's nest was the smallest you can imagine, hardly much bigger than its egg!
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| Water Dragon - about a meter in length |
We explored a couple of tranquil creeks, the scenery was beautiful, the water perfectly still and serene, the tranquillity broken only by bird song. Our best sighting by far was that of BLACK BITTERN, but we also saw flyover Topknot Pigeons, as well as Rufous Night Heron, Pied Monarch, Little Shrike-Thrush, good numbers of Koels, Metallic Starlings and at one stage we saw 5 different raptors in the sky at once. A perched Pacific Baza was nice and 3 White-bellied Sea-Eagles were super to see. All in all we saw 40 species on the boat-trip which finished at 9:30am, the boatman was disappointed that we missed Large-billed Heron, Little and Azure Kingfishers and he assured us that Papuan Frogmouth and the Paradise Kingfisher hadn't been seen recently.
The whole boat trip was a fantastic experience and great for all kinds wildlife watching, we saw hundreds of fruit bats, a Water Dragon, some Green Tree-Snakes and we learnt a lot about mangroves and various tree species, it is well worth doing if you are coming this way and it will be included on any future trips that I lead here.
From Daintree we made a short stop at a new fish farm where we saw Black-winged Stilt, Rajah Shelduck, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and lots of Black Kites. Another stop was made at Newell Cove where we saw a few waders, including my first Greenshank of the trip, and a Striated Heron. We then headed inland driving up and over Mount Malloy towards Mareeba.
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| Striated Heron |
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| Emu at Mareeba |
From the lovely viewing lounge at the visitor's centre we had a superb view of the lake, many birds were out there but none of which were new for our list. After a cold drink and a lovely coconut ice-cream we decided not to walk the forest trail in the 32C heat.
After driving into Mareeba town, and visiting the cemetery where we looked for Grey Bowerbird without success, we drove back towards Cairn's via Kerunda. Just outside Kerunda we turned onto a mountain track to look for more forest species. After half an hour we added more species to our list; Rufous Whistler, Silver-eye, Spectacled Monarch and the star bird: Yellow-breasted Boatbill, what a little stunner he is.
We then drove back into Cairns to look for the Rufous Owl which was now established in a particular tree near rhe Esplanade, it took us a while but we found this beautiful predator. Apparently he has been feeding on the local fruit bats!
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| you can just make out the Rufous Owl in this record shor |
From there we made quick stops at mangrove swamps to look for Mangrove Robin, but it was a little late in the day, the tide was very high so we called it a day and went home, slightly exhausted after a very long day.
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