Lamington National Park Day Three

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I had one more day in Lamington which I wanted to use to get a better view of the lyrebird and also to visit part of the non-rainforest section of the national park to get a few more birds that I couldn’t get in the rainforest bit. As it turned out, I found a route that could do both of these which was a track leading through supposedly lyrebird-infested forest ending in the Eucalyptus forest. Anyway, we did of course start with the early morning birdwalk. It was with one of the usual guides this time and we did the same route as the previous day and all of the tame birds came up – the bowerbirds, scrubwrens, turkeys, robins, and whipbirds and we chanced upon a spinebill too - however the guide didn’t present them with quite the same, how do I put it… flare, as Glen the previous day. I did see one new bird from this part of the boardwalk though, a Bassian Thrush which was very similar to the Russet-tailed Thrush of the first day, but with a few small differences allowing it to be identified. However in addition to the boardwalk through the forest, we went down to the bottom of the lawn area of O’Reilly’s grounds, near to the same area as I saw the Superb Fairy-wrens yesterday and while we were looking at a Grey Shrike-thrush in a tree above the giftshop and café I noticed another bird fly in. A female riflebird!!! I couldn’t believe it, it was right here, metres from where I was staying! I called out of course and let the guide and the other people on the tour know. As well as the main guide doing the walk there was a second guide who was still learning and you may recall in the previous post I mentioned that there was one new guide who joined two and a half weeks ago and hadn’t yet seen a riflebird. This was his first. So the two of us were really excited while the rest of the group wondered why we were so excited at this brown bird while the more experienced guide who was leading the walk looking on in seeming amusement. Well rather than a fleeting glimpse like the previous day, this female stayed in the tree for a while hopping between the branches digging in the lichen even allowing me to grab a few not terrible pictures before it flew away.

An amazing sighting. I spent all day yesterday looking for them and it just turned up practically outside my window, as is the way with birding. There was one final highlight right at the end of the walk too which was a pair of Satin Bowerbirds in the tree above the O’Reilly’s entrance with the male picking lichen off the tree and giving it to the female who took it, which was pretty cool to watch.


After the bird walk I again wracked the guides’ brains to find what I should do that day to plan out my route to try and get the lyrebirds and the most accessible bit of Eucalytus woodlands. Rather than one of the main marked and maintained tracks we took a much less used one which was an official track but not maintained so there were many fallen trees over it that took some clambering over but because were weren’t just 'bush-bashing', as they say in Australia, I hoped this meant we wouldn’t fall off a cliff or run into a stinging tree (like a stingy nettle on steroids) which luckily did indeed turn out to be the case. The track we took started out with the initial part of the ‘Python Rock’ track (which was the same as the one we partly did on our first afternoon in Lamington) with a turn off behind a sign talking about George, a now deceased lyrebird, leading off onto a narrow and far less well trodden path but well marked enough to follow. I could actually hear many lyrebirds around here, though I saw very little at all even of the more common birds because the forest was so dense, though I did see several Red-legged Pademelons. At one point I’m also fairly sure I heard a Rufous Scrub-bird and I saw something, but I don’t know if that was it. We soon came up to a lyrebird that was calling quite close to the path. Eventually I found it in the binoculars moving around a bit in the vegetation some distance away which I could just about make out as a lyrebird. I would have tried to get closer but I didn’t know how many stinging trees and big thorny things I would encounter as I slid down the slight slope on the leaf litter, and I though me crashing through the vegetation would scare it off anyway. Again not quite as nice a view as I had hoped but better than nothing. I would hear lyrebirds again later that day, but that would be my final view of the species of the trip.

Surprisingly, soon after that sighting we reached the edge of the rainforest and entered the far sparser Eucalyptus forest. It wasn’t a gradual change at all but over less than five metres the rainforest turned into dry forest, really cool. The first birds I saw in this very different environment were a pair of Crimson Rosellas around a hole in a tree with one sitting halfway out and the other next to the hole. Of course I had already seen many Crimson Rosellas at O’Reilly’s but it was cool to see some properly wild ones which were not mobbing you for food as soon as they had seen you. There were also many little brown things in the branches around which I suspected may have been new but I never managed to get a good look at them so I don’t know. Soon the forest became even thinner into more scrubby terrain as we approached an area called Pat’s Bluff. There was a fair bit of kangaroo/wallaby poo around and I soon startled a small group of them that bounded off and of the two possible largish macropods, either Red-necked Wallaby or Whiptail Wallaby, they had to be the latter. I did hear one other group of wallabies that I must have startled but I didn’t actually see them, I’d like to think they were the other species but I have no reason to do so. There was also a variety of different birds around and the most common species flitting around were Spotted Pardalotes which are really pretty birds

and there were many spinebills around here too at a much higher density than in the rainforest. Continuing the honeyeater trend, in addition to many Lewin’s Honeyeaters I saw two new species around here, both White-naped and Yellow-faced Honeyeater and there were lots of little brown things flitting around of which there were many Striated Thornbills but I’m sure there was other stuff as well that I didn’t get good enough views of, though going through my pictures I’ve just found a picture of a bird that I was planning to try and identify but completely forgot which turns out was a Buff-rumped Thornbill.
As well as the different vegetation and birds the other really cool thing around this area was the view over rainforest and dry forest which was really spectacular and I spent some time just looking at the view. There were also many Sulphur-crested Cockatoos flying around, though sadly no birds of prey at all.

After a while exploring this area we headed back along the same track and back into the rainforest, hearing lyrebirds but not seeing anything and not actually seeing much at all with it being around 2 PM and not the best time for birds. A bit later in the afternoon we decided to finally do the whole of the Python Rock track which I had half done twice but not ever reached the end despite it not being a particularly long track. I saw lots of cool birds that I had already seen like logrunners and yellow robins but nothing new, however I still enjoyed walking in the forest. At the end was a viewing platform with a fantastic view over the forest and down to Moran Falls at the end which I had seen closer the previous day but it was really nice to see from a distance. There were no new birds on the way back either but I didn’t mind too much about that, I had seen the majority of species that I wanted from Lamington anyway and as I was walking along the main road heading back just before sunset I finally managed to get an in-focus picture of the Fan-tailed Cuckoo.

That night was our last there before going to Brisbane the next day so we went out again for some more spotlighting in the hope of finding a Marbled Frogmouth but we were unsuccessful again and just saw both Common Ringtail and Short-eared Brushtail Possums

as with the previous night however also like the previous night, there was a Long-nosed Bandicoot digging in the lawn and being still enough to allow me to get a picture just using the torchlight.

The next morning I would be getting up for one final morning birdwalk before our transport arriving at nine.

New birds seen:
Bassian thrush
White-naped Honeyeater
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
Striated Thornbill
Buff-rumped Thornbill

New mammals seen:
Whiptail Wallaby

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