Operation Possum-Actualization

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There isn't really any birding to do in the area immediately around the accommodation and my family doesn't exactly get up early so we weren't out until half the day had gone at 10:30. This is what makes travelling on your own so much better, except of course I wouldn't be able to do this without a car.

So they wanted to use what was left of the evening to visit Port Douglas which is a nearby town and I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to be dropped off at Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas on the way in which is just on the edge of town. This is a zoo in case their obscure name doesn't make that clear.

I would also like to note at this point that all Australian zoos seem to have this thing where when you buy a ticket, the person then spends ten minutes explaining to each visitor how a map works and how to read a list of show times from the bottom of a map. This must have problematic at busy times.

Anyway, the zoo itself is actually rather good with native Australian species, mostly native to the general area or at least to Queensland on the whole. It's divided into a few large sections themed by habitat which I think is a really effective way to lay out a zoo. There are lots of free-flying birds in a number of the sections too which is great. It's not a large place and it's three sections with some side exhibits: large netted aviaries making up the wetlands and rainforest sections and an outdoor area for the savannah, but a very nicely done little facility. They have a nocturnal walk thing as well that shows you captive nocturnal animals Iike sugar gliders and things that.

We then went to Mossman Gorge where the food was poor and overpriced, and the place is just an absolute tourist trap. It is in rainforest, but the area is too busy for there to be any wildlife and it's lowland forest so none of my target bird species are present anyway. Not that it's a site that birders visit at all or a place that I would have visited on my own. I miss travelling on my own and doing what I want to do. I've got such a short time in Far North Queensland so I hate wasting time visiting tourist traps when there's so much amazing wildlife to see. But the thing with not travelling solo is that you've got to compromise which is something I hate doing when it comes to wildlife!

I didn't miss out on wildlife for the whole day though, with an absolutely fantastic late afternoon and evening/night of wildlife watching, because in the afternoon I got to go back to Mount Lewis for some evening birding and then going all out spotlighting the summit road for Daintree River Ringtail. A quick note on the roads: there is only one in Mount Lewis Road it's a single 23km road that goes up to the summit from near Julatten and it's officially called Mount Lewis Road. There is no summit road that's different from this which the Finding Australian Mammals book kind of implies, and Google maps is confusing because it marks a nonexistent junction and entrance road and also suggests that the road goes in and back out of the forest and that you can bypass the first section to go straight to the summit. The in and out of forest thing is because part of it is Mount Lewis National Park but part of it is property of the AWC's Brooklyn Conservancy which Google marks the same as farmland. Anyway, there's just one dirt track and it's obvious.

We birded for about an hour and a half before sunset at a spot about 800m in altitude, and it was extremely productive with lots of bird calls and a number of sightings of a few of my target species including finally finding a Chowchilla just before sunset. I only specifically mention the Chowchilla because it’s a species that I’ve been looking for for ages and its supposed to be reasonably common. I didn’t find any Blue-faced Parrotfinches but I think they’re more difficult at this time of year than in the (austral) summer though I don’t know why, they don’t really go anywhere surely?

At about sunset, we continued on further on the road to try and get really high in altitude for the Daintree River Ringtails and we went quite a long way up the summit road. A 4WD car really is almost essential for this road. We had a 2WD but an SUV with more ground clearance. It would actually be impossible in a saloon car. The latter sections of the summit road weren’t such compacted gravel but were actually lots of large loose rocks as well as some large obstacle-type rocks in the middle of the road. There was also no shortage of potholes and grass down the middle of the road as well as, rather irritatingly, lots of massive piles of gravel acting as enormous speed bumps (like properly drive up and over type bumps). Some fords too, and it was at one ford with a decent amount of water going through about 5km from the very top of the road that we could go no further. It was ok though because this was already above 1000m and in quite a different vegetation type, making it suitable for spotlighting for the possums. Quite a long and not easy drive to get to though, but everyone knows that driving up a mountain on a dirt track in a not-quite-suitable vehicle in the middle of the night is one of the basics of parenting. Providing food, water, shelter, and possums. It’s just the standard teenage possum obsession phase where the only thing a teenager can think about is their trip list.

It’s also worth noting a couple of interesting sightings on the drive up: a Feral Pig (which I don’t think I can get away with counting because I’ve already got Wild Boar on, and even snuck in a split between the European and Asian species) and a Bandicoot which I think was actually a Northern Brown rather than Long-nosed although it doesn’t really matter for the list. I think Northern Brown is more unusual though.

The spotlighting itself was still rather slow and quite difficult and the low vegetation up here seemed to have a dense understory reducing visibility and torch penetration into the area immediately below the canopy where the possums were. However there was a fair bit of noise from possums moving out of sight so there were definitely a few around. My first possum though was just what I had wanted: a Daintree River Ringtail. It wasn’t out in the open and it didn’t freeze when I got my torch on it like I thought it would but instead continued moving through the thick understory giving acceptable views, but thwarting photography. Lovely possum and a bloody good thing that I found it after going all that way! I did pick up a couple more eyeshines, one of which I’m pretty sure was another Daintree River and much of the possumy sounds that were too far for the torch to get to were probably also Daintrees. I think they’re common enough once you get into their really limited range.

The other super-cool limited-range possum on Mount Lewis is the white form of the Lemuroid Ringtail Possum which is restricted to the (three I think?) highest peaks in the Carbine Tableland, one of which is Mount Lewis, but it’s only very at the absolute highest altitude, generally above 1100m, so I don’t think we were quite high enough. It’s a colour form that’s getting rarer and rarer and will probably be entirely extinct quite soon due to climate change. It’s the same species as the normal brown Lemuroid Ringtail which occurs at lower altitudes and all over the area so I should still see the species, although I didn’t see it tonight and finding it is a bit random. I did see a different eyeshine which I suspect was a normal colour lemuroid, but I’m not sure. Oh, and guess who’s now seen Striped Possum three nights in a row? Yep, got yet another Striped Possum tonight. Who says they’re difficult to find? Common as muck black-and-white striped rats they are. They’re actually very widely distributed in this small area at all altitudes of rainforest but are supposed to be low density in general. But now that I’ve got the Daintree Ringtail here, Operation Possum-Actualization of seeing all the possums in the area is on track. (although Long-tailed Pygmy-possum will be rather near impossible and very luck-dependent. I reckon I can get all the others).

I would explain the name Operation Possum-Actualization, but it’s late now and I can’t be bothered anymore so I’ll just leave it as a title because I find it mildly amusing and I don’t think anyone else would anyway.

And the last thing was possibly the biggest surprise of the day on the drive back to Mossman, outside Mount Lewis and the rainforest but not far along the tarmacked roads from where the track comes out. Along the roadside as we were driving, off hopped two little hoppy things. Wait, what?! That was a bettong! There’s nothing in the mammal finding book about bettongs in the area?! It was definitely a bettong though, and perfectly matches Rufous Bettong which is in range, although not a species that normally shows up on lists from the area at least from what I’ve seen. Not complaining though, great mammal!

Birds:

Grey-headed Robin

Bower’s Shrike-thrush

Yellow-throated Scrubwren

Brown Cuckoodove

Bridled Honeyeater

Scaly-breasted Lorikeet

Tooth-billed Bowerbird

Buff-rumped Thornbill

Chowchilla



Mammals:

Daintree River Ringtail

Rufous Bettong

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