Last Day in Queensland

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For my final day in Queensland, I wanted to add as many of the birds that I had missed as possible, so I got up to look around at sunrise. The previous morning when I went for a walk by myself, I walked down the road which was largely unsuccessful. But one of the other birders staying at Cassowary House mentioned that he had seen both Spotted Catbird and Orange-footed Scrubfowl in the 'orchard' area around the big fig tree that morning, so I went there to try and find them. Before I even got to the fig tree though, in the forest along the pathway between my room and the tree I managed to locate a catbird moving about deep in the undergrowth but allowing me to get snippets of views here and there as it hopped around. And when I got to the tree itself I scared off some Orange-footed Scrubfowls that were sitting under the tree. Most of the group of scrubfowl left immediately as I approached, but one stayed for a few seconds longer allowing me to have a look at it. I stayed around that tree until I went for breakfast in the hope that either species would come out into the open, but neither did, and there wasn’t anything else new, but enjoyed watching the Rufous Fantails, Pale-yellow Robins, and the Wompoo Fruit-doves that seemed to always be in the tree. On the way to breakfast, though I passed by an exposed perch which I was told was sometimes used at the display area for the riflebirds and on there was a male riflebird, not displaying, but digging in the wood, I assume for food.


While at breakfast, the riflebirds, friarbird, and various honeyeaters were all around the same as yesterday, and I was pleased to be able to get some pictures of the male riflebird sitting still.

While we were eating breakfast though, it started to rain very heavily, too heavily to start the morning bird walk, so we just stayed at the veranda looking at the various birds, including a Little Shrike-thrush, as well as some lovely Black Jezebel Butterflies. The rain eventually began to die down, so we started the morning bird walk with Phil. We were the only people on it this time, and we started by heading down to the fig tree again. Phil heard a call that he said was a Yellow-breasted Boatbill, and by imitating it he was able to get the boatbill to come out into the open. I got a really nice view of it, and I may have managed to get a picture this time if it wasn’t for the fact that my camera lens decided to mist up for no apparent reason. Also around here were huge flocks of Fig Parrots up in the fig tree, though while they sat in the tree we weren’t actually able to see them at all, and we only saw them as they flew out of the tree and as they flew back in. It was quite surprising that we couldn't see them in the tree though because there were dozens of them. We would thoroughly scan the canopy of the tree and decide that all of the parrots had left when a flock of about half a dozen flew up and out of the tree out of nowhere. Or a small flock would fly into the tree, and we would take careful note of which branch they were at and look at that closely through binoculars, but we still couldn't see them. In fact, neither of us managed to lock in on the parrots with binoculars at all despite there being loads of them. It was rather funny actually, and it made me realise how special my sighting on the Cairns Esplanade really was.

It started to drizzle again though, and then began to rain heavily, so we decided to pause the bird walk and continue when the rain died down a bit. So we went back to our room to wait, and I sat on the balcony looking to see if there was anything around. I saw a Macleay’s Honeyeater and a Little Shrike-thrush, but little else. While we were sitting there though I looked across to the driveway and noticed that a pair of cassowaries had arrived and started to head downstairs to the area under the veranda where the food is left for them!

It was only drizzling slightly so I of course went to have a look at them. The cassowaries, this time the regular pair that visits Cassowary House daily, spent some time by the veranda, allowing lots of time to watch them before they gulped down some water (which was very interesting to watch) and left.

Once the cassowaries had left, we decided that the rain was light enough now to continue with the bird walk. We decided to go back onto the main road and continue down it. There were lots of Figbirds of course, as there had been every day, and I also saw a couple of Australian Swiftlets flying around above us which was the only new bird of the bird walk. Also of interest were the many Forest Kingfishers sitting on electric wires by the road

as well as a flock of Red-browed Finches in a bush, which were my only ones outside of Lamington National Park. It was drizzling pretty much constantly though which did decrease bird activity, but while we walked we were able to discuss different things about taxonomy. Mainly bird taxonomy of course, and particularly Australian and New Guinea bird taxonomy because Phil maintains checklists for both of those, be we discussed mammal taxonomy enough for him to reveal how 'horrified' he was at the lemur and ungulate splits. It continued to drizzle for the duration of the bird walk alternating with medium to heavy rain. When we got back to the house it was already into the afternoon and the rain seemed to be getting heavier. Originally, our plan for the late morning and afternoon was to walk to the Barron Falls and back which is supposed to be a very impressive waterfall and a really nice walk with the possibility of birds along the way, but because it was a bit late by then and it wouldn’t have been a particularly pleasant walk in the relatively heavy rain anyway, we had to scrap that plan and we just stayed in Cassowary House. It was also revealed that if we wanted to get back into Cairns cheaply by public transport that would drop us off at the airport, we would have to leave Kuranda before three despite the flight taking off at eight which would get us to the airport about three and a half hours before our flight.

While we waited in the hotel room, I decided that during a patch of just drizzle rather than full rain I would go for a walk around. There wasn’t a huge amount of bird life about, but by the fig tree, where I had seen so much over the last couple of days, there was a Red-legged Pademelon just sitting in the open on the edge of the forest in the daylight.

The pademelon didn’t stay for very long though, and not long after it disappeared I noticed something moving on the ground which was a Green Tree Snake that slithered off along the ground and then up into a tree on the edge of the forest.

I also looked up into the tree itself, and as well as Wompoos, there was also a Superb Fruit Dove there hiding extremely well. I was pleased to have managed to see it because another birder had seen one the previous day, and given that I particularly like pigeons and doves, it was nice to add another species onto the list.

Not long after that, we had to go back to Kuranda to get the bus into Cairns. This time rather than a big bus company like we attempted to get to go into Kuranda, we got a small bus called John’s Kuranda Shuttle because they would drop us off right at the airport. The drive down to Cairns was uneventful until we got near to the airport. The Cairns airport is surrounded by Mangroves and because of this there are many mangrove birds around, and while we were stuck behind some traffic lights or airport traffic or something, I saw on a fence by the side of the road that there was a Torresian (Collared) Kingfisher there, which was the final addition for the Queensland list.

We got to the airport about three and a half hours before our flight was due to take off. It would have been nice to look in the mangroves near the airport but we were limited by the fact that we had all our stuff with us, and you can’t walk in the mangroves right next to the airport (for obvious security reasons) and to actually go in the mangroves you have to walk along the road to a boardwalk a few kilometres away. If we had our own transport we would probably have been able to do something with this time like visit BatReach in Kuranda, or the Cairns Wildlife Dome, both of which are zoos that I would have liked to go to but that we didn’t have time to visit, but being restricted to public transport we couldn’t do either of those. And it was still raining too.

Although our final day in Queensland was rather interrupted by the weather, we were generally very lucky with the weather throughout the trip, with the only other day where it affected what we were doing being one of the days in Brisbane. I had also been extremely lucky with the birds, and had seen the vast majority of what I wanted to. At this point, I would also like to say how awesome Cassowary house is. The location, the quality of the rooms, the birds, and the people there. Definitely a must-visit place while around there for anyone interested in birds. The price was also not as expensive as you would think for a specialist birding lodge like this (which generally charge much higher prices) which was $160 per night for a twin room with a bathroom and a kitchenette, including breakfast.

So that was the end of the sixteen days in Queensland. I was slightly sad it was over, I’d have loved to spend another few weeks exploring in Far North Queensland, but the trip was pretty amazing overall, and I’d fitted a lot into such a short time. Though the Australia trip as a whole was not over yet, and I still had a little under five weeks in Perth!

New birds seen:

Spotted Catbird
Orange-Footed Scrubfowl
Australian Swiftlet
Superb Fruit Dove
Torresian Kingfisher

New reptile:

Green Tree Snake

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