Birds, Followed by Frustration, Followed by More Birds

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We had one more place to visit while in Queensland which was a birding lodge in the rainforest near the small but touristy town of Kuranda which is not too far inland of Cairns. First though, I had another opportunity to visit the Cairns Esplanade and to hopefully pick up a few more birds that I was still missing. When we got the Esplanade, again around sunrise, the tide was very far out, exposing a huge expanse of wader-covered mudflats. All of the species that I saw yesterday were there including the egrets, ibis, Masked Lapwings and pelicans and the various other waders, and as I walked up and down looking at each distant wader before spending ages looking through the field guide to work out them out, I was able to add five new waders to the list, some of which I probably saw yesterday but didn’t see close enough to identify. I also got a closer view of the Australian Pied Oystercatcher which was just about close enough to photograph.


As well as the birds out on the mudflats there were lots of great birds in the trees that line The Esplanade too, including the same Varied Honeyeaters, Peaceful and Spotted Doves, and Indian Mynas as yesterday, with the addition of quite a few White-breasted Woodswallows sitting in the trees, and I was pleased to actually get some pictures of them this time after only seeing them from moving vehicles in past times.

There were also a few Nutmeg Mannikins around hopping around in the low grass on the beach as well as some Sulphur-crested Cockatoos calling noisily from lamp posts. The number of Masked Lapwings was also quite surprising and they approached the Indian Mynas in how numerous they were, particularly in a sports field near The Esplanade where they were joined by a few Magpie-larks and a Rainbow Bee-eater

The first really, really, really exciting species that morning though was seen out on the mudflats, where walking regally up and down and occasionally flapping about was a huge Black-necked Stork.

That was a species that was high on the list of stuff that I wanted to see and one that I had missed at the Centenary Lakes a few days ago so I was ecstatic to see this one so prominent and out in the open on The Esplanade allowing me to watch it as much as I wanted. The next highlight bird, and probably even more exciting than the Black-necked Stork was seen right near the end of my time at The Esplanade. I had thought that the stork would be by far the best bird of the morning and I was happy with that. It was starting to get really hot, the tide had come in hugely and was almost completely covering the mud, so we stopped to cool down with a cold drink before heading off to the bus stop to get the bus to Kuranda. There was little point in walking along the edge of the beach itself because all the waders smaller than an egret had disappeared, and it was incredibly hot out in the full sun (there were no clouds that day) so we walked further back under the shade of the big fig trees when I noticed something very small and green fly out onto a branch a couple of trees along. When I got my binoculars onto it, I realised that it was a fig-parrot! I got up closer and managed to get right up to the tree no more than two metres away where I could see that it was a pair of Double-eyed Fig-parrots hopping about in the low branches digging in the bark with their beaks and they seemed not to notice my presence in the slightest. After a couple of minutes the parrots decided they had had enough of posing for me, and decided to fly up into the canopy of the fig where they sat visible for a few seconds before disappearing. And that was certainly the best bird for me out of my three visits to The Esplanade.

The only other thing worthy of note seen before we left to go to the bus stop was a drongo, so we headed back to the hotel where we had left the bags in their luggage room (rather than carry them around while birding) to take them to the bus stop which wasn’t very far away. The bus was a regular bus service that goes from Cairns all around the Tablelands to places like Atherton or, as we were going, to Kuranda. The bus was five minutes late but we got onto the bus with no problems and got the $6.70 tickets on the bus which I think is probably the cheapest way to get from Cairns to Kuranda, and we headed off.

We’d gone what I think was most of the way, and were well out of Cairns where we turned to take a windy mountain road up to Kuranda, one of only three roads that go up into the mountains behind Cairns with the others being at least a four hour detour. There, a traffic warden pulled us over and spoke to the driver for a little while. The bus driver then shouted back something along the lines of, "a truck's turned over halfway up the road blocking both lanes, we’re refunding your tickets and taking you back to central station in Cairns. The road will be blocked for at least three to four hours, sorry about that but there’s nothing we can do.” Should be said in a thick Australian truckie accent of course.

So we turned around and headed back to Cairns where we were dropped off at the Central Station. We asked the driver if he had any suggestions about how we could get to Kuranda, and the only thing we could do is wait to see if any of the later bus services would run. We originally caught the 11:30 service, the next few would definitely be cancelled, but he thought we’d be able to get the 5:00 service if we wanted to wait. And it’s not like we had any other choice. Since we were not actually staying in Kuranda but in a birding lodge a few kilometres away, we had arranged to be picked up and taken there, so we called to say that we would be late due to the blocked road. They of course knew about the blocked road and said that they were actually stuck on the Cairns side of the road block because they were in Cairns for some shopping and they could swing around and pick us up so we’d still be stuck but would be stuck with them and could just wait until the road was cleared in their car which seemed like a better option so we accepted. When they showed up the first thing they asked us was if we were allergic to dogs. We weren’t, but it soon became apparent why they asked – the car was regularly used to carry their two large dogs around and it absolutely stank. I don’t want to sound unappreciative, they didn’t have to come around to pick us up, and we were stranded, so it was extremely nice of them to come back (they were very nice people at Cassowary House) though the smell was terrible, even with the windows open. And it turned out they had also planned to get the car cleaned while in Cairns but never got around to it.

When we got back around to the road block, we were still told that it would still be a few hours so we had to choose whether to wait or to go around the other road via Port Douglas which would add about another four hours to the route, but we would at least get there, so we decided to go with that option. The view over the ocean was very nice, and we passed some Ospreys in nests and a field full of Agile Wallabies, but I did get some bad news as we drove because I found out that Britain had voted to exit the European Union which, as a British citizen living in the European Union with all my money in British Pounds, was terrible news and the Cassowary House people were originally British with a lot of their income coming from British birding tours (which would of course become more expensive with the pound being less valuable) so it was bad news all around. As we were digesting this terrible news we received some slightly better news which was that the road up the mountain had been re-opened so we could now get back by the normal route to Kuranda. And since we were still less than half way round the detour, we turned back around and headed all the way back. There was still a bit of a queue to go up the road, but it wasn’t too bad so we went up and eventually made it to the birding lodge that we were staying at, Cassowary House, at around 5:00, so it was still earlier than if we had got the bus that only left Cairns at 5:00. Once we were in the room and had a bit of food I wanted to see if I could get some new birds on the ground of Cassowary House. There was a very large fig tree on the property which was excellent for birds, and there was also a nice little stream and plenty of rainforest, and there was loads of rainforest surrounding Cassowary House too so plenty to explore. First I headed down to the fig tree and on the way I saw a Macleay’s Honeyeater that darted away and in the vegetation all around were quite a few Rufous Fantails. These were absolutely stunning birds, much more striking than either the Grey Fantails or Willie Wagtails that I had seen, and they were a joy to watch as they darted about. In the fig tree itself, at first there didn’t seem to be anything around there but when I examined the tree closely through binoculars, I noticed there were about half a dozen Wompoo Fruit-doves.

This was a species that I had already missed several times so I was very pleased to see them. It’s amazing how well huge multi-coloured pigeons can disappear into the canopy. There was also another new bird – a Barred Cuckooshrike.

We then walked up to the main road through the forest and walked up and down a bit. The trees were covered in figbirds, and every time I saw a female figbird my first thought was that it was some kind of oriole. But I did eventually find a genuine Yellow Oriole which was noticeably different when I did see it. There were loads of bird calls coming from amongst the trees but in such dense forest I could hardly see anything, and not knowing the bird calls didn’t help either. I did find a Cane Toad though which was interesting to see, but rather sad given how destructive they are.

Because of all the time wasted getting to Kuranda, we didn’t have very long before it got dark, and although there was the possibility of some spotlighting we decided to go to bed because we were both exhausted. Before going to bed though, we did arrange to start the next day with a morning bird walk.

New birds seen:
Little Curlew
Bar-tailed Godwit
Great Knot
Black-necked Stork
Curlew Sandpiper
Eastern Curlew
Double-eyed Fig-parrot
Rufous Fantail
Wompoo Fruit-dove
Barred Cuckoo-shrike
Yellow Oriole

New amphibian:

Cane toad

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