8th February Report

The heavy rain continued to fall with 245.5mm for the week which brings the total rainfall for the year to just over 1m! The wet weather restricted birding and we only saw 48 bird species and heard a further 6 plus 9 reptile/mammal species.

Highlights for the week were more sightings of Pied Imperial Pigeon (2) and a Fan-tailed Cuckoo calling over three days which is unusual here. Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfishers continue to bring food to their nests and the chicks can be heard calling from inside the termite mounds. A pair of Little Shrike-thrush are also feeding at least two chicks in a nest adjacent to our veranda and two juvenile Spotted Catbirds are getting around with their parents terrorising the other birds.

Spotted Catbird - Juvenile

Further afield a quick look north of Mossman (Far North Queensland), at Somerset Drive, Newell Beach and nearby Cooya Beach on Friday 6th failed to find any Red-rumped or Barn Swallows that had been in the area. In fact there was only two Welcome Swallows to be found amongst the Fairy and Tree Martins. At Cooya Beach there was Collared and Sacred Kingfisher, Mangrove Robin, Bar-tailed Godwit and Greenshank. The lack of waders was due to the high tide, normally there is a good variety of species present here.

Access up Mt. Lewis has been cut with several trees down across the road about 2 km from the Bushy Creek road bridge and some damage has occurred on the lower part of the road due to wash aways.

Interesting beetles continue to be found, this one was out in the rain

Orange Beetle - 1

before it moved to the underside of the leaf it was on.

Orange Beetle - 2