Weather
Report
Welcome
to 2014 and hope you all enjoyed Christmas/New Year celebrations. Since the
last blog the weather has been a mixed bag, extremely hot for here - up
to 35ºc, but elsewhere in Queensland almost 50ºC! It did get down to
18ºc overnight on a couple of occasions. Rain has been very patchy
with only 33mm over the last four weeks when we should be getting
more as it is our “Wet Season”. The monsoonal trough is over the
far north of Australia, across Cape York Peninsula and is forecast to
come further south in the next two weeks so we should expect some
good rainfalls. The total rainfall for the last year was 1473mm which
is well below our average. In 1992 Julatten had 2148mm in January alone!
Past
Four Weeks Bird Sightings:-
Bird
sightings for the first week were , seen and a high number of
heard, second week sightings were , seen and heard. The last four
weeks bird lists can be found on the Eremaea Birds Website:-
15th - 21st December , 22nd - 28th December , 29th December - 4th January, 5th - 11th January
Birding Highlights:-
The
absolute highlight over the last month was a female Yellow-billed
Kingfisher seen by three of our guests perched along Bushy Creek near
the Platypus viewing area on the 28th
December. Luckily two of the guests had a camera on hand and took a
few images, two of which they sent us to put into the blog, shown
below.
Yellow-billed
Kingfisher is a Cape York Peninsula speciality occurring as far south
as about Coen, which is over 500km north of the Lodge. There have
been a few records in our area including a previous one in Julatten,
but none have been written up (as far as we know) or photographed. We heard it
calling in the rainforest the next morning, but did not see it. That
was the last record of it so we presume it moved on. That was
exciting!
Papuan Frogmouth have been playing hide and seek by not staying in the same location two days running, this pair was seen one day on the edge of the orchard.
Papuan Frogmouth |
Lesser Sooty Owl has been heard a few times and hopefully has moved back into the Lodge grounds since the Barking Owl appear to have left the area. Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher are nesting and hopefully sitting on eggs, we have at least eight nests around the Lodge with several others in our neighbours garden and adjacent rainforest. Other birds seen nesting include, Australian Brush-turkey, Peaceful Dove, Pacific Baza, Scaly-breasted Lorikeet, Dollarbird, Australasian Figbird, Olive-backed Oriole, Spangled Drongo, Black-faced Monarch, Spectacled Monarch, Magpie Lark, Pale-yellow Robin, Metallic Starling, Olive-backed Sunbird, Red-browed Finch (nothing new here as they build nests all year around) and Chestnut-breasted Mannikin.
A
few interesting observations regarding nesting birds were; a Spangled
Drongo building a nest seen placing sticks and wriggling around in
the nest to shape it then a week later the nest was occupied by an
Australian Figbird who is still in it! The pair of Spangled Drongo
are now in another nest in the same tree, but on the other side. Not
sure whether the drongo was trying to take over the figbirds nest or
the figbird stole the drongos nest. Also of interest was a
Pale-yellow Robin nest which had at least one nestling in it. There
were four adults attending this nest and feeding the young. When I
passed the nest the adults started flying around my head to chase me
off before dropping to the ground. Here they started doing a broken
wing display, then as I backed away the birds headed to the nearby
leaf litter and started to move around with both wings outstretched
and flapping.
Presumably they were trying to disturb insects as they were turning over leaves at the same time. Not seen this behaviour before. Noisy Pitta have bred and have at least one juvenile which has been seen in the vicinity of the Crake Pool. Varied Sittella were seen along McDougall Road, this is an uncommon species in the vicinity of the Lodge, but over the last couple of years sightings have become more frequent. Pied Monarch and Yellow-breasted Boatbill have been calling and seen around the Lodge grounds most days.
Pale-yellow Robin - broken wing display |
Pale-yellow Robin - disturbing insects on the ground |
Presumably they were trying to disturb insects as they were turning over leaves at the same time. Not seen this behaviour before. Noisy Pitta have bred and have at least one juvenile which has been seen in the vicinity of the Crake Pool. Varied Sittella were seen along McDougall Road, this is an uncommon species in the vicinity of the Lodge, but over the last couple of years sightings have become more frequent. Pied Monarch and Yellow-breasted Boatbill have been calling and seen around the Lodge grounds most days.
Pied Monarch |
Further
Afield:-
Euluma
Creek Road, Julatten has been turning up some uncommon birds in the
district including Tawny Grassbird and Horsfield's Bushlark. Abattoir
Swamp has had Black-chinned Honeyeater (Golden-backed form) and
Northern Fantail. Five Squatter Pigeon and six Grey-crowned Babbler
were at Mt. Molloy. Lake Mitchell had at least 45 Whiskered Tern, two
Brolga and two Black-necked Stork. A dam on the Kondaparinga Road
north of Mt. Carbine had a Bar-breasted Honeyeater building a nest on
a Rubber Vine, an unusual record. The isolated population of
White-gaped Honeyeater were seen at the regular location of the
McLeod River along with a nesting Black Bittern. Hasties Swamp near
Atherton has been getting good numbers of birds, we counted 247
Pink-eared Duck, at least 400 Grey Teal plus 10 Freckled
Duck and at least 150 Eurasian Coot on 17th
December but Alan Gillanders from Alan's
Wildlife Tours had 269 Pink-eared Duck, 500+ Plumed
Whistling-Duck and 28 Freckled Duck on the 8th
January. There were plenty of other species present, but not in high
numbers, Latham's Snipe have also been seen here recently. Our full
list from Hasties can be found on the e-bird
site. Lake Evan (Brady Road Swamp) 4km north of Mareeba has been
getting up to 1200 Magpie Goose as well as a variety of other species
such as Plumed Whistling-Duck, Red-kneeded Dotterel and a single
Pink-eared Duck.
Magpie Goose - part of
the flock of 1200
|
Red-rumped Swallow and immature Barn Swallow were reported from Somerset Drive north of Mossman. We went down to have a look, but only found Fairy Martin and Tree Martin on the powerlines. Next to the powerlines was this very appropriate sign which says it all!
Whilst we were down that way we called into Newell Beach Boat Ramp at the mouth of the Mossman River which flows into the ocean here and forms a sandbar which is often good for shorebirds. A few Bar-tailed Godwit were about the most exciting birds present as it was high tide and most of the sandbar was under water.
Newell Beach at mouth of Mossman River |
A trip to Cairns on the 9th January actually coincided with a favourable tide for a change. Plenty of shorebirds including a Sanderling on the mudflats with Red-necked Stint. Sanderling are not very common at the Esplanade. Other shorebirds included both Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwit, Terek and Curlew and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Lesser and Greater Sandplover, Grey-tailed Tattler, Great Knot, Eastern Curlew and Whimbrel. Full list can be found on the Eremaea Birds site. Mt. Lewis is again proving to be the spot to go to with numbers of Blue-faced Parrot-Finch climbing up to at least 40 which is the most seen for many years.
Reptiles and Mammals:-
A
few snakes have come active with the warmer weather including a
Red-bellied Black seen on the track to Bushy Creek, a Green Tree
Snake eating a poor unfortunate White-lipped Tree Frog and an
Australian Scrub Python has been in our neighbours garden.
Green Tree Snake with White-lipped Tree Frog |
Boyd's
Forest Dragon, Eastern Water Dragon and Major Skink have all been
showing well. Platypus has been around with three being seen one late
afternoon. Bats have been active with 6 species seen, Eastern
Horseshoe Bat, Large-footed Myotis, Northern Broad-nosed Bat, Little
Bentwing Bat and Diadem Leaf-nosed Bat plus Spectacled Flying-Fox.
Red-legged Pademelon have been seen scurrying around the rainforest
and in the orchard. A Yellow-footed Antichinus (small rat like
species) was seen hurrying across the reception area feeder one
morning, the first for several weeks.
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