14th
December 2014 Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge
Weather
Report
At
last some rain to report, a big storm dumped 61mm on one day plus a
further 16mm on 4 days. A few more storms have been in the area but
seemed to miss us. Humidity was up to 95% with lots of sunshine and
temperatures reached 33ºc on one day but generally lower with the
cloud cover and passing storms.
Last
Two Weeks Bird Sightings:-
Birding
Highlights:-
A
first for our 1.5km reporting area was a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
reported by Carol Iles our roaming bird guide. Carol saw it in one of
the McDougall Road lagoons. The McDougall Road lagoons are on private
properties and viewed from the road, they have had quite a few good
waterbirds on them over the past two weeks. These were, 38 Magpie
Goose, 8 Wandering Whistling-Duck, Pacific Black Duck, Grey Teal, 2
Australasian Grebe, Little Black and Pied Cormorant, Australasian
Darter, 2 Australian Pelican, Great, Intermediate and Cattle Egret, 1
White-faced Heron, 1 Glossy Ibis, Australian White Ibis, Royal
Spoonbill, 1 White-browed Crake and 1 Comb-crested Jacana. Good
selection of waterbirds. A few more raptors have been around these
past two weeks with Spotted Harrier, Collared Sparrow Hawk, Black and
Whistling Kite plus 2 White-bellied Sea-Eagle. Red-necked Crake are
continuing to appear at the Crake Pool in the afternoon, usually
between 5.30 and 6.30, where It has been bathing. We say it as we
have only seen one at a time. Pale-vented Bush-hen has only been
heard over the last week a few times and that was in the distance
down stream from the Lodge along Bushy Creek. One pair of Bush
Stone-curlew have one off spring and have been keeping quiet over
the last month.
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| Bush Stone-curlew - adult and juvenile |
At
least six Wompoo Fruit-Dove have been around as has a similar number
of Superb Fruit-Dove but they are much more difficult to see than the
wompoo.
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| Superb Fruit-Dove - male |
Topknot Pigeon have disappeared over the last week and the
numbers of Pied Imperial-Pigeon have also dropped. Brush Cuckoo are
in full song, triggered by the oncoming rain showers and both the
Australian Koel and Pheasant Coucal have been calling.
Lesser
Sooty Owl have again been around but not every night but when they
have been here they are calling and showing well. There is a pair
which hopefully will stay around and breed in the area next year.
Also Barn Owl and Barking Owl have been heard and seen. Our pair of
Papuan Frogmouth who have been sitting on a nest since 10th
October have abandoned it about a week ago with not sign of any egg
having been hatched. It is the first time that this pair have tried
to nest in the Lodge grounds so maybe inexperienced, certainly
judging by their unconventional nest which had some very large
branches in it. Normally their nests are made of not many small
twigs, similar to a pigeons nest. The good news is that another pair
in the area now have a quite sizable chick. They started sitting on
the 4th October, incubation time is 40 days and the time
up to the 14th December must make the chick about 25 days
old. Buff-breasted
Paradise-Kingfisher have started to dig out their nests in the
termite mounds on the rainforest floor and have been showing well,
perching for the photographers. We have not checked out all the 40+
termite mounds on the property yet but at least 4 mounds have been
dug. Last year we had 8 pairs nesting, hopefully we have at least
this number this year.
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| Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher |
Now that the Double-eyed Fig-Parrot have
finished nesting they have become hard to see with only a few
observed flying over. At least one pair of Noisy Pitta are in the
Lodge grounds and are being seen usually early morning. One bird was
seen carrying nesting material. Lovely Fairy-wren visited our
neighbours bird bath one day, lucky them. 13 species of honeyeater
were recorded with a Helmeted Friarbird being the most unusual.
Brown-backed Honeyeater were seen nesting in Geraghty Park.
Yellow-breasted Boatbill and Pied Monarch have been calling and seen
but the monarch has been proving more elusive than the boatbill.
Barred Cuckoo-shrike have been calling and a few have been nest
building. Common Cicadabird have also been vocal and Australasian
Figbird have been sitting in nests. No sightings of Black-faced
Monarch nests yet but they have been calling a lot, probably waiting
for more rain to fall. Pale-yellow Robin are still nesting and posing
for photographs. This one was taken to see how good the Canon EOS 7D MKII is at handling high ISO and was taken at 3200 ISO, not to bad for noise at this size and crop. It is certainly way ahead of the original 7D which showed lots of noise about 800 -1000 ISO.
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| Pale-yellow Robin |
Metallic
Starling are also continuing to add to their colonial nests with more
adults and juvenile birds joining in at their colony. Olive-backed
Sunbird are also nesting, hope this nest is successful after their
last one failed.
Further
Afield:-
A
very strange sighting of an Australian Brush-turkey with a purple
collar was had on Mt. Lewis, the report is on the Eremaea Birds site
with a very fuzzy image.
http://www.eremaea.com/BirdlineRecentSightings.aspx?Birdline=5
. It is possibly the Cape York race 'purpureicollis'
which only occur as far south as Shiptons Flat (just south of
Cooktown). There is some conjecture as to how this bird arrived this
far south, it has been suggested that it was released here or walked
across the mountain ranges as they are not good fliers. I guess we
will never know.
Blue-faced
Parrot-Finch is on most guests wants list at this time of year and
usually they are not too much of a problem, however, this year has
been very dry and grass growth has been retarded with no seeding as
yet. Mt. Lewis is the favourite place to look but so far this season
the little finches have been hard to find. Four is the most seen at
any one time but 1-2 has been the normal when they are present. There
has been few sightings over the last month with only one seen
occasionally except on the 13th
December when two were seen early in the morning (before 7.00am) at
the 10km clearing on Mt. Lewis. Hopefully the start of some rain will
encourage the grasses to grow and start seeding. Also at the 10km
clearing a pair of Barred Cuckoo-shrike were building a nest. Spotted
Whistling-Duck have been in the news for our region lately with
sightings at Wongaling Beach, near Mission Beach south of Cairns,
Keatings Lagoon near Cooktown, 10 at Cattana Wetlands in Cairns and
at least 6 reported by Murray Hunt, who runs Daintree
Boatman Nature Tours, at a lagoon alongside the Daintree River.
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| Spotted Whistling-Duck |
A
Wedge-tailed Eagle was seen at Abattoir Swamp, an uncommon visitor.
Reptiles
and Mammals:-
A
Short-beaked Echidna was seen in the Lodge grounds one night, the
first for about six months. They have not been seen much this year
with only 3-4 sightings. Frogs have been out enjoying the humid
conditions with Jungguy Frog, White-lipped Tree Frog, Northern Dwarf
Tree Frog Roth's (Laughing)Tree Frog, Desert (Red or Naked)Tree Frog,
Dainty Green Tree Frog and Cogger's Frog all seen plus Green Tree
Frog heard. Our Platypus have been performing in Bushy Creek even
when the level rose and it became muddy for a while after the 61mm of
rain we had. An Australian Scrub Python was seen a couple of times
but no other snakes were seen.
Spiders:-
Spiders
seem to like the warmer weather with many species out and about.
Plenty of Wolf Spider and Huntsman, including Grey Huntsman and this
unidentified huntsman which was on the ceiling near our kitchen one
night, another one of this species was spotlighted on a log beside Bushy Creek whilst
we were on a night walk.
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| Huntsman sp. |
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| Huntsman sp. - showing two rows of four eyes |
Also
seen was a Giant Silverback, one of the trap door spiders which has
previously featured in our blog.
Fish:-
Bushy Creek has many fish species beside the Platypus in it, this Coal Grunter is just one of them.
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| Coal Grunter |
Abattoir
Swamp update:-
Many
of you would have visited Abattoir Swamp over the last few years and
found the boardwalk to the hide in a state of disrepair. It got to the stage where it was closed off due to safety concerns. We sent a
four page submission to our local council asking them to repair it
but they said they had insufficient funds to do the remedial work. So
we asked our local Julatten and Mt. Molloy Association of Residents and Ratepayers (JAMARR) to look
into it. The outcome was that the council approved JAMARR to repair
the bridge using volunteers. This has now been done and is awaiting
the council engineers to sign off on it and re-open it. Thanks to all
those involved in repairing this important part of the birding
communities infrastructure in our area.
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| Abattoir Swamp Hide and Boardwalk |
This will be the last blog for 2014. We would like to wish everyone a great and safe Christmas and New Year. Also thanks to the many wonderful guests we have had over the past year and for all the positive comments about the blog - Keith & Lindsay.
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