A
shortened week due to having to go into Cairns for a knee operation
for two days. Knee appears to be coming along OK but it will curtail
most birding activity for a few more days.
70mm
of rain over the week and a big thunderstorm, which we missed being in Cairns,
knocked the power out for six hours one night. Temperatures were much the same
as last week 22.5ºc to 29.4ºc with the humidity 77% to 95%.
Birds
recorded were less due to the reduced effort on our part, but our
neighbours Carol and Andrew were out and about recording the birds in
our area which kept the numbers up to a respectable 84 seen and a
high 14 heard. 21 mammal and reptile species were seen and one heard, thanks to James Cook University (JCU) students who were camped here for boosting this number.
The weeks bird list is on the Eremaea Birds website and morning walk lists can also be found at this
link on Eremaea
Birds
Highlights:
Two
Red-necked Crake with three chicks bathing in a pool beside the
orchard, they were very flighty and took cover at the slightest
movement. Great to see three chicks again this year, hope they all
survive. Olive-backed Sunbird at our neighbours fledged two chicks at
the end of the week and they seem to have survived longer than the
last two they tried raising. Our sunbirds are still sitting on their nest.
Other
sightings:
Waterbird
numbers were again down this week with birds spread out over the
permanent and temporary wetlands formed by the “wet season”
rains. Only a few Magpie Goose, Pacific black Duck, Hardhead, an
Australasian Darter, Little Pied and Little Black Cormorant, Eastern
Great, Intermediate and Little Egret plus a White-faced Heron and a
couple of Australian White Ibis.
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| Pacific Black Duck |
Topknot Pigeon were back with at
least 50 foraging around the edge of the orchard at the end of the
week. A few Pied Imperial-Pigeon were seen and both Wompoo and Superb
Fruit-Dove heard. No sighting of our female Papuan Frogmouth for the week, she had been roosting in one of our fruit trees as this image shows, trying to look like one of the dead leaves.
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| Papuan Frogmouth |
and
only one raptor sighting, a Whistling Kite. Several Buff-banded Rail
were seen but not “Katie” who seems to have found new pastures.
Spotless Crake was heard along McDougall Road where a dead one was
found on a barbed wire fence a few weeks ago. Pale-vented Bush-hen
are certainly getting excited with the rain and are calling a lot and
even showing themselves along Mt. Kooyong Road on rare occasions.
Pheasant Coucal have also been calling and sitting on fence posts but
all the other cuckoos have only been heard, Eastern Koel,
Channel-billed, Little (Gould's)-Bronze and Brush Cuckoo.
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| Pheasant Coucal |
Azure Kingfisher was along Bushy Creek and our Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher now have six confirmed nests with chicks in. Another nest with chicks is in our neighbours garden. Several Rainbow Bee-eater passed over the Lodge late in the week and Dollarbird have started to call again. Noisy Pitta have been seen in the orchard collecting food and flying into the rainforest, so it would appear they are feeding chicks in a nest. Unfortunately we found a dead Noisy Pitta outside one of our two bedroom units. It had been picked clean with only a few primary feathers showing the green edging and white wing marking plus a few loose turquoise feathers allowing the skeleton to be identified. It was probably one of the juveniles from this year. Spotted Catbird have been perching in the rainforest and calling intensely, mainly early morning but often throughout the day, they really put a lot of effort into their calls. They have also been coming to the water bowls as this one is.
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| Spotted Catbird |
Fairy Gerygone are calling and flitting around high up in the trees but this female came down low before fleeing to the higher rainforest canopy.
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| Fairy Gerygone - female |
Scarlet Honeyeater were heard for the first time in three weeks and Blue-faced plus Macleay's Honeyeater have returned to the nectar feeders.
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| Blue-faced Honeyeater |
Also coming to the water bowls are Yellow-faced Honeyeater. It really is worth putting out a few water bowls as birds will come in even if it is pouring with rain!
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| Yellow-faced Honeyeater |
Male Cicadabird has been calling and flying around
the Lodge grounds for brief glimpses. White-breasted Woodswallow are
still perching on fences along McDougall Road along with Australian
Pipit and a few Metallic Starling, all appear to be feeding on the
road but could not see anything resembling suitable food. Black-faced
Monarch are still calling from several locations around the grounds
and must be sitting on nests as they have been calling from the same
spot for several weeks. The Spectacled Monarch reported last week
nesting alongside Bushy Creek is still sitting but has chicks in the
nest now. Pied Monarch and Yellow-breasted Boatbill have both been
showing and calling. Metallic Starling are still collecting nesting
material and building more nests as they have been doing since early
August last year. There are more starlings around this year than any
of the previous six years and they show no sign of letting up with
their breeding; probably trying to make up for last year when Cyclone
Yasi cut short their breeding season. Still plenty of Blue-faced Parrot-Finch on Mt Lewis.
Further
Afield:-
We
managed to fit in some birding during our trip to Cairns and visited
Yorkey's Knob Lagoon, Cattana Wetlands, Centenary Lakes (Cairns
Botanic Gardens) and of course the Cairns Esplanade. Yorkey's Knob
Lagoon was full to almost overflowing with very few birds in the
area, the highlight was a Crimson Finch who came to investigate us
and sat outside our car looking in. The only waterbird was an
Australasian Darter.
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| Australasian Darter |
Cattana Wetlands was a bit more productive with a few more waterbirds and some bush birds. Green Pygmy-goose, Magpie Goose, Little Pied Cormorant and Australian Grebe were on the water whilst the most prominent bush bird was Black Butcherbird lurking around in the mangroves along the board walk. The presence of so many butcherbirds was probably the reason we saw fewer numbers of smaller birds. Cattana Wetland is well worth a visit whilst in Cairns, a brochure with species list can be downloaded from the BirdLife Australia NQ website http://www.birdsaustralianq.org/pdfs/Cattana_Wetlands_No_33.pdf. Centenary Lakes was as good as ever with Black Bittern, Rajah Shelduck, Comb-crested Jacana and Bush Stone-curlew amongst the 27 species we saw in just over an hour. The visit to the Cairns Esplanade was cut short by a rain storm but it made little difference as the tide was extremely high (highest for the year) with few birds visible. Another visit had the tide way out which also did not help finding waders. We did manage to see Eastern Reef Egret, Lesser Sand Plover, Masked Lapwing, Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Eastern Curlew, Grey-tailed Tattler, Great Knot and Red-necked Stint.
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| Great Knot |
There were many
more birds we could have seen but we did not have the scope. On land
there was the reliable Varied Honeyeater, lots of Pied Imperial
Pigeon plus Rainbow Lorriket and Metallic Starling coming in to roost
in trees along the Esplanade. The complete species list from our
visits can be viewed on the Eremaea
Birds site. Another search for Buff-breasted Button-quail south
of Mt. Molloy, by one of our guests, failed to find any birds; the habitat here is becoming
unsuitable with the grass becoming taller with the rains.
Reptiles
and Mammals:-
A
few interesting reptiles and mammals this week, JCU students heard Marbled Frog Limnodynastes convexiusculus
a species we have not knowingly heard before, certainly not recorded
one here in six years. Maybe we have been overlooking them as they
have been recorded in the past. Queensland Tube-nosed Bat with their
distinctive whistling call were heard by our neighbours, not one we
have heard very often. Yellow-footed Antichinus have been active
during the day with one coming to the feeder to enjoy some mango.
Striped Possum was heard and seen once and a Platypus was seen
whizzing along under the Bushy Creek bridge on the Mt. Kooyong Road. On nearby Mt. Lewis the JCU students spotlighted a Daintree River Ringtail possum which usually occurs at higher altitudes than the Lodge. They are said to come down to 420m (we are 450m) but normally they are found on Mt. Lewis above 800m and are found in greater densities at higher altitudes (above 1000m). Information from "The Mammals of Australia" 3rd Edition. Steve Van Dyck and Ronald Strahan.
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| Daintree River Ringtail |
