Over
the past two weeks we have had virtually no rain apart from a slight
sprinkle on one day which left 1mm in the rain gauge. Great, less rain means less mowing the grass! The minimum
temperature over the two weeks was 14.6ºC which was slightly less
than double the previous two weeks minimum. The maximum temperature
was 25.9ºC.The humidity was still high, up to 94% and again a very
low for us of 62%.
Bird
sightings for the first week were 101 seen plus 9 heard. The second
week had slightly more sightings due mainly to the continuing great
weather, 106 seen plus 6 heard. Mammal
and reptile species were slightly more
than the previous two
weeks due to the warmer
weather with 26
species seen. The last two weeks bird lists are on the Eremaea Birds
Website for Week1
and Week2
plus morning walk lists can also be found at this link on Eremaea
Birds
Birding
Highlights:
Little Kingfisher has
been making regular visits to the Crake Pool as has the Noisy Pitta
and on one evening a Yellow-throated Scrubwren joined in. Again we
had a Grey Goshawk swoop into the feeding area at the reception but
made off empty handed, however we found a pile of Bar-shouldered Dove
feathers along the road to reception so maybe the goshawk did get a
feed. A Red-necked Crake called one night near the cookshed just to
prove they are still around and a pair of Pacific Baza returned
noisily displaying to each other – pre-nesting behaviour? The
Olive-backed Sunbird, reported in previous blogs, who spent a night
locked in the Geraghty Park library, is back sitting on a fresh set of
eggs, lets hope once again they are successful. This image shows the female on her second attempt.
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| Olive-backed Sunbird - female |
Other
sightings:
Wompoo
Fruit-Dove was around for a day and Superb Fruit-Dove have been
calling and only seen once. Topknot
Pigeon numbers continue to increase but they are still only flying over
and our female Papuan Frogmouth is still playing hide and seek,
appearing spasmodically and staying for 1-3 days before disappearing again.
Australian Owlet-nightjar has only been heard over the last two
weeks. Black-necked Stork
are still around with an adult and an immature seen along McDougall
Road lagoons. Black Kite have been around due to cane cutting
with over 20 seen soaring overhead or on the ground, also several
Whistling Kite, a scruffy looking Wedge-tailed Eagle (in heavy moult)
and three White-bellied Sea-Eagle ( two adult + 1 immature). An
Australian Hobby has also been hanging around and seen once being
mobbed by a flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. The
cockatoos have also been taking advantage of the introduced African
Tulip trees in Geraghty Park, which have long seed pods on them. This
one is getting stuck into a pod holding it in it's left foot as they
always do.
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| Sulphur-crested Cockatoo |
Rainbow
Lorikeet and Scaly-breasted Lorikeet numbers have been exceeding 200
as they feast on the nectar from the flowering Queensland Blue Gum
Eucalyptus tereticornis.
A Fan-tailed Cuckoo was seen and heard once which is an uncommon
sighting near the lodge. The
Barking Owls reported over the last few months have gone quiet over
the last two
weeks
but
were heard in the distance at the end of the second week,
so
they are still around looking for suitable real estate.
Eastern
Barn Owl numbers have dropped off which might indicate the juvenile
birds have been shunted off out of the parents territory. Lovely
Fairy-wren were again seen over the last two weeks, this time in
bamboo along Bushy Creek near the Mt. Kooyong Road bridge. 14 species
of honeyeater were seen plus another heard which is only four short
of all recorded for the Lodge area. The Yellow-faced Honeyeater
reported in the last blog is still sitting on the nest and has been
joined by a pair of Varied Triller who have built their very small
nest nearby. There has been odd sightings of Bowers Shrike-thrush
around but quite a few people are trying to turn Little Shrike-thrush
into a bower's. We
have discussed this ID in previous blogs and
Little
Shrike-thrush can be quite variable in their plumages
as
the two images in different lighting conditions show.
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| Little Shrike-thrush |
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| Little Shrike-thrush |
The
migratory lighter colour Grey
Fantail have not been seen for nearly two weeks so they may have left
to head south, only
the local higher altitude race keasti
are
still around with two seen hawking insects over Bushy Creek late in
the second week. No sign of
returning
Black-faced Monarch from further north in Papua New Guinea yet.
A male Satin Flycatcher was still in Geraghty Park at the end of the
second week showing well as it foraged around low whilst we were on a
morning walk. Pied Monarch have been showing well and Yellow-breasted
Boatbill have been calling and appearing occasionally. A
first for the feeder adjacent to the reception area was a Metallic
Starling who came in to take some banana, interesting to see if it
brings any of it's mates back - not sure if we could afford to feed banana to 20+ starlings! A
single Chestnut-breasted
Mannikin turned
up at the seed feeder in the Lodge which was a first for several
months.
Australasian Pipit have been absent from the area over the last two
weeks and
may have moved on (famous last words!).
Further Afield:-
The small lagoon at Brady
Road, Mareeba nearly always turns up interesting birds and this week
it had two Yellow-billed Spoonbill, which is an unusual bird for our
area, also there was a Glossy Ibis another bird which is seen in low
numbers around here. Lake Mitchell (between Mareeba and Mt Molloy)
has an Eastern Osprey nest with two quite large chicks in it, also
here were at least four Australian Pelican. There were up to twelve
Blue-faced Parrot-Finch near Abattoir Swamp which is the largest
number recorded this season. It will not be long before they leave to
head back into the foothills of the mountains and on to higher
altitudes where they breed. A single Australian Wood Duck was at the Yorkeys Knob Golf Course lagoon in northern Cairns, quite unusual on the coast (previously reported a this location earlier in the year). We have previous records from this location in 1999 when birds were present from June-September and other sightings at nearby Cattana Wetlands in August 2002.
+0218.JPG) |
| Australian Wood Duck - female |
Reptiles
and Mammals:-
Highlight
over the last two weeks has to be the sighting of two Short-beaked
Echidna (does this one look like it has a short beak!) in the Lodge grounds, one on a spotlighting trip and another
which was unusually active in the middle of the day in the camping
area. Previous sightings of this egg laying mammal have only been
made around the Lodge at night. Our neighbours also had one in their
garden and Chook (David Crawford) from Close-up Birding said he had
seen three in the district that had been run over by vehicles. So
all of a sudden they have appeared after being dormant for quite a
while, in fact our sightings were as many as we have seen in seven
years.
 |
| Short-beaked
Echidna |
Agile
Wallaby have been coming into the Lodge orchard since the sugar cane
has been cut with two seen one morning and several sightings of one
at night. Striped Possum are regularly seen on night walks at the
moment but the Green Ringtail Possum remains elusive. Platypus have
been around in the late afternoon and early morning with one seen
whilst we were on a night walk. One lucky group saw the platypus
walking over a sandbar on the edge of the creek. Frogs have been
around but in low numbers with just the one or two from each species
seen. Those seen were Jungguy Frog, White-lipped Green Tree Frog,
Roth's Tree Frog, Desert (or Red) Tree Frog, Cogger's Frog and Cane
Toad. Northern Leaf-tailed Gecko was seen on a night walk on the
first week but disappeared after that. A 2.5m Australian Scrub
(Amethystine) Python was seen crossing the orchard whilst we were on
a night walk and a Carpet Python was rescued from a room at the
nearby nursing home.
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| Carpet Python |
If
you want to see what happens when you leave foodstuffs out at night
in our cook shed have a look at this video of
a Fawn-footed
Melomys in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJn9ahgHSgs.
Thanks to our guests,
Alex,
Asha and Brenna, for
posting this clip.
Other Interests:-
We
have featured this plant, Balanophora
Balanophora fungosa ssp. fungosa, previously
but not for a while. Balanophora means
bearing an acorn (shape of the female inflorescence). We
get asked lots of questions about it and the most common one is that
people want to know what type of fungus it is. Well it is not a
fungus, it is a parasitic flowering
plant
commonly
found on the rainforest floor. It attaches to the roots of rain forest plants and emerges for
a few months at this time of year. The Flowering plant emits an odor
resembling that of mice/rats (maybe for pollination?)
and attracts honeyeaters to the minute flowers. Both male and female flowers occur on the same inflorescence with
female flowers forming a densely packed apical cone and male
flowers clustered below. It is
most common along the path from the orchard to Bushy Creek but
also occurs in other parts of the rainforest. This
species
is found in India, East Malaysia, Taiwan, the Pacific Islands as
well as
north-eastern Australia.
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| Balanophora |
+0218.JPG)
