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Friday, 25 October, 2013
Today was mainly another travel day, as it turned out, but that wasn’t the original plan. I was up at 5:30 and headed out about 7:30, I think. I drove around Mission Beach for half an hour or so, to look for a Cassowary, but when I found nothing, I headed up the road. I stopped at Lacey Creek day use area, and started to walk in the rainforest there, in the hopes of seeing a Cassowary or some other bird I needed. I soon found that the trail through the forest was much too narrow and the forest much too thick to see anything, so I gave it up, after trying the loop trail from the other direction, too.
My next destination was a place called Etty Beach, where Cassowaries have been reported, but it soon became obvious I wasn’t going to see one there either. The caravan park at Etty Beach was interesting, and it was a beautiful beach, but no birds.
So, I got back on the highway, after spending about two hours looking for Cassowaries. There aren’t very many of them left in Australia, and they aren’t easy to see, and I struck out this trip. I had seen a male and two chicks in 2008 by staying at a B&B in Mission Beach where they came around regularly. I think the people there fed them, which you aren’t supposed to do. I had tried to book into that B&B again this trip, but the owners were planning to be out of the country and they said they were closing the place while they were gone. As it turned out, it looked open to me, as there was a sign out in front of it, inviting people to come in.
Anyway, I stopped in the town of Innisfail and got a Subway tuna sandwich for my lunch. I had gotten petrol earlier and had paid the outrageous price of $4.60 for a bag of potato chips that I can get at Woollies for about $2.50, and I can get their house brand for $1.50, which is what I normally do. I got extra tuna on my Subway footlong sandwich, and it cost $10.45, I think. In the US, it would have been about $8 at most Subways, although they do vary a bit. That is actually a reasonable premium, compared to most things here. The Aussie dollar is very strong, which reflects the fact that their economy is very strong.
I headed up the Palmerston Highway to the Atherton Tablelands. The elevation up here is about 2000 to 2500 feet, depending on where you are, and it is a bit cooler and a lot less humid up here. I expect it will cool down a lot more at night, too. The going was very slow. There was lots and lots of road work, like there has been all along. Road work means flaggers and traffic lights that stop you for several minutes each time. I must have run into 15 or 20 of those situations today, and it made for very slow going. I missed a couple of turns too, and had to turn around. There were also some very slow large vehicles, including one that was only going 5 mph down a big hill, and another that only was going 10 mph up a big hill. Then, just as I was finally getting close to my destination, there was a sign saying the road was closed ahead, and I had to double back and take a big detour to get to where I wanted to go. The sign wasn’t very helpful, as it said the Kennedy Highway was closed at Evelyn, but where the hell was Evelyn? I had to fire up Google Maps on my cell phone (I had reception there, fortunately, but I could have used my GPS app if I hadn’t had.) to figure out what I should do. I’m still not sure exactly where the road was closed, but I looped back and went around the long way.
Oh yes, there was another delay, too. I saw a sign to Millaa Millaa Falls, which I remembered from a previous trip, and I was interested in seeing it again. So, I took a tiny road for about ten miles to see it. Here is a picture of this prototypical tropical waterfall, Millaa Millaa Falls.
With all those delays, I had my Subway sandwich and some of my expensive potato chips at Malanda Falls. I felt better after eating. To get to where I was going, I took a shortcut that actually took me past a place I wanted to go anyway, Bromfield Swamp, which is located in a crater. Here is a picture of Bromfield Crater and Swamp.
The reason I wanted to go there is that a couple of crane species spend the night there, and if you are there in the early morning or the late afternoon, you can see them leaving or coming in. It was the absolute middle of the day when I was going by, but I stopped, because you never know. At first I didn’t see any cranes at all, which didn’t surprise me. Then I noticed one bird, but it was pretty far away, and it had its head down. I needed to see the head to distinguish between the two species. I had seen one of the species in Townsville, and I needed the other one. I don’t know which is more common here, but I figured my chances were 50-50, since I knew both species spent the night at Bromfield Swamp. I got out my scope, and eventually the bird revealed it was a SARUS CRANE, the species I needed still. Score one for the old rambler. The traffic had been terrible and had frustrated me, but the Sarus Crane had improved my mood a lot (the tuna sandwich and chips hadn’t hurt, either). I had a bird. I wasn’t going to get skunked today. What difference did it make if my schedule for the day had been thrown out of whack? I was rambling, and I was in Australia!
I found my way to the highway I needed, via my shortcut, and I finally got to Mount Hypipamee, the place I had been heading toward all day, about 1 PM. I had expected to be there by 10:30, even after my Cassowary delays. Still, I had stopped at Millaa Millaa Falls, I had had my lunch, and I had picked up Sarus Crane, so it wasn’t all that bad.
My reason for going to Mt Hypipamee was to look for one particular bird. Not a particular species – a particular bird. Ian (my Townsville owl mate) had told me exactly where to look for the bower of a bowerbird that would be a lifer for me. As I was parking my car, I noticed three people walking up the access road, which was where I was headed, and I suspected that they were looking for the same bird. They had binoculars and cameras, and they had that look about them.
So, my instructions were to go back up the access road about 100 or 150 meters, to where a fern tree overhung the road on the left, and then look for a place where people had been scrambling up the bank and into the rainforest. I did that, and I noted that the three people had seemed to disappear. I did come to an overhanging fern tree eventually, although I would have guessed it was more like 200 or 250 meters (but, who’s counting?). Across from it was this:
I guess that was a place where people had scrambled up the bank, but I was expecting something a little more obvious. Once up the bank, there was sort of a trail to follow, although again, it wasn’t very obvious, and I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. I was supposed to go about 50 meters (yards) back into the forest, to find the bower. As I went along, I kept checking to see where the road was, to be sure I could find my way back. After a while, I could see the three people ahead of me, so I figured I was in the right place.
They were two men and a woman, and they were looking through their binoculars as I approached. When they noticed me, I whispered – “have you seen it?” It turned out they hadn’t seen it yet. We talked a little in whispers, mainly about the bower, which was very large, and the woman suddenly announced “I’ve got it”. She was looking off into the forest and tried to tell us where to look. She was terrible at giving directions, and when we asked how high is it, is it on the ground, is it up a tree, her reply was that it was at her height, and she stooped down so we could look over her. Well, eventually someone else saw it (not me), and it was about 20 feet high, up in a tree, way above where she had been pointing and where we had been looking. But, there it was, in all its glory, a male GOLDEN BOWERBIRD (lifer). The sun was sort of on it a little, and it was a beautiful bird. The light was so poor there in the forest that I had to really push my camera, and my shots are all very motion blurred, but I got some pictures that record it, anyway. Here are three pictures of a male Golden Bowerbird.
The bird flew away after a few minutes, and the others left. They said they had been looking for the path to the bower all day, and had given up in the morning, so I felt better about the uncertainty I had felt when looking for it. I stuck around another 15 minutes, and the bird came back and I got more pictures, including the second two above.
So, that was great, and I made my way back to my car. There were supposed to be other birds I need for my trip list around there, but it was rainforest, where I have a terrible time finding birds, and there was a maintenance guy there with a loud leafblower blowing the leaves off the road. It was slow work, and I decided to move on.
The Atherton Tablelands are a big plateau, with rolling hills. It was once all forested, but the Europeans “improved” it by cutting down the forests, and now it is mostly cattle country, both dairy and beef cattle, along with some farming. There are bits of the old forest left, preserved in parks. Here is a picture of one part of it.
I stopped at Wongabel State Forest and took a walk in the rainforest there. It was about a half mile trail, and the temperature was only about 80 today, and not nearly as humid as it has been, so I was okay to walk a little in the shade. Here is a picture of the shady trail near the beginning.
I didn’t expect a lot, but I had some time, so I gave it a go. I thought I heard the call of a Cicadabird, one of my nemesis birds that I haven't ever been able to see. They are supposed to be responsive to playback, so I played the call on my phone. I did hear responses, and I saw a bird as well. I got my binoculars on the bird, and it wasn’t a Cicadabird at all, but was a lovely PIED MONARCH, another bird I very much needed. I might have gotten pictures of the monarch, as I had several good looks at it, but the Cicadabird was continuing to call and fly around, so I was distracted by that. I never did see the damn Cicadabird well enough to count it, but I heard it a lot.
I eventually moved on, saving the Cicadabird for another day. I saw a bird that turned out to be a White-throated Treecreeper, a bird I didn’t need, but it was good to actually see a bird in a rainforest and be able to identify it. I saw another one that I am still not sure of, but it might have been a Brown Gerygone, and I see that they are frequently seen there. I also saw three different YELLOW-THROATED SCRUBWRENS, which was nice to add to my list. There were lots of bird calls in the forest, and a good Aussie birder would have known what they all were, but I had no clue, of course.
I still had a little time, so I stopped at another place I wanted to visit, Hastie’s Swamp. There is a two story bird hide there, and lots of water birds. Here is a picture of the hide.
There were indeed a lot of water birds out there, but at this point, I have just about all the water birds that are likely to show up there. Other than some rarity, which is always possible and worth checking for, there was only one species I hoped for there, a whistling-duck species I didn’t have yet. There were at least a couple of thousand Plumed Whistling-Ducks, mostly sitting on the edges of the water loafing or sleeping. I did see a couple of Freckled Ducks, which is a very good sighting, but Ken had gotten me those back on the Sunshine Coast. I continued to look for the one I wanted, and amazingly enough, I did see one WANDERING WHISTLING-DUCK amongst all the Plumed ones. It was too far for a picture, but I had my scope, and I noted the black legs (not pink), the dark cap, the smaller “plumes”, and the darker color to the breast and undersides. It was a Wandering Whistling-Duck, no doubt about it. I imagine that there must have been more of them there, mixed in with the Plumed ones, but this was the only one I could pick out. There is no way I was able to scan all of them, though. I only needed one, and I had it.
It was getting late by then, so I boogied into Atherton and found the Woolies, where I had mapped it ahead of time. I got eggs and other vittles, and I drove back to the caravan park where I’m staying for two nights. I have a “villa”, and it is just great for me. It has a separate bedroom, which I don’t really need, and a nice little kitchen with a two burner stove top, a good sized fridge and a microwave oven. There were not only ice trays (plural) in the freezer compartment, there was ice already made. My kind of place! It was warmer in the room that outside, due to the sun being on it, but the a/c cooled it down eventually. It is 8 PM now, and it has cooled nicely outside. I have the a/c off now and the sliding door open, and it is 68 in here now. Very nice. The bedroom is very small, but it has two windows that open and a ceiling fan, so I am guessing that it is cooling down nicely, too. Here is a picture of my little villa.
I had signed up for a web special when I made my booking, and I got a bottle of a very nice Australian Sauvignon Blanc, a 5 oz box of chocolates, and a 3 ounce package of local coffee. What a deal. It is $115 a night, which is at the high end of what I pay (last night was only $88, for example, and the next place I’m staying is under $70), but it has free wi-fi, which the website hadn’t mentioned. There are more and more Aussie accommodation places that offer free wi-fi, which is interesting to me. In the past, they almost always charged for it, but now they are starting to follow the American model, and they are offering it as a benefit to attract customers, rather than trying to make it a profit center. The change is very obvious, and it is happening fast, I think, based on what I have seen. Two or three of the places I am staying this time have gone to free wi-fi from a paid scheme since I made my bookings a few months ago.
So, I got five more species today, and one of them was a lifer. At this point, adding five species in a day is great. I’m not likely to do that again until my day with a paid guide next weekend. If I can just keep from getting skunked each day, I will be doing just fine. The 5 today brings me to 319 species total, of which 28 are lifers. It just keeps adding up.
I need to make a plan for tomorrow now. I am staying in this same place tomorrow night, so I will spend tomorrow on the Atherton Tablelands, but there are a lot of birding sites here, and I need to figure out where to go so I can add to my trip list. It will take a little while to figure all that out, and it will be bed time by the time I have done that. I sure don’t have any time to watch TV or read or anything on this trip. My pictures and my reports, along with my meal preparations and email, take up all my time, when I’m not birding.