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Monday, 28 October, 2013

 

Today was an excellent day spent with John, a local birder, and Heather, a friend of his.  I was up about 5 again, and John picked me up about 7.  We went just down the street to the cemetery, where he had seen a fig tree a few days ago with ripe little figs on it, and a particular species of bird feeding on them.  This morning we first didn’t see any birds in the tree, which wasn’t very big, but then we saw a couple of Figbirds (that figures, since they eat figs, too).  Then a small colorful bird flew in, and I had great looks at a DOUBLE-EYED FIG-PARROT.  It had beautiful colors on it, including a lovely blue on its head.  John told me that the blue on the head indicated a female.  Before I could get a picture, it flew off.  I have already been back there once, to try for a picture, and I’ll probably try again, as I would love to get a picture of that little beaut.

 

So, it was only 7:20, and I was off the schneid.  No skunk for me today.  We still had a little time before we had to pick up his friend Heather, so we went to the mangroves to the north of the Esplanade, where a particular species of robin lives.  We saw some other birds, and we heard a cuckoo I want to see, but no robins.  John did a great imitation of its call, as I learned a little later when one called back.  While trying for the robin, I did get a picture of a male Figbird, something I have been trying to do.

 

I’ve seen a lot of them, but this was the first one who posed for me, and in the morning sun, no less.  The females are brown with a streaky breast.

 

Eventually we did have success, and I added MANGROVE ROBIN to my trip list.  I had only seen that species once before, on 2008, so that was great.  I even got pictures of this little cutie.

 

 

So, I had TWO trip birds, and it wasn’t even 8 AM yet.  Wow!  We picked up Heather at the shop where she had dropped off her car to be serviced, and we headed back up the Gillies Highway (the twisty-turny road I had come down yesterday) to the edge of the Atherton Tablelands, where I had spent the weekend not seeing birds in rainforests.

 

Our destination was Lake Barrine, which is another crater lake, like Lake Eacham, which I showed a picture of in yesterday’s report.  John told me that there isn’t any stream or anything that feeds into the lake, only rainwater, although there is a stream that flows out when there is enough water in it.  Here is a picture of Lake Barrine.

 

There is a teahouse and gardens at the access point, and here is a picture of part of the gardens, with the lake in the background.

 

Tree ferns are a feature of the rainforests here, and they had some nice ones in the gardens there, so I took this picture.

 

They are sort of like a palm tree, except there is a fern at the top.

 

We were there to look specifically for a bowerbird I needed, and John knew where there were several of them along a rainforest walk.  On the way to the start of the walk, we got onto a bird up in a tree that had a large flying insect it was struggling with, either trying to kill it or trying to get the wings off so it could swallow it.  It turned out to be a MACLEAYS HONEYEATER, one more for my list.  I missed getting a picture.

 

The rainforest walk is a 600 meter (yard) loop trail, and we walked around it.  Here is a picture of John and Heather on the walk.

 

That was taken right after we had success and saw a TOOTH-BILLED BOWERBIRD calling continuously.  It was very loud and had an amazing repertoire (I can’t believe I spelled that word right, but Word likes it) of calls.  We saw two of them, in different places, and they sat there and called while I got to about 12 or 15 feet away from them.  Here is a picture of the first one.

 

Here is the second one, in the midst of one of his long calls.

 

Tooth-billed Bowerbirds don’t build bowers like other Australian bowerbirds do, but they do clear a space on the forest floor and then put leaves around in the space.  I guess the leaves are supposed to be an attractive place for a female to copulate with him.  Once that happens, the female goes off to the nest she has already built and lays her eggs and raises the young on her own.  The male just keeps on calling at his bower (or forest floor area, in the case of this species), hoping to attract more females, I understand.  What a life he has!

 

We saw a few other birds on the walk, including a Grey-headed Robin, a Spectacled Monarch, and a couple of Large-billed Scrubwrens.  We heard riflebirds a number of times, but could never see one.   My usual rainforest experience.  We also had a boatbill fly in when I played its call, but I could never get on it.  I have one more shot at the local riflebird (as well as many of the other rainforest species I have missed) on Saturday, when I have a professional guide booked.

 

Near the end of the walk, there were a couple of huge trees called Kauri trees.  I guess they are an Australian pine tree and have cones.  They don’t look like pine trees, but I guess the cones make them pines.  Here is a picture of John and me at the base of one of these huge trees.

 

Here is a picture looking up at these magnificent trees.

 

After we finished at Lake Barrine, we went to the Cathedral Fig Tree.  I showed pictures of the Curtain Fig Tree the other day.  It is notable because the host tree fell at some point, so the Curtain Fig Tree is sitting at a 45 degree angle.  The Cathedral Fig Tree is that same species of fig, a Strangler Fig, and its claim to fame is its sheer size and age.  They estimate it might be 500 years old.  Here is the Cathedral Fig Tree.  You can’t really do justice to its size with a picture because you can’t get back far enough to get all of it into the picture.

 

 

Here is a picture that shows some of the trunk/root structure on one side.

 

I don’t remember how much detail I went into the other day, but a Strangler Fig Tree reproduces by having a fig eaten by a bird, and then the bird excretes the seeds of the fig up high in another tree, which becomes the host tree for the Strangler Fig.  It takes root far above the forest floor, in a crotch in the host tree, and it lives off the host tree while it puts down roots that become trunks eventually, once they reach the ground and take root.  The Strangler Fig tree grows and eventually the host tree dies, leaving the Strangler Fig with these long trunks that were actually roots at one point.  This particular one has been putting down new trunks (roots) for maybe 500 years, they think, and it is huge now.

 

There were a lot of Figbirds flying around up there, so it must still produce figs.  We heard some other birds there, but didn’t see anything new for me.  Heather (who was really good at spotting birds) saw a female Figbird fly in to a nest, and I got this picture of her (the Figbird, not Heather) sitting in the nest.

 

You can see her head sticking out on the left and her tail sticking out on the right.

 

It was after noon by then, and I had to be back in Cairns by 2:30 or so, so we headed back down the long Gillies Highway descent.  At the bottom is the town of Gordonvale, and John knew of a bakery there, so we went there for lunch.  I had a really good beef, bacon, and cheese pie and a sausage roll, which was also excellent.  Gordonvale was a very interesting town.  There is a huge sugar mill right next to the central business district (what we would call downtown), and you could smell the heated sugar cane all the time we were there.  The smell reminded me of the smell of cooked squash, but sweeter.  The town center itself had 5 or 6 big hotels (bars), in the classic old Aussie style.  The whole town was what I would call a working class town, which makes sense, since it would have been founded for the mill workers and populated by them for decades.  I should have taken picture of one or more of the old hotels, as they are a classic icon of Australia.

 

We got back to Cairns by about 2 PM, and John dropped me off at my caravan park.  I had to turn in my car today and pick up another one.  I had emptied the car this morning, and this afternoon I filled it with petrol and took it to the Hertz office in downtown Cairns (ok, in the Cairns Central Business District, or CBD).  I parked it in front on the street and went in and told the woman behind the counter that I was there to turn in one car and get another one of the same model.  I think I have explained here why I do that, and I explained to her.  The explanation has to do with Collision Insurance (called Excess Damage Waiver over here) and my credit card, and I need to keep my rentals under 31 days to get the insurance coverage.  Anyway, she asked me if I wanted the same car.  I said sure, and it was a win-win situation.  I liked the car and it is white which I like in this hot climate.  The one they had for me was not white.  They didn’t have to clean the car, so we both won.  I just hope that the fact that I have the same car wouldn’t affect my insurance coverage, but I hope I won’t need that anyway, and the two rentals are on separate contracts, each under 31 days, so I think I am okay.

 

So, with that taken care of, I stopped again at Woolies (that is a frequent theme, isn’t it?  I don’t eat out much on a trip, so I am always stocking up on groceries.)  After that, I stopped by the cemetery to try to get a picture of a fig-parrot, but didn’t see one, so I came “home”.

 

Tomorrow John is picking me up at 7 again, and he is going to try to get me a lifer I would really like to see.  Then, at 8:30, he leads a weekly bird walk at the Cairns Botanical Gardens, and I plan to go on that and maybe see some more trip birds.  After the walk, he will take me to see another trip bird.  In the afternoon, I might go down to the Esplanade, either with John or without him, to try for two more trip birds I could see there.  So, tomorrow has the possibility of another handful of trip birds.  We will see.

 

Today I got 4 more trip birds, which brings me to 326 total, of which 28 are lifers.  My totals just keep marching up, as the trip winds down.  I’m still doing great emotionally and physically, but I know from past experience that my thoughts will start turning to home pretty soon, and I’ll be ready to leave when the trip is over.  Tomorrow will mark five weeks since I got here, and I’ll have one more week before I start the three day trip home.