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Thursday, 31 October, 2013

 

Trick or treat!  Over here it is now about 7 PM on Halloween, although in the US it is about 2 AM on Halloween, so I get a head start on you all at home.  As Josh put it, I am living in the future right now.  Today when I went in to Woolies, the clerks were wearing costumes.  I was checked out by a guy in black and white vertical striped prison garb, with a little prison hat.

 

So, today was a get away day, after spending four nights in Cairns.  I was up at 5, and I slept well and long enough, but I was lethargic when I woke, and it lasted all day, or at least until it was time for my drinkies.  I perked up then.

 

I packed up and loaded up (two things I will not miss when I get home), and I was away about 8.  My first stop was the local Woolies where I had been shopping, to pick up a trip bird.  They nest in this tree, in the parking lot.

 

They are communal nesters, and there is a whole colony in that tree.  Here is a picture of a METALLIC STARLING.

 

They look black when you see them normally, but I had the sun behind me, and the sheen showed up great for my pictures.  Here is one near the entrance to a nest.

 

That red eye is very striking in the sun.

 

So, having avoided the skunk for the day, I headed north to my next destination.  My first actual stop was at Redden Island, just north of Cairns.  It is an island in the mouth of a river, so you get to it over a short bridge, and it seems like part of the mainland.  Here is a picture of the habitat there.

 

It was very quiet, and it was hot and humid, so I didn’t expect to stay long.  I did play a couple of calls, though, just in case I was walking around lucky today and didn’t even know it.  I tried Cicadabird, which is supposed to be responsive to calls.  I had had responses several times on the trip, but had never been able to see a bird.  I got nothing, so I tried Black Butcherbird, another one that is seen on Redden Island.  A black bird suddenly flew in but gave no call.  I assumed it was the butcherbird and was pleased, but then I noticed it was too small for the butcherbird and the bill wasn’t right.  As I looked at it, it dawned on me that it was a male CICADABIRD (lifer), which is also black!  It was quite a bit larger than I had expected.  I thought it was a 6 or 7 inch long bird, but it turns out it is about 10 inches long (25 cm).  It was a great look, but by the time I realized what I had and got my camera ready, it was gone.  Still, I had tried a number of times for Cicadabird in 2008, the last time I was in Queensland, and I have played that call in at least ten different places on this trip, and today I was finally lucky, when I wasn’t expecting it at all.  Birding can be interesting.

 

I didn’t stick around long, although I did try another entrance to the preserve there. The heat and humidity, along with my lethargy today, made me get back in the air conditioned car and move along to my next destination, which was Cattana Wetlands, a little farther north.

 

Cattana WL is a man-made wetlands, only a few years old.  I don’t think it was there in 2008 when I was last in Queensland.  It is very nicely done, and will no doubt be a great refuge for a lot of birds.  It is also very large, and I wasn’t prepared to trudge around it in the heat and humidity.  I know, I keep mentioning the heat and humidity, but they were a big factor today.  Here is a picture of some of the habitat at Cattana Wetlands.

 

Here is one of the lakes.

 

I liked these water lilies.

 

Here is a picture of a pelican and an island.  I just liked the way they were sitting there.

 

I was not tempted to wade in the lakes, due to this sign.

 

I haven’t seen a croc on this trip yet, but tomorrow morning I might.

 

So, after less than half an hour walking around at Cattana Wetlands, I again moved north.  I stopped a number of times, both to enjoy the views and to look for Sooty Oystercatcher, a bird I missed down south that is pretty rare up here, but they like rocky shores, so I kept stopping to scan rocky shores for them.  Here is a Tropical coastal picture.

 

In that picture is an Eastern Reef Egret, so at least I did see a bird.  Later there was another one.

 

At one little community, I spotted a bird near the road.  I went back, hoping it was a Beach Stone-curlew, which I only had one poor picture of, but it was a Bush Stone-curlew, which I had seen several times.  There were actually two of them, one sitting on the ground (presumably on eggs or chicks) and one standing guard.  Here is the guard.

 

Here is the one sitting on the ground.

 

They were right along a busy road, as you can see in this next picture.  You can clearly see the guard, in the middle of the picture, and you can just make out the sitting one to the right of the tree trunk on the left side of the picture, behind some grass.

 

I tried to keep back so as not to disturb them, and I moved on up the road.  Here is another tropical coastal picture.

 

 

At one point, they were cutting the sugar cane, and there were a couple of hundred Cattle Egrets attending the cane cutters.  Here is a picture that shows the truck the cane is being dumped into as the cane cutting machine (like a huge mower) cuts down the cane.  The cutting machine is behind the truck, so you can only see the end of the exhaust chute with the cut cane coming out.  Note the Cattle Egrets along the edge of the cut.  I assume they were attracted by insects that the cutting stirred up.

 

The cutting machine would move down the row, and when the truck, was full, another one would take its place.  I had seen this operation before, and the trucks then dump their cut cane into waiting train cars, and the train takes the cane to the mill.  I understand they start harvesting as early as June or July, and they harvest until the Wet sets in, which is usually some time in November.  The mills run 24-7 all during the harvest time.

 

Here is another tropical coast picture.  I love the ocean, and I can’t seem to take enough pictures of it.

 

Somewhere in the sequence of those last several pictures, it got to be lunch time, and I was going through the town of Mossman.  I stopped at Woolies there to get food for dinner tonight (lasagna) and for brekkie tomorrow (eggs and ham; I already have plenty of Greek yogurt), and I also picked up a couple of hot meat pies to go, at a little café there.  I stopped in a park in Mossman and ate my lunch in the car, with the a/c going full blast.  I had brought some nice vegetables to go with the pies - broccoli, mini peppers, and cucumber.

 

I pulled in to Daintree Village about 1:30 PM, and I got this picture of a Straw-necked Ibis, foraging on a lawn in town.

 

There was an Australian White Ibis with it, so I got a picture of the two ibis cousins foraging together.

 

My new lodgings said check in was from 2 to 7 PM, so I had a little extra time.  I drove some back roads north of Daintree Village, and it was really green out there.

 

Back in the village, I checked in to my new home.  It is an interesting place.  It is right on the river and right in the village.  There are some caravan sites and some camping sites, but the part I am staying in is like a long motel, stretched along the top of a little hill overlooking the river.  Each of the 8 or 10 rooms has a sliding glass door that opens to a long wooden deck that is covered with a roof.  I have a “premium room”, which means I have a view of the river, air conditioning, and a queen bed.  There is a shared kitchen on the covered deck, as well as some living areas there, with seats and tables.  As far as I can tell, I am the only guest tonight.  Here is a picture looking down the deck.

 

The kitchen is on the right, and my room is the second one from the end on the left – the one you can see the door of.  The place is really quite pleasant, except for the damn heat and humidity.  I got settled in and downloaded my pictures, after turning on the a/c full blast.  The temperature outside was about 90, and it soon got down to about 82 in my room, which felt downright cool compared to outside.  The a/c no doubt dried out the air, too, which helps a lot.  Over a couple of hours, the temperature got down to 73 in my room, which actually felt kind of cold.  It was pleasant go to outside for five or ten minutes at a time and enjoy the view.  Here is the view across the Daintree River from the deck.

 

I processed my pictures from today, and I went outside as the sun was going down and I just sat and enjoyed the view.  It struck me that I had not just sat at any time on the whole trip.  I have always been doing something, going somewhere, etc.  At home, I spend a fair bit of time just sitting, often on the front porch and sometimes in the living room or my bedroom.  I have really been on the go for over 5 weeks.

 

It cooled down as soon as the sun went behind the hills, and there was a spectacular sunset.  I was hard-boiling some eggs for my breakfast while I was just sitting enjoying the evening.  As I sat there, a large bird came flying up the river.  I grabbed my binoculars and got a good look at a GREAT-BILLED HERON, a bird I had only seen once before, in 2008.  I had hoped to maybe see one on the boat cruise tomorrow, but here it was tonight.  It was indeed my lucky day today.

 

Here is the sunset.  None of my pictures do justice to how spectacular it was, but here is the best I got.

 

At one point, three geese of some kind flew over.  The only goose I can think of up here would be Magpie Goose, so maybe that is what they were.  They looked like geese to me, anyway.

 

So, I heated my lasagna in the microwave on the deck, and I had the last of my wine with it.  Tomorrow morning I have booked a river cruise, in the hopes of seeing some new trip birds.  I had 6 possibilities on my list, but then I saw a Great-billed Heron tonight, so now I have five possibles. Not one of them is very likely, but they are all possible.  The cruise starts at 6:40 AM, and I know it will be beautiful out there on the river.  They told me to bring a light jacket because it might be chilly and foggy out there, but their idea of chilly is much different from mine, I suspect.  I’m quite sure I won’t be chilly.  It will probably be 70 degrees F out there.  I just looked it up, and the forecast for 5 AM here is about 72 F.  Chilly.  Hah!  Oops, the forecast also says there could be rain showers.  That could dampen things, so to speak.

 

I ended up getting three more species today for my trip list, and one of them was a lifer.  That brings me to 339 species for the trip, of which 31 are lifers.  Tomorrow will be a bit of a challenge, but if I don’t get anything new on the cruise, which is quite possible, then I can still get something new at my next destination, my last stop on the trip, Kingfisher Park Lodge in Julatten.