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Friday, 1 November, 2013

 

I have lots of pictures today.  I was up before 5 for my 6:40 AM river cruise.  Here is a picture of our guide, Murray, getting the boat ready for boarding at the boat ramp, which was adjacent to my lodgings.

 

There were five of us for the cruise this morning – a couple who sounded to me like they were from Germany and a couple of older Japanese men.  Murray spoke Japanese to the men, and they seemed to appreciate that.

 

We started out by going down the Daintree River.  There were a few common birds, but the main thrust was to get to where Barratt Creek comes into the river.  We did stop at one point to observe AUSTRALIAN SWIFTLETS coming to the water and taking a drink on the fly.  Swifts can’t perch or walk, so they have to get their water and food (flying bugs) on the fly.  At night and when they nest, they find a crevice and hang from their feet, but the feet aren’t developed enough for them to stand or perch.  I was hoping to add this species this morning, as I had missed it in Cairns.

 

Murray ran his little boat pretty fast down the river, and that was exhilarating.  We got to the mouth of Barratt Creek and went up it.  Here is a picture of Barratt Creek.

 

I was actually the person who first spotted a Wompoo Fruit-Dove, and I got this picture.

 

Here is a picture of a male Shining Flycatcher.  They are an all black bird that is an iridescent blue when the light is right.  I showed a picture a week or two ago from Mungalla Station of one, as I’m sure your notes would tell you.

 

Later we saw a couple of females, and I wish I had gotten a picture, as they look so different.

 

Probably the “best” bird of the trip was a young Great-billed Heron.  I saw one for my trip list last night, flying up the river, but today I got good close looks at a young bird, with pictures.

 

 

Here is a close-up of the head.

 

An adult bird would be gray-blue, rather than the brown of this young one.

 

The tide was coming in today, and was already high when we started.  Daintree Village is something like 20 or 30 miles up the river from the ocean, but it is still tidal.  The difference between low and high tide can be three feet.  There is a bridge over Barratt Creek that we had to get under, and Murray was very aware of the tide and the time.  We went under it on the way up the creek, and when we came back, the clearance was even less.  Here it is as we approached from upriver.

 

To get under it, everyone had to get down on the floor.  I would say there was less than a foot of clearance for the highest point on the boat to get under the bridge, so we had to be lower than that.  The old guy in the front seat barely bent down far enough; his wife had to press his head down for him to make it.  Where he was in this picture wouldn’t have been low enough.  The rest of us got on the floor of the boat.

 

After that excitement, Murray showed us one of the highlights of the trip, a nesting PAPUAN FROGMOUTH.  You might remember my pictures of a nesting Tawny Frogmouth in Townsville.  This is one of his cousins, a separate species, but pretty similar.  The nest is similar, too, just a bundle of sticks on a limb.

 

Here is a close-up of its head, when it raised it up a bit.

 

It is indeed a strange looking bird, one that flies in the night and roosts all day long.

 

In the same tree was a nesting Helmeted Friarbird, and I got a picture of the nest.  You can just see the black bill of the bird in the middle of the picture and the tail of the bird on the right.

 

Back on the Daintree River itself, we went fast back up to the village and beyond.  Here is the river.

 

Here is a picture of Riverview Lodge, where I stayed last night.  Notice that it is just above the dock where we started this morning.  Murray’s truck and boat trailer are still on the boat ramp.

 

Those other boats there do crocodile tours, I think.  We didn’t see any crocs today, partly because the tide was so high and the weather was so warm.  Under those conditions, they are usually underwater and you don’t see them unless you go swimming or something, and they come after you.  Here is another picture of the Daintree River, upriver from the dock.

 

At the mouth of Stewart Creek, our next destination, there was a Brahminy Kite posing for us, high in a dead tree.  It was a difficult shot, especially from a moving boat, but here is my best of the bird from the front.

 

When we went up Stewart Creek, I had a chance for a shot from the back.

 

Pictures with the bright sky in the background are very tough, but at least you can see this beautiful raptor.  This was the only time on the trip I saw a perched Brahminy Kite.

 

Here is a picture of Stewart Creek.

 

We saw an Azure Kingfisher fly up the creek, and Murray found the mate sitting by the river, and we got good looks at it.  My pictures came out too poor to show, though.  We saw other birds on the trip, which I haven’t mentioned because I didn’t need them for my trip list and I didn’t get pictures.  There were Yellow Orioles, Figbirds, Pied Imperial-Pigeons, Large-billed Gerygones, and a couple of honeyeaters.

 

Overall, it was a very good tour.  It was really pleasant out there on the river in the early morning, before the oppressive heat set in.  I saw a couple of trip birds and got some pictures I like.  Murray did an excellent job with his barely-English-speaking customers, but it meant that all conversations were very slow and took a long time.  He had a laser pointer he used to show us where to look for particular birds when he saw them.  It seemed like a valuable tool for a guide in a rainforest situation.  I wonder if my guide tomorrow will use one.  Today was the first time I have been with a guide who used a laser pointer.

 

We were back by nine, and I was on my way by about 9:45.  I stopped at Newell Beach, at Murray’s suggestion, to look for Beach Stone-curlew, which he said should be there when the tide was high.  Sure enough, I pulled up to the boat ramp, like he said, and there were a couple of Beach Stone-curlews across the way.  I got this picture before they moved out of sight, in a few minutes.

 

Here is a picture of the mouth of the Mossman River, where it runs onto the ocean.  That is where I saw the stone-curlews.  They were on the point on the left, just across the water.

 

You can see why I like my camera, as I can get a picture of a bird on that point, using the full 50X optical zoom.  There were some birds out at the ocean on the right side of the river mouth, too, and I got my scope out to check them out.  There were three tern species – Caspian, Gull-billed, and Crested – as well as several Pied Oystercatchers and a couple of shorebirds too far away to identify, most likely Great Knots.

 

I stopped in Mossman at Woolies, to stock up on food for my final stay of the trip, at Kingfisher Park Lodge.  There aren’t any grocery stores near here.  I drove around a little loop on Shannonvale Road, because I had read about it.  I stopped at a creek crossing and got this picture of the creek.

 

It was hot and humid again today, maybe high 80’s or 90 in the lowlands.  Kingfisher Park is a couple of thousand feet up, as I remember, or at least 1500 feet, so I was hoping it would be cooler up here.  It turns out that the weather is warmer than usual here, and it is still hot, although not as humid and not as hot as the lowlands.

 

I had gotten some ham for my lunch, to go with some cheese and some potato chips I already had, and I went to a place called Hunter’s Creek that someone had told me about, and I ate my lunch in the shade.  Some birds came around as I ate, and I got good looks at Spectacled Monarch, Pale-yellow Robin, and Yellow-spotted Honeyeater.  I had to hear the last one, to tell it from Graceful Honeyeater, which it looks just like.  I had been playing the call for Yellow-breasted Boatbill, because the guys who told me about Hunter’s Creek said they were there.  I didn’t hear or see any, though.  As I was ready to leave, a bird flew in, and I added NORTHERN FANTAIL to my trip list, and I even got a picture.

 

It was only the second time I had ever seen Northern Fantail, so that pleased me.

 

I went on down the road to Abattoir Swamp, but the swamp was dry and the boardwalk to the bird hide was closed.  There were some birds around, and I got pictures of one of them that I couldn’t identify.  Here are two of the pictures.

 

 

I think it is a honeyeater, but I can’t tell which one.  Maybe it is a juvenile one, and that is why I can’t find anything like it in my field guide.  It was calling all the time, but I am hopeless with remembering calls, so that is no help.  I sent the pictures to Ken, my mate on the Sunshine Coast, to see if he can tell me what it was.  I doubt it is anything new for me, at any rate, but I’m curious.

 

By that time it was about 1:30, and I drove back to Kingfisher Park and checked in.  There is no air conditioning here, only a ceiling fan over the bed and a fan on a stand.  When I was here in 2008 that was not a problem, but it is much hotter this time, and I don’t care much for it.  It is 8 PM here now, and the temperature is about 82 F in here.  It is much cooler outside, but the place is made with concrete blocks, I think, so it holds the heat of the day.  I hope I can sleep ok.  I took a cold shower a while ago, and that helped a lot.

 

My room here has a nice kitchen area and is pretty spacious, with a queen bed and a single bed.  Here is a picture showing the kitchen area.

 

Here is one looking the other way, at the front door and the bed.

 

At least I can get a cross breeze, although the wind isn’t really blowing out there.

 

Anyway, after I got settled in and downloaded my pictures from my camera, I worked on them for a while.  They have wi-fi here, which is great, since I don’t have Telstra phone coverage here.  About 4:30, I wandered out into the grounds.  It had cooled down a lot by then, partly because there was cloud cover.  There was a fair bit of bird activity, and I identified some things.  I got very close looks at one bird that stumped me, though.  I got some pictures, although none of them are very good.  Here is the best one of the lot.

 

I decided to call it a BOWER’S SHRIKE-THRUSH, although I am far from certain about that.  It seemed too small, and it doesn’t really look like the illustration in the field guide.  I looked online, though, and found pictures of Bower’s Shrike-thrush that looked like this bird, so I’m going with that until someone tells me that I’m full of shit (again).  I just can’t come up with anything else to call it.  Ken?  What is it?

 

There were several Pale-yellow Robins around, but in the fading light, it was hard to get a decent picture.  Here is the best I could do.

I came back in after about an hour of wandering around the grounds.

 

So, it was a fun day, and I have now settled into my final home away from home, other than the places I’m staying on the long trip home.  I got four more trip birds today (assuming the Bower’s Shrike-thrush stands up), which brings me to a total of 343 species, of which 31 are lifers.

 

Tomorrow I have a professional guide lined up, and he is picking me up at 7.  It is a full day, supposed to end at 5, so it could be the following day before I get a report out  This is the last time I have to get up early, and with the trip winding down, I might start taking it a bit easier.  I expect to get 5 to 10 more trip birds tomorrow, but we will see.  You never know with birding.  After that, it will depend on how much we see tomorrow.  The possibilities are getting slimmer all the time.

 

This was my birthday over here (in the future), and I thank those of you who wished me Happy Birthday.  By the time you see this, it will be my birthday over there, too.  I’m 69 years old today, which is older than I expected to ever get.  As someone once said, I’m older than I ever have been before.