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Saturday, 2 November, 2013

 

I’m writing my report for Saturday on Sunday afternoon, since I didn’t have time last night.  My bird guide, David, picked me up at 7, and we headed up Mount Lewis.  The place I’m staying, Kingfisher Park, is at an elevation of about 1400 feet, and our destination on Mount Lewis is almost 3000 feet in elevation.  There are several species of birds that live at that higher elevation but not down lower, and there are others that are at either elevation, but not easy to see. 

 

We stopped at a local fish farm on the way to Mount Lewis to look for Tree Martin, a swallow-type bird that has eluded me this trip.  We saw lots of Welcome Swallows and one Fairy Martin, but couldn’t isolate a Tree Martin.  While we were there we had great looks at a beautiful Spotted Harrier across the valley, swooping around over the land.

 

So, we started up Mount Lewis, and here is a picture of the road, at one of our stops.

 

We had stopped because David heard a bird calling, and we played its call.  To my surprise, a SPOTTED CATBIRD flew in to check us out.  One reason I was surprised is that I had tried playing catbird calls a number of times when they were in the area, and I never had one fly in – at least, not that I saw.  It was a very short, unsatisfactory look at the bird, but it was good enough to count it.  I had my first trip bird of the day.

 

At that same point he played the calls of another bird, and after a little while, we had a couple of them at the edge of the road.  I got good looks at a couple of CHOWCHILLAS, another bird I had tried calling in.  I had actually had one nearby one time last week, but never could see it.  I think it was at that same stop that David spotted a couple of small birds flitting around, and he was able to tell me the key things to look for as I got good binocular looks at ATHERTON SCRUBWREN.  I didn’t even attempt any pictures of these forest birds because there was so little light.  It was early, it was foggy and drizzly, and we were deep in the rainforest.

 

Our first major stop was at the clearing at the top of Mount Lewis.  We had hurried up the mountain to try to get a look at Blue-faced Parrot-Finch, a bird I didn’t really expect to see because they usually don’t get to the top of Mount Lewis until December.  They migrate down the mountain in the Dry (April to November, roughly) and then back up the mountain in the Wet, to breed.  At this point, they are likely somewhere in the rainforest in between, as they move along slowly, in groups.  It was worth trying for them, but all we saw was Red-browed Finches.

 

David heard a bird and was able to find it and get me onto it.  I got good binocular looks at a BRIDLED HONEYEATER, another bird that spends the Dry at lower elevations (I think) and moves up the mountain in October-November.  He also heard another species and got me good looks at a couple of MOUNTAIN THORNBILLS, one of the species that lives only at the higher elevations, I think.

 

While we were standing there, searching for the parrot-finches, a couple of birds flew over, and even I could recognize them immediately as another of my desired species, TOPKNOT PIGEON.  I don’t think I have ever seen a Topknot Pigeon perched, and I have only seen them flying once or twice before, so that was a great one to get.  So much of birding is being in the right place at the right time, although you also have to be paying attention, as the opportunities often don’t last long.

 

We were off to a great start, but the most surprising sighting of the day came next.  David saw a bird fly in and perch at the top of a dead tree.  As soon as he saw it, he urgently told me where to look so I could get on it, too.  I had about a 5 or 10 second view of a perched BANDED HONEYEATER (lifer).  Twenty minutes earlier, as we had been driving up the mountain, we had been discussing the list of desired birds that I had emailed to David a few days before.  Banded Honeyeater came up because I had seen a couple of reports of sightings to the west of where we were, and I thought we might head out that way later.  He told me that in this dry year, it would be impossible to see Banded Honeyeater out there.  To make it all the more remarkable, in 24 years of birding and guiding in the area, it is the first time he has ever seen Banded Honeyeater on the mountain, and he has never heard of anyone else seeing one up there, either.  So, it was an absolutely incredible sighting, in an entirely unexpected place.  The species lives across northern Australia, but this is considerably east of its normal range.

 

Here is a picture of the clearing at the top of Mount Lewis.

 

We walked up the trail that leads to a dam (pond), in search of a couple of species, but we didn’t find anything new.  Here is a picture of that trail in the rainforest.

 

As I understand it, there is a Golden Bowerbird bower near that dam, but it is a 1 or 2 kilometer walk each way, and since I had already seen the Golden Bowerbird at Mt Hypipamee a week or two ago, we didn’t have to take that walk.  It was starting to rain more by then, so it was just as well.

 

We didn’t find anything else for my trip list on the way down the mountain, but I had picked up 7 species for my list, which exceeded my expectations.  By the time we got down, it was time for morning tea, so we went to a rest area outside of Mt Molloy and had tea and cookies.  As we were getting ready to leave, David heard another bird on my desired list, and we set off to find it.  It kept singing, fortunately, and we got close, but we just couldn’t see the bird.  We knew it was in one of three trees, but it didn’t show itself.  David finally played the song back to the bird, and it flew in closer to take a look at us.  I got a picture this time.  It’s at an odd angle, but it does show that the bird was a BLACK BUTCHERBIRD, a species I had been looking for since Cairns.

 

So, after our tea, we set out to the west, to look for another bird on my list.  It was about 40 or 50 kilometers each way, which is about 25 or 30 miles, out into dry country.  Here is a picture of the place we ended up, where there was some water for stock in a dam.

 

The water level was very low, since we are at the end of the dry season, and the last wet season had fizzled out and they didn’t get much rain then either.  The hope was that there was enough water left that the birds we were looking for would still be hanging around.

 

We walked around and kept our eyes and ears peeled.  We saw some little birds in the distance, and made our way toward them.  On the way, there was a group of Grey-crowned Babblers, a species I had seen before on the trip, but I don’t think I got any pictures of them.  On Saturday I got a picture, anyway.

 

By that time, we had established that we had indeed found a group of BLACK-THROATED FINCHES, a species I had only seen once before, in 2008.  There were a number of them, and eventually most of them ended up in the same tree.  I got this picture of them, as we approached, not knowing if they would stick around for better pictures.

 

Most of them were facing away from us, so we made our way around the tree.  On the way, David pointed out a treecreeper to me.  It was a Brown Treecreeper, which I had seen down south, but this one is from a subspecies that used to be a full species, and might become a full species again.  It is much darker than the ones down south.  If it ever gets split into a separate species again, I’ll have another lifer and another bird for my Aussie list.

 

Back to the chase for pictures of the Black-throated Finches, they stayed in the tree for at least fifteen minutes, just looking at us as I snapped pictures.  There were about two dozen of them.  They were so pretty that I just couldn’t stop taking pictures.  Here are two of them sitting next to each other.

 

Here is a little group of 5 of them, showing off their striking colors.

 

And, finally, here is a picture of four of them.

 

Even though I had seen the species before, I think they were my favorite bird of the day, and I was very pleased to get pictures of them.

 

So, we headed back toward Kingfisher Park, to look for more birds.  We pulled off onto Mary Road, to look for Australian Bustard, as I wanted a picture.  We found one, and I got pictures of this interesting large bird.  It must stand 2.5 to 3 feet tall.

 

Back on the road again, David suddenly hit the brakes and directed my attention up the road to where a bird was walking across the road.  There happened to be some traffic right then, but he pulled over as soon as he could and we hoped the bird wouldn’t get hit by a car or fly away.  He turned around and went back, and I got good close views through the windshield of a lone SQUATTER PIGEON.  My records indicate I saw the species in 2002, but I have no memory of it, so it was almost like a lifer.  A truck was bearing down on us from behind, and there was no place to pull off right there, so we had to move on down the road.  David turned around and on the way back, he pulled off the road and swung around so I could look out my window at the bird, maybe 40 feet away.  It was nonchalantly walking across the verge between the road and the bushes, and I managed to snap off three pictures before it disappeared.  In one of them, its head is obscured by some grass, but here are the other two.

 

I like that picture better, of the two, except that the bird was blinking just as I took it, and instead of its eye, you just see its closed eyelid.  I used my photo processing software to put in a fake eye, and it isn’t perfect.  I was too tired last night to fiddle with it any more.  Here is the other picture.

 

So, I was picking up birds without even trying, really.  When we got back to the rest area where we had had our morning tea, it was time for lunch, so we stopped there again.  David had brought a bin of sandwich fixings, and we made ourselves great ham and cheese sandwiches, with such extras as sliced pickled beets (called beetroot over here), onion, lettuce, corn (which I ate on the side), hard boiled egg (which I also ate on the side), pineapple (which I had for dessert, with some orange pieces), and other things I can’t remember now.  The bread was excellent, too.

 

As we finished lunch, I got this picture of a Blue-faced Honeyeater.  I have been trying to get a good picture of that species for the whole trip.  This one still isn’t perfect, but here it is.

 

The sun was on its face, which makes the blue color stand out, and you know how I like blue on birds.

 

So, having stoked the furnaces, we headed out to look for more birds.  Our first stop after lunch was at a park in Mt Molloy.  David knew of a nest of a Brown Goshawk, and we wanted to check it out.  He had been away on a trip for a couple of weeks, so he didn’t know if the eggs had hatched yet or not.  He showed me the nest, but all you could see was the tail of the bird sticking out, presumably still sitting on eggs.  He made various noises, in an attempt to get the bird to look up at us, but had no luck.  Here is a nest of a Brown Goshawk with the bird’s tail sticking out on the left.

 

I thought about counting the bird, as I saw part of it, and I had no doubt what it was because David has seen it for weeks.  But, I decided that the tail just wasn’t enough to be able to count it.  I plan to return to see if the bird will show herself.  If I can see the head, I will count it.  Here is the tree that has the nest in it.  I show it because it is a nice tree, I think.  Actually, that shows two trees, I think, and the nest is in the one on the left.

 

Next, he took me to a place where he has seen a particular species before, and played the song.  After a short while, we had a YELLOW-BREASTED BOATBILL flitting around us.  That was another species that I had played the call for, but had not been able to attract one.  I got a couple of pictures of it.  Both are obscured by leaves, but together, you can get a sense of the bird, with its wide bill that gives it its name.

 

 

At lunch I mentioned a species I had forgotten to put on the list I had sent David.  He said he had heard them a couple of times already, but hadn’t mentioned it because it wasn’t on my list.  So, we went looking for it, and at a stop we made, I got this picture of a Macleay’s honeyeater that I like.

 

At another stop, I got this picture of a Yellow-faced Honeyeater.

 

At one of our stops David heard a bird, and got me onto a GREY WHISTLER, the one I had forgotten to put on my list.  Here is a picture of that bird.

 

Here is a picture of one part of the area around Julatten, where I’m staying now.

 

We were looking for Tree Martins there, but only saw Fairy Martins.

 

Here is a picture of my guide, David, at one of our stops.

 

We kept trying for several species, but couldn’t get them.  At one stop we had a couple of Lovely Fairy-wrens, and I got really close looks at them, over a ten or fifteen minute period.  I kept trying for a picture, but they would always move on just one or two seconds too soon.  Because I had pictures of all the other fairy-wren species I had seen on the trip, I wanted one of a Lovely Fairy-wren.  I really wanted the female, because she is a really beautiful shade of blue on top, but I never got one.  I got a couple of mediocre pictures a male, so I’ll have to settle for them.

 

 

It was getting late by then, and I was tired, but we made one last try for a couple of cuckoo species we had been looking and listening for all day.  As we got out of the car, we heard the call of one of the species.  David played back the call, and he got the bird to fly in, and I got good looks at a LITTLE BRONZE-CUCKOO (lifer).  What a great way to end my super day.  The species called Little Bronze-Cuckoo now used to be two separate species, and this particular bird belonged to the group that used to be called Gould’s Bronze-Cuckoo.  I note that in case they get split again.

 

It was about 5 when David dropped me off, and I was exhausted.  I really didn’t do much walking, but it still seemed like an activity packed day.  I managed to get my pictures from the day processed, and there were a lot of them, as you can see, but I just didn’t have the energy to start writing my report.  I fell into bed at 8:35, not even staying up until my normal 9 PM.

 

So, I had gotten 13 more species for my trip list.  I think I said beforehand that I expected 5 to 10 species.  Two of them were lifers, too.  That brings me to 356 species for the trip, of which 33 are lifers.  I want to note that number 350 for the trip was the very unexpected Banded Honeyeater, in the very unexpected place, at the top of Mount Lewis.

 

There are just two more days of birding left, before I start the long journey home, and it is going to be very difficult to keep from getting skunked on one of those days, as there are so few species left to see.  David did such a great job of finding me my desired birds that there is little left now.