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Spent a few hour today at the Den of Nargun area of
the Mitchell River National Park. A beautiful area for a swim on a warm
day. The birds were a bit quiet, but I was there between 11am and 2pm, so
I guess it's to be expected. On previous visits there, I've seen Spotted
Quail-thrush running around the car park and Pink Robins in the
gully.
There were a couple of interesting things
however. The first was several lyrebirds, four in all, but two we're being
'tended' by White-browed Scrubwrens as Pilotbirds are supposed to do (although
I've never seen this myself). The scrubwrens would hold back, about two
feet from the lyrebird then as soon as it moved, the scrubwren would be in
there, going through the turned over leaf litter. I wonder if this is
common and if other forest floor birds do the same?
The second sighting was a flock of black-cockatoos
flying overhead. I had already seen and heard some Yellow-tailed Black
Cockatoos but my attention was drawn to a cockatoo-like call that was weaker and
slightly higher pitched. I was unable to get a good look at the birds,
they were flying overhead and the vegetation gaps were few, but there were five
of them. They looked smaller than the typical yellow-tailed and all
definietly had all dark tails which led to me deduce that they were probably
Glossy Black Cockatoos. I don't have a tape of the call handy to check
whether this description fits their call but it was noticeably different to a
yellow-tailed call which I am very familiar with from here on Rotamah.
Does anyone know if these birds regularly move this far east, I'm told it
happens, just very rarely.
While taking that swim of mine, I was also able to
watch three Wedge-tailed Eagles soaring majestically overhead. I would
highly recommend this area, not far at all from the Princes Hwy and easy to
access. This is the first time I've visited and not seen several Pink
Robins and Crescent Honeyeaters. Full species list below.
Craig Doolan
Little Pied Cormorant
Wedge-tailed
Eagle
Yellow-tailed
Black-cockatoo
Glossy Black-cockatoo
Superb Lyrebird
White-throated
Treecreeper
Superb Fairy-wren
White-browed Scrubwren
Striated Thornbill
Brown
Thornbill
Grey Fantail
Eastern
Whipbird
Yellow-faced
Honeyeater
Lewin's
Honeyeater
Eastern
Spinebill
Golden
Whistler
Rufous
Whistler
Silvereye
Pied Currawong
Satin
Bowerbird
Australian Raven
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