Tim and Chris,
Great report Tim - very helpful for future travellers to this
fascinating area. Those honeyeaters would be Yellow-tinted. There are
quite a number throughout middle Cape York Peninsula. Some populations
are probably quite isolated, probably because of habitat preference.
Southern range seems to be about the Musgrave-Lilyvale area though I
have often tried to find them around Laura where there seems to be
suitable habitat - without success. They range north at least to
Piccaninny Plains and Weipa and again, I have tried to find them further
north than that, again without success. They are mostly associated with
the tall Eucalypt woodland - Darwin Stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta)
& Bloodwood (Corymbia spp.) - which is common over much of the
Peninsula. They spend nearly all of their time in the high canopy and
can be quite difficult to observe. Their call is a bit different from
the Yellow-tinted further south and inland - e.g. Georgetown.
Grey-fronted Honeyeater would be way out of range. The nearest I have
seen them is down around Charters Towers-Torrens Creek which would be
about 800 km S. There are records from the SE Gulf of Carpentaria though
I have never seen them there. This would be about 400 km to the SW.
There are a couple of others in your list Tim which caught my eye. The
Zitting Cisticola at Iron Range - could have been that species though I
have never seen them in denser grassy habitat on the Peninsula. It is
mostly a bird of the more saline areas in NE Qld - e.g. Couch Grass
(Sporobolus sp.) rather than grassland, often just behind mangroves
though it does occur away from those areas at times. It has been
recorded from Nifold Plain in Lakefield NP and there is a population at
Marina Plains, east of Musgrave though I have never checked this out. It
only occurs in a small number of areas throughout the entire area. This
race (laveryi) is difficult to distinguish from Golden-headed in
non-breeding plumage - song is the best guide.
The other is Mangrove Gerygone - your record from the Alice River. There
is a considerable break in range up the N Qld coast. It occurs fairly
commonly to as far north as Townsville on the E coast but then drops off
and is quite rare by about Ingham. From there north, right up and around
the tip of Cape York it seems to be absent. It extends north on the west
coast probably to as far as about Weipa - much of the western side of
the Peninsula is difficult to access. I regularly assist Klaus Uhlenhut
with his annual Bird Week at Bamaga at the Tip each year and we have
never recorded it there - Large-billed is common though. In fact
Large-billed is the common gerygone of the mangrove habitat north from
about Ingham and right around the Peninsula.
There are a few older records of Mangrove Gerygone from the northern Wet
Tropics and I chased all of these up when I was researching for my Birds
of Queensland's Wet Tropics. There was nothing convincing about any of
the records and it seemed highly likely that they were all juvenile
Large-billed (which is easily confused with adult Mangrove). Certainly
none of us who live here, at that stage, had any records of Mangrove on
the E side of the Peninsula north of about Ingham. I am unaware of any
sightings since then.
Anyway, thanks for reporting all of that - keeps some of us who
regularly visit the Cape on our toes.
Best wishes,
Lloyd Nielsen
Mt Molloy Nth Qld
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